Prevenient Grace

by Davis W. Huckabee

We begin this series of studies on strong doctrine with the grace of God because chronologically the grace of God antedates all of God’s dealings with man, and is actually the ground of His dealings with man in mercy. A Scriptural statement of this is found in 2 Timothy 1:9, KJV: "Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our own works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began."

Paul spoke of salvation and calling as past facts in his own experience, but he recognized that the ground of this salvation, being of God’s grace, was "before times eternal." Thus is introduced to us the subject of prevenient grace, yet most people of our day have no idea what is meant by this term, though this term was relatively common among both Baptists and Protestants of a hundred years ago. This writer is constrained to admit that he had no inkling of the meaning of this term until he looked it up in a dictionary, but having done so, he found that the Scriptures teach concerning the prevenient grace of God, though the word "prevenient" does not appear in the Bible.

Though the word "Prevenient" does not appear in the Bible in regard to the grace of God, it represents a Biblical idea, provided it be properly understood. Those who hold to an Arminian view of grace have sometimes equated prevenient grace with common or universal grace. They have been compelled to this position in order to get around the difficulty of their system in regard to man’s Biblically declared inability. Millard J. Erickson says:

In the eighteenth century, John Wesley popularized Arminianism. In fact, for many years he edited a magazine called The Arminian. While holding to the freedom of the will, Wesley went beyond Arminius by emphasizing the idea of prevenient or universal grace. This grace, which God grants to all men, is the basis of any human good which is found in the world. This prevenient grace also makes it possible for any person to accept the offer of salvation in Jesus Christ. —Christian Theology, p. 914. Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, Mich., 1991

But this is to relegate grace almost to the point of being non-grace, for one of the chief characteristics of grace is its being given selectively, not universally, and while we readily recognize that God is "...kind unto the unthankful and to the evil" (Luke 6:35), and therefore is gracious to them, giving them what they do not deserve, yet it is both an unscriptural idea, and a dangerous teaching to believe in such a universal grace as Arminianism teaches. Dr. Erickson well says concerning this theory:

It is here that many Arminians, recognizing human inability as taught in the Scripture, introduce the concept of prevenient grace, which is believed to have a universal effect nullifying the noetic results of sin, thus making belief possible. The problem is that there is no clear and adequate basis in Scripture for this concept of a universal enablement. The theory, appealing though it is in many ways, simply is not taught explicitly in the Bible. —Christian Theology, p. 925. Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, Mich., 1991.

The prevenient grace that we here wish to deal with is that special favor which God has had for His elect from eternity past, and which has motivated Him to do all that He has done for the eternal good of those whom He has given to Christ in the covenant of grace.

Grace has been often defined as "God’s unmerited favor to man," and this is a reasonably correct definition, although the meaning is a little fuller than this, for God’s grace is not only unmerited, it is also unmeritable; yea, it is the very opposite of what man merits, for sinful man actually merits only eternal punishment. Because grace underlies all of God’s dealings with man in mercy, this first study will anticipate much of what is set forth more fully in the subsequent chapters, and will be, to a certain extent, a compendium of rest of this book.

The subject of grace is not a palatable one to the natural man, for in an age in which man’s supposed free will has been exalted above almost all things, it is natural that every doctrine which would contradict this is either cast out wholly, or at least is compromised so as to make it harmonize with man’s supposed free will. Now this writer would not be misunderstood: he certainly believes that man is a responsible creature, and that any person who is finally condemned to hell, will be condemned for his own sin, and not simply because of some absolutum decretum; but to call this state of responsibility "free will" is an unfortunate choice of words, to say the least. At the same time, it is not true that "God cannot override man’s free will," as is commonly parroted about. Man’s will is in bondage to sin, and unless God overrides that hell-bound will, there would never be any person saved. See further the Chapter Seven which deals with Free Will. The Scripture declares that "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him" (John 6:44). And again, "For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13).

There is not a day passes but that God coerces the will of man, for not one of us always has things exactly like we want them. Take the example of the Axis leaders in World War II: they willed with all the will power they had to bring the rest of the world into subjection to themselves, but they were unable to do so. Why? Because, thankfully, God exercised His sovereignty over them; He restrained their wills. The Scripture testifies the same thing, for of the Assyrian it is said, "Howbeit he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so; but it is in his heart to destroy and cut off nations not a few" (Isa. 10:7). God may use a wicked man to fulfill His purposes, but when that man has fulfilled the purposes of God, then God is able to restrain him. See the sequel in Isaiah,

But not only is God able to restrain the will of man, He is also able, and often does, change the will of man. The mightiest monarch upon the face of the earth can have his will changed effortlessly by the Lord: "The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will" (Prov. 21:1). This is what God does in salvation; He works in man "to will and to do of His good pleasure." A. W. Pink has well said:

The salvation of any sinner is a matter of Divine power. By nature the sinner is at enmity with God, and naught but Divine power operating within him, can overcome this enmity; hence it is written, "No man can come unto Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him" (John 6:44). It is the Divine power overcoming the sinner’s innate enmity which makes him willing to come to Christ that he might have life. But this "enmity" is not overcome in all—why? Is it because the enmity is too strong to be overcome? Are there some hearts so steeled against Him that Christ is unable to gain entrance? To answer in the affirmative is to deny His omnipotence. In the final analysis it is not a question of the sinner’s willingness or unwillingness, for by nature all are unwilling. Willingness to come to Christ is the finished product of divine power operating in the human heart and will in overcoming man’s inherent and chronic "enmity," as it is written, "Thy people shall be willing in the day of Thy power" (Ps. 110:3). To say that Christ is unable to win to Himself those who are unwilling is to deny that all power in heaven and earth is His. To say that Christ cannot put forth His power without destroying man’s responsibility is a begging of the question here raised, for He has put forth His power and made willing those who have come to Him, and if He did this without destroying their responsibility, why "cannot" He do so with others. —The Sovereignty of God, pp. 78-79. Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1965.

But as we have already said, because of man’s pride, and his mistaken belief in his own "free-will," the subject of any kind of grace is repugnant to him, and more especially the subject of prevenient grace. Carnal man would like to think that grace originates with him, or, at least is a direct result of some human excellence, either real or foreseen. But the very word "grace" excludes any form or degree of human excellence, for "If by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace; otherwise work is no more work" (Rom. 11:6). Divine grace and human works are mutually exclusive. If grace is "unmerited favor," as all admit, then man is shown to be a depraved creature, wholly unworthy of the least of God’s blessings, yet who is richly blessed by the Lord through grace.

I. PREVENIENT GRACE DEFINED.

The word "prevenient" comes from the word "prevent," which, as it appears in the English Bible, is generally misunderstood, for we generally think of it in the sense of "to stop," or "to hinder," but this is a meaning which has developed in the centuries since the translation of the King James Version of the Bible. The word "prevent" appears twice in the King James Version of the New Testament, neither of which has the common meaning of "to stop" or "to hinder."

"And when he was come into the house, Jesus prevented him saying ..." (Matthew 17:25). The Greek word here used (prophthano) means "to anticipate." "For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep" (1 Thess. 4:15). Here the Greek word (phthano) means "to precede," "to go before." Thus, the word "prevent" as used in the Bible means "to act in anticipation of, or to precede." Our present day usage of the word in the sense of "to stop" or "to hinder" is of much later development. Reference to any standard dictionary will show that our present usage of this word is not the primary meaning, but that the primary meaning is "to anticipate or precede."

Thus, prevenient grace (or preventing grace, as it is also called) is that grace which goes before, and is antecedent to human action. For this reason, it might be, with equal propriety, called antecedent grace. Every believer can look back and see this antecedent grace working in and for him even from his earliest dates. Dr. A. H. Strong says:

The old theologians talked of "prevenient grace"—grace that lays hold of us before we know it, and prepares us for the emergencies of the future. Each one of us can now perceive that things before our conversion had a meaning which did not occur to us at the time. —Chapel Talks, p. 148. Griffith and Rowland Press, Philadelphia, 1913.

But this prevenient grace not only works for us prior to our realization, but, as our text declares, it is even antecedent to human existence; it dates from eternity, and extends through time. J. B. Moody expresses this thought this way:

Grace reigned not only in the past eternity in contriving the plan, but also in time in executing it, and will continue to reign till consummated. It is from everlasting to everlasting. Hence grace reigned in our redemption, regeneration, justification, sanctification, and will reign in our preservation, resurrection and ultimate glorification. If reigning grace reigns, then it is purposing, and that makes it easily prevenient. —The Exceeding Riches of the Manifold Grace of God, p. 166. Hall-moody Institute, Martin, Tennessee, no date.

This doctrine is very humiliating, and so consequently very hateful to the carnal nature of man, and this explains why many genuine believers will not accept, even for a moment, the thought that grace is all of God and none of man; yet the apostle clearly shows that salvation is according to God’s own purpose, and that grace was given to believers "before times eternal." (2 Tim. 1:9, R.V.). And it will become even more manifest as we consider other passages of Scripture that this antecedent grace does not apply just to some minor and obscure aspect of God’s dealings with man, but that God works antecedently in all aspects of His marvelous grace.

Indeed, the very fact that there was a covenant of grace in timeless eternity past is another evidence of prevenient grace, for if God made provision for the redemption of man before there ever was a man, then He was working antecedently in grace. Reference to those "whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world" (Rev. 17:8), implies the opposite truth, namely, that there are some whose names are so recorded before time. See also the other references to this same eternal enrollment of the saints in Exodus 32:32-33; Psalm 69:28; Luke 10:20; Philippians 4:3; Hebrews 12:23, and Revelation 3:5, et al. The statement in Revelation 17:8, together with that concerning "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" (Rev, 13:6), both give evidence of this prevenient grace. To the same purpose are many other Scripture statements which show God working in grace antecedent to any human existence, which we will examine in more detail later in this chapter. Indeed, every reference to the eternal purposes and decrees of God is a proof of the prevenient grace of God, inasmuch as these are directed manward for his welfare. The first chapter of the epistle to the Ephesians refers to the Lord’s antecedent workings "before the foundation of the world," and this is detailed at some length.

When we fully understand what is meant by prevenient grace, though it will be humiliating to the carnal nature of man, yet how glorious will it appear to our spiritual man, and with what assurance will it imbue our souls to know that He that hath "done whatsoever he hath pleased" (Ps. 115:3; 135:6), hath seen fit to make us partakers of His grace.

In our original text, Paul declares that our salvation and calling is "according to His own purpose and grace," and that not in time, but "before times eternal;" thus, grace "went before" even the existence of the world, and so before our existence, and therefore it was prevenient grace. But let us go further and consider—

II. PREVENIENT GRACE DETAILED.

It is humanly impossible to now know and understand all that grace does anterior to human action, and it is impossible in the short scope of this chapter to even state all that prevenient grace has done, but a few of the more outstanding acts of it may be considered for our instruction and edification.

First, grace went before to choose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, as we learn from Ephesians 1:4: "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love." The Scriptures also certify that God’s choice was not on the basis of any merit, either real or foreseen: "For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth" (Rom. 9:11). This passage has been the object of much twisting and wresting in order to extort another than its natural meaning from it, but there is no passage so clear and simple but that it can be wrested to mean something else if someone is determined not to believe the most natural meaning. He speaks here of the purpose of God, as in Ephesians 1; the election here is individual, as in Ephesians 1, although this individual election eventuates in the national election through Jacob, but this does not affect the fact that primarily here it is the election of an individual that is under consideration. The election here is on the basis of God’s purpose, as in Ephesians 1, and not because of any merit. It was to combat the idea that some foreseen merit or faith was the cause of this election that this passage was written. If election is because of even a foreseen meritorious state or condition, then salvation is of human works, and none of grace.

Our Lord Himself clearly taught prevenient grace in election when He said: "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you" (John 15:16). Man does not elect himself, for that election took place in timeless eternity past before man existed. Someone with more imagination than knowledge of the Scriptures has characterized election as an auto-election: i.e., "God votes for you, the devil votes against you, and you cast the deciding vote." However, someone else has very pithily answered this foolishness by saying that when election took place, man was too young to vote, the devil was not a registered voter, and so the election was wholly of God.

Again, we may go further and see how that grace went before to predestinate us to conformity to the image of God’s Son: "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren" (Rom. 8:29). This is another verse which has suffered much violence at the hands of unbelieving saints, for it is generally quoted rightly, then given an interpretation which violently clashes with it. It is generally interpreted as if it read, "For what he did foreknow;" i.e., because God foreknew that certain would believe on Him in time, He therefore predestinated them, etc. This is to do the utmost violence to the meaning of this verse, for faith is a "what," not a "whom," but this foreknowledge is of persons, not of acts or conditions.

The right interpretation of this verse will be largely affected by the meaning of the word "foreknow." It is the rendering of a compound Greek word made up of pro, meaning "before," and gnosis, "to know." But that this does not refer to a bare prescience or cognizance of the existence or actions of a person is obvious from a number of things. First, God’s foreknowledge is not a passive prescience, but it an active, decreeing force, for the same word is translated "foreordain" in 1 Peter 1:20. Again, in Acts 2:23, it was God’s determinate counsel and foreknowledge that delivered Christ to be crucified. Not only so, but His foreknowledge was preceded by His purpose to do so, and so it is secondary to God’s decrees.

Next, the word "know" is used in other ways than merely to be cognizant of the existence of something. The negative usage of it is significant in Matthew 7:23: "And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity." Clearly, our Lord does not here mean "I never knew of your existence," nor does He mean that He had no knowledge of their actions, for He charges them with evil works. What then? Clearly the meaning is "I never knew you as my own—I never knew you in my elective purposes." Again, we have another illustrative usage of "know" in 1 Thessalonians 5:12-13: "And we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labour among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you; and to esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake." Here again "know" cannot mean to have a bare cognizance of something, but rather it means "to approve," or, as the parallel clause suggests "to esteem, to love." In Romans 7:15, the Greek word for know has the meaning of, and is translated "allow" or to approve, which doubtless enters into the meaning of "foreknow." The reader may profitably consider the usage of "know" in the following passages: Matthew 1:25, where the sense is, "to be joined together;" Luke 16:4, where it is translated "resolved;" Revelation 2:24, where the sense is "to experience." These all throw light on the Biblical usage of "know" as it appears in the compound word "foreknow."

Dr. B. H. Carroll holds that "foreknow" is almost equivalent to election, and this view has somewhat to commend it, for whereas here foreknowledge precedes predestination, in Ephesians 1:4-5 election precedes predestination. However, that foreknowledge and election are not exactly equivalent is clear from 1 Peter 1:2 where we are said to be "elect according to the foreknowledge of God." Foreknowledge is God’s determining upon certain people in his elective purposes.

According to the interpretation of some of Romans 8:29 that God foresaw the faith of some, Peter should have said in 1 Peter 1:2 that we are "believers according to the foreknowledge of God the Father," but this he does not say, for this was not what was meant. Instead, he shows that election produces faith, and not faith the election. The R. V. gives much the better rendering of the Greek prepositions, and shows that we are "elect...unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ." Faith is not a product of humanity, but rather is a gift of God, and so it could have no effect upon God to move Him to elect any individual; but this shall be considered at greater length later in this chapter.

Some, in order to get rid of the problem that they feel about predestination, object that it has nothing to do with salvation, but that it is predestination to conformity to the image of Christ in the resurrection. But there is more than a mere physical conformity meant here; it encompasses the moral and spiritual likeness to Christ as well, for unless one has been conformed to the image of Christ in regeneration, he shall not be conformed to the image of Christ in the resurrection. Thus, Predestination has to do with the whole salvation of man, body, soul and spirit.

Thirdly, God’s grace goes before to regenerate, or make alive the soul that is dead in trespasses and sins: "And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins...Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ (by grace ye are saved;) ...For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them" (Eph. 2:1,5,10). Can a dead man do anything? Of course not! Only a fool would suggest it, and doubtless this is the reason why the figure of death is used of the lost person—to show his total inability to bring himself to a state of life. But many apparently believe that a man can regenerate himself, for they say that he is made alive in Christ Jesus as soon as he believes; but the question is, can a man spiritually dead perform such a spiritual act as believing the gospel? He cannot: he must first be spiritually quickened or made alive, and this is exactly what the above Scriptures declare. But if this be so, then there is absolutely nothing in the natural man to cause him to be saved; if he is ever saved, he must be saved wholly by the grace of God, for no works or abilities of his own are sufficient. And is this not the meaning of verse 5 above, when the apostle, after saying that God enlivens man even while he is still dead in sin, denominates this a matter of grace? If man is saved by faith, and if faith is some inherent ability in natural man, then God does not save man, man saves himself, and to him is the glory due. On the other hand, if man is dead in sin and utterly incapacitated from doing any good thing spiritually, and if faith is itself the gift of God, then salvation is indeed of grace, it is of God, and to Him is all the glory due. And this is exactly what the case is, humiliating though it may be to the proud carnal nature of man.

We observe, then, in the fourth place, that grace goes before to give faith, thus making salvation to be wholly of God’s grace. There are numerous texts to this effect, yet they are, for the most part, pointedly ignored, or else explained away. The proud heart of man simply will not concede that God is sovereign in salvation; even genuine believers often say, "I believe in the sovereignty of God, BUT..." And by the use of this adversative they deny their own statement, for the very word "but" is a word that expresses opposition or antithesis. For a number of years this writer spoke this hypocritical language until the Spirit of God convicted him of, and converted him from, his error. The sovereignty of God is one doctrine which, if we must qualify it, we do not really believe it; at the same time, if we can qualify or limit the sovereignty of God, then it isn’t really sovereignty.

"...And as many as were ordained to eternal life believed" (Acts 13:48). Taken in its barest literality, this verse means that a man believes because he has been ordained to eternal life, and not that he is ordained because he believes. Many and various interpretations, some of which are very foolish and far-fetched, have been set forth in order to get around the most natural meaning of these words. The question is, must we seek for another meaning than that which is most obvious? If this passage stands alone in teaching this, and if it contradicts without the possibility of harmonizing it, other clear statements of the Word, we might be justified in seeking another than the literal meaning. On the other hand, if we find other equally explicit passages teaching the same thing, and that these can all be harmonized with other doctrines, then we are not only not justified in seeking another interpretation, but we also manifest the rankest unbelief of God’s Word, and show that we are more interested in establishing our own pet theory. Too often, because we are unwilling to accept God’s pronouncement upon something, we resort to human reasoning in order to get around the obvious meaning. Dr. N. L. Rice has well said that:

The Church has been corrupted and cursed in almost every age by undue confidence of men in their reasoning powers. They have undertaken to pronounce upon the reasonableness or unreasonableness of doctrines infinitely above their reason, which are necessarily matters of pure revelation. In their presumption they have sought to comprehend "the deep things of God," and have interpreted Scriptures, not according to their obvious meaning, but according to the decisions of their finite reason. —God Sovereign and Man Free, p. 3. Presbyterian Board of Publication, Philadelphia, 1850.

Do we find the Scriptures teaching that every man has the inherent ability to believe God’s truth, or is faith the gift of God? The following passages leave no doubt in this matter: "...(Apollos) who, when he was come, helped them much which had believed through grace" (Acts 18:27). If it is through grace, then it cannot be a natural ability. "...according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith" (Rom. 12:3). "Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man?" (1 Cor. 3:5). Perhaps some would reply that inasmuch as these passages refer to God dealing to every man the measure of faith, it must be a natural ability that God gives to all men, if they will but exercise it. But the context of each limits this "every man" to a definite category—God’s saints—"to every man that is among you" (Rom. 12:3). The "every man" does not and cannot refer to the unbelieving world. Not only so, but what is dealt to each one of these is actual faith, not merely the ability to believe, if he will.

"For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake" (Phil. 1:29). That this refers to a daily living faith in the saints does not alter the fact that faith is God’s gift to His people. "Lydia...whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul" (Acts 16:14). Here, the emphasis is more on the way of instilling faith in man, for Romans 10:10 says, "For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness," so it is obvious that God performed this "open heart surgery" on Lydia so that she might believe the gospel. This purpose of the opening of her heart is shown by the word "that," which is a Greek clause of purpose, and shows that she could not have attended to the preaching of Paul without her heart being opened by the Lord.

"And God...put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts faith" (Acts 15:9). Here it is God who does the purifying of the heart, and He does it by working faith in man; the act is clearly God’s, not man’s. "Lord, increase our faith" (Luke 17:5). This prayer would be out of place if faith were a human ability, but if God is the author and source of all faith, then this prayer is perfectly in order. "But there are some of you that believe not...Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of by my Father" (John 6:64-65). The word "therefore" connects the unbelief of these with the fact that it had not been given unto them of the Father to come unto Christ—another evidence that faith is God’s gift to men. The same thing is true of John 10:26: "But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you." These texts are hard of understanding, yet we are not at liberty to cast them out simply because our finite minds cannot understand them. Taken at face value, these mean that if one is of the elect, God will give faith to trust in Christ for salvation. "Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace" (Rom. 4:16). If faith is by grace, then, it must be from God, and not from man.

The reader cannot accuse the writer of giving a slanted interpretation to these passages, for they are set forth simply and at face value, yet each of them harmonizes completely with Acts 13:48. In fact, the opposite is true: one must "interpret" these verses in order to come to any other conclusion.

The only natural explanation of these numerous passages, and of a number of others of like teaching that could have been educed, is that faith is God’s gift to man, that it is the result of foreordination to eternal life, and that it is another evidence of the prevenient grace of God. This has been a historic Baptist belief for many centuries, in spite of the fact that this is often denied in these degenerate times by many Baptists. In 1508 the Bohemian Waldenses presented a confession of faith to Ladislaus, King of Bohemia, explaining the reasons for their separation from the Church of Rome. They say of the Scriptures:

They teach also, that no man can have this Faith by any power, will and pleasure of his own: it is indeed the gift of God, who when, and where it pleaseth him, worketh it in man by his Spirit, to the end he may receive whatsoever shall be rightly administered to him by the outward Word, and the Sacraments instituted by Christ, in order to Salvation. Of this saith John the Baptist, Lord, no man can have anything, unless it be given him from above. And, saith Christ himself, no man can come unto me, unless the Father, who sent me, draw him. —Article VI., quoted in Sir Samuel Morland’s Churches of the Valley of Piedmont, p. 48. Facsimile reprint of the 1658 edition by Franklin Printing Company, Ft. Smith, Arkansas, 1955.

The London Confession of Faith, drawn up by the Particular Baptists in London in 1644, says, in Article XXII: "That Faith is the gift of God wrought in the hearts of the elect by the Spirit of God, whereby they come to see, know, and believe the truth of the Scriptures." Article XXIV goes on to say:

That faith is ordinarily begot by the preaching of the Gospel, or Word of Christ, without respect to any power or capacity in the creature, but it is wholly passive, being dead in sins and trespasses, doth believe, and is converted by no less power, than that which raised Christ from the dead. —quoted from W.J. McGlothlin, Baptist Confessions of Faith, pp. 180-181. American Baptist Publication Society, Philadelphia, 1911.

The Baptists of Somerset County, England drew up a confession of faith in 1656, in which they say in Article XX:

That this spirit of Christ, being administered by the word of faith, worketh in us faith in Christ (John 3:5; 1 Pet. 1:22; Acts 16:14; Gal. 5:22), by virtue of which we come to receive our sonship (John 1:12; Gal. 3:26), and is further administered unto us through faith in the promises of God (Eph. 1:13; Acts 2:38, 39; 1:4), waiting on him in those ways and means that he hath appointed in his word (John 14:15,16,17; Luke 11:9,13), this faith being the ground of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen (Heb. 11:1). —W.J. McGlothlin, Baptist Confessions of Faith, p. 207. American Baptist Publication Society, Philadelphia, 1911.

The 1677 edition of the London Confession of Faith is equally as specific in this matter as is the 1644 edition. And even the English General (Arminian) Baptists acknowledge this truth, for in their Standard Confession of 1660 they say in Article VIII:

That God hath even before the foundation of the world chosen (or elected) to eternal life, such as believe, and so are in Christ (John 3:16. Eph. l:4; 2 Thess. 2:13), yet confident we are, that the purpose of God according to election, was not in the least arising from foreseen faith in, or works of righteousness done by the creature, but only from the mercy, goodness, and compassion dwelling in God, and so it is of him that calleth (Rom. 9:11). —W.J. McGlothlin, Baptist Confessions of Faith, p. 114 American Baptist Publication Society, Philadelphia, 1911.

In like manner, the general Baptists" "Orthodox Creed," drawn up in 1678 says in article XXIII:

Faith is an act of the understanding, giving a firm assent to the things contained in the holy scriptures. But justifying faith is a grace, or habit, wrought in the soul, by the Holy Ghost, through preaching the word of God, whereby we are enabled to believe, not only that the Messias is offered to us, but also to take and receive him, as a Lord and Saviour, and wholly and only to rest upon Christ, for grace and eternal salvation. —W.J. McGlothlin., Baptist Confessions of Faith, p. 141. American Baptist Publication Society, Philadelphia, 1911.

When we come upon American soil, we find the same unanimity of creed in respect to faith, for the New Hampshire Confession, which was originally drawn up in 1830, had an article on repentance and faith added in 1873, which reads as follows:

We believe that Repentance and Faith are sacred duties, and also inseparable graces, wrought in our souls by the regenerating Spirit of God; whereby being deeply convinced of our guilt, danger and helplessness, and of the way of salvation by Christ, we turn to God with unfeigned contrition, confession, and supplication for mercy; at the same time heartily receiving the Lord Jesus Christ as our Prophet, Priest, and King, and relying on him alone as the only and all-sufficient Saviour. —Article VIII, W.J. McGlothlin, Baptist Confessions of Faith, p. 304. American Baptist Publication Society, Philadelphia, 1911.

Even the Freewill Baptists, when their General Conference published their Treatise of Faith in 1834, agreed in essence with all these other statements on faith. They say in Chapter VIII:

True faith is an assent of the mind to the great and fundamental truths of revelation; an act of the understanding in giving credit to the gospel, through the influence of the Holy Spirit; and a firm, confidence and trust in the living God. The fruit of faith is obedience to the gospel. The power to believe is the gift of God. —W.J. McGlothlin, Baptist Confessions of Faith, p. 319. American Baptist Publication Society, Philadelphia, 1911.

One of the more recently formulated Baptist Confessions, and one most commonly used among independent Baptists, is the Orthodox Baptist Confession of Faith, which was drawn up in 1934. It says in Article 8: "We believe that repentance and faith are solemn and inseparable prerequisites of salvation; that they are inseparable graces wrought in the heart by the quickening Holy Spirit."

We have gone to considerable length in citing all of these confessions that we might show that when we say that faith itself is part of the prevenient grace of God, we are not introducing some new theology; we might have presented yet other references to the same effect, but neither time nor space permit this. Thus, it is not we who hold to this who have departed from the historic Baptist position, but it is those who think that man has the natural ability to "believe any time he wants" who have departed from the faith.

But to go on, grace goes before, in the fifth place, to keep the saints saved, and it is a reflection upon the grace of God to teach that man must perfect the work of God in salvation by his own works. If God cannot keep saved the soul that He has set apart as His own, then man certainly cannot keep it saved. The Scriptures give abundant proof of the keeping power of the Lord: "For I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day" (2 Tim. 1:12). "I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand" (John 10:28). This last verse contains a double negative, something that is incorrect in English, but which is perfectly in order in the Greek, where it is used to give emphasis. A literal rendering would be: "...they shall never, ever perish." "To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time" (1 Pet. 1:4-5).

Salvation is by grace in all of its aspects, and as it was begun in grace, so it will be consummated in grace, for all of God’s redemptive dealings with man are of grace. He could not deal in any other way with man without utterly consuming him in His wrath. See this subject discussed more fully in the chapter on the Preservation and Perseverance of the Saints.

Finally, grace goes before in the preparations for glory, as it is written: "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit" (1 Cor. 2:9-10). "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us" (Rom. 8:18). Even the millennial glory to which the sheep nations will fall heir is a subject of this same prevenient grace: "Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world" (Matthew 25:34).

If this is true of the millennial blessedness, how much more so will eternity manifest this antecedent grace of God? Doubtless it will take all of eternity to reveal how often and in how many ways grace has gone before in preparing glory for the saints of the most High. "That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus" (Eph. 2:7). There remains for our consideration only—

III. THE DELIGHT OF PREVENIENT GRACE.

We have already remarked how very humiliating, and therefore repulsive, to the carnal nature of man grace is, and this is doubtless why it is so very hard even for God’s saints to accept grace in its fullest significance. This writer confesses that his carnal nature is still revolted by this doctrine, but the inward, spiritual man of the heart rejoices in it. Nothing manifests the sovereignty of God like the doctrine of prevenient grace, and this explains the hatred of the proud natural man for it. Dr. J. R. Graves well says:

All men are by nature Arminians; and the absolute sovereignty of God is a doctrine hateful to the natural and depraved heart. False teachers have taken advantage of this natural feeling, and have for ages inflamed the prejudices of Christian men and women against any exercise of sovereignty on the part of God in this Covenant, either as to his "determinate counsels," his electing love, or his distinguishing grace. —The Seven Dispensations, pp. 95-96. Baptist Sunday School Committee, Texarkana, 1928.

We delight in God’s prevenient grace because it is the sole differentiating factor in our lives; the only thing that kept this writer from being an atheist, a drunkard, a murderer, an adulterer, and every other kind of sinful being, was the prevenient grace of God that distinguished him from these. "For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?" (1 Cor. 4:7).

Again, we delight in this doctrine because it puts the glory for man’s salvation where it ought to be—in the Lord—and not in the wicked flesh of man. Boasting is excluded by grace; grace leaves no room for boasting except in the Lord. James, after referring to the boastings of man as to what he could do and would do, says, "But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil" (Jam. 4:16). Because grace has wrought all spiritual good in us, we ought not to boast in it as if we had done it, but to recognize God’s complete accomplishment of it, and glorify Him for it.

There is one exclusive human side, viz., SIN; there is one exclusive Divine side, viz., Salvation; and there is one side both human and divine, viz., Service. Grace made us alive while dead; reconciled us while in enmity; translated us out of darkness into light. Sin worked against grace, and grace worked against sin; sin reigned unto death, grace reigned unto life, and where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. But grace not only reigned in rescuing us from sin and death, but also reigns through righteousness unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord. Thank God for reigning grace, and for a throne of grace to which we can boldly come and obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. —J. B. Moody, The Exceeding Riches of the Manifold Grace of God, p. 169. Hall-Moody Institute, Martin, Tennessee, no date.

We delight in this doctrine because, from the divine side of the matter, it puts the issue beyond all doubt. Those who teach that a saved soul may fall from grace and be finally lost, believe that if a man holds out faithful until death, then the issue becomes certain. Believers in the eternal security of the saved are want to say that the issue passes beyond doubt when the convicted soul genuinely repents and receives Christ as Saviour, and, viewed from the human side, this is true. Yet, so far as individual assurance is concerned, there must follow certain fruits of repentance and faith as Peter declares: "Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall" (2 Pet. 1:10; Cf. vv. 5-9). This making of ones calling and election sure is not by repenting and believing, as is sometimes said, but is the bearing of those fruits which will show that one’s repentance and faith are genuine.

But from the divine side of this matter, the issue has never been in doubt; those whom the Father has given to the Son in the covenant of grace will not fail to come to Him. "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me: and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out" (John 6:37). This is what is meant by irresistible grace. Not that the grace of God is never resisted, for it is in the very nature of wicked and depraved man to resist anything and everything that is of God, but this grace is never successfully resisted by the elect. This is sometimes referred to as "effectual calling" as distinguished from the general call by the gospel. Dr. John Gill says of this effectual calling:

It is an act of efficacious and irresistible grace. The external call may be, and often is, resisted and rejected; but when God calls internally by his Spirit and grace, it is always effectual, and can never be resisted, so as to be ineffectual; for when God works, none can let or hinder; men dead in trespasses and sins, rise out of their graves of sin, and live, at his all-commanding voice; even as Lazarus came forth out of his grave at the call of Christ; nor could that call be resisted; and even the same power that was exerted in raising Christ himself from the dead, is displayed in the effectual vocation of a sinner (Eph. 1:18,19,20). —Body of Divinity, Book VI, chap. XII, p. 544. Turner Lassetter, Atlanta, Georgia, 1950.

Those who are the most opposed to the doctrines of prevenient grace, effectual calling and related themes, evidently overlook the whole delightful essence or these things. If it is true that "All things work together for good" for those who are the called of God, then the greater and fuller control that God has over man, then the more blessed that man will be. If we may judge by actions, some believers seem to fear to grant that God is sovereign in grace for fear that He will abuse that sovereignty over them.

We delight in God’s prevenient grace because it insures that every thing will work out for man’s fullest, ultimate good. Prevenient grace works no restraints, nor poses any limitations on any part of man except his proud carnal nature, and for man’s spiritual welfare he needs all the restraints upon his carnal nature that he can get.

Prevenient grace is a delightful doctrine, not to the flesh, nor to the carnal pride of man, but to the spiritual nature of the redeemed man, and it is for this reason that it is so very hard to accept it. Only through the prayerful and submissive study of the Word does any man ever come to accept this belief, but this is true of all the "strong meat" doctrines of the Bible. In reality, we have to be converted to every doctrine of the Bible. This is true because "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts" (Isa. 55:8-9).

Man can reason out a thing, and it may seem very plausible to the mind, but that does not therefore make it true. Reason is not to be the criteria of truth; rather truth is to be the criteria of reason. "The weapons of our warfare are not of this world, but are mighty before God for overthrowing fortresses. For we overthrow reasonings and everything raised aloft against the knowledge of God; and we lead every thought captive and bring it into obedience to Christ" (2 Cor. 10:4-5), Weymouth Translation. Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1938.

It is not enough that the doctrine of prevenient grace or any other doctrine can be overthrown by human reasoning, nor that another meaning may be put upon the Scriptures adduced; this writer has been guilty of doing these things in time past, but such human reasonings must be cast down; our thoughts must be brought into harmony with the Scriptures, and not the Scriptures interpreted to agree with our thoughts. We believe that we must take Scripture in its most obvious and natural meaning, as we have endeavored to do with these dealing with this doctrine; if the most natural and obvious meaning of a Scripture grates against our natural pride and fleshly reasoning, that is but another evidence that we are getting close to the truth, for the flesh will always be out of harmony with spiritual things.

Prevenient grace is part of the theological system which is called Calvinism, but none of which originated with John Calvin. He contributed only the name. These truths were held by the English Lollards a hundred years before the birth of John Calvin, and by the Waldenses before them. Before Calvin came on the scene, these truths were known as Augustinianism, and before the time of Augustine, they were known as Paulianism, and they have been historic Baptist beliefs from the beginning. Some characterize these doctrines of grace as "Hardshellism," but in doing so they manifest their ignorance of history as well as of Scripture, and reveal a better aptitude for slandering than for understanding the truth. Historically, Hardshellism was anti-missionism and anti-effort, and its connection with the doctrines of predestination and election was only incidental, for almost all Baptists at that time subscribed to these doctrines.

May God give us spiritual eyesight to see His prevenient grace in all aspects of our lives, for then we will have thankful hearts to praise Him for His marvelous grace to such unworthy creatures.

The Fruit of Arminianism

07.09.10
J.A. Matteson

“...God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth, to which He called you by our gospel....”
2 Thessalonians 2:13

ὅτι εἵλατο ὑμᾶς ὁ θεὸς ἀπαρχὴν εἰς σωτηρίαν ἐν ἁγιασμῷ πνεύματος καὶ πίστει ἀληθείας,

God being sovereign in salvation is an inescapable reality. The grace of God which delivers salvation to sinners is far more than a theoretical universal atonement where the possibility is open that all can turn to the Father’s gift of His Son; rather, the grace Scripture speaks of is that which guarantees a particular atonement for all of those foreknown to the Father and that they will in fact be redeemed and the remainder are hardened. Writing to the church at Thessalonica Paul reminds them that their salvation is the result of grace, as individuals they contributed nothing to it. Here the apostle highlights the redemptive design and power of the triune God in bringing to faith all whom He purposed to save from eternity. Borrowing from the language of Moses in the opening verse of Genesis he writes, “God from the beginning chose you….” The text demonstrates that the Father selected from eternity specific individuals for salvation.

On this point of election both Arminian and Calvanist agree. But on what basis did the Father make His choice?, this is the question where the two part company. Had Paul intended to communicate that they were chosen based upon a future “decision” they would make (i.e., the Father “forseeing” their faith in Christ and, therefore, electing them on that basis) this would have been the perfect place to make that unmistakeably clear. But Paul does not do this. In fact he does just the opposite. The grammar he employs in the passage does not allow for an Arminian interpretation. According to Paul the basis of their election to salvation was not based upon the Father “gazing down the corridor of time to see how they would respond to the gospel”, as Arminian’s like to assert; rather, the basis of their election is the result of grace, God’s unmerited favor, “God from the beginning chose you.”

With grace being the basis for salvation the means by which the Father brought it about was “through (ἐν) sanctification by the Spirit (ἁγιασμῷ πνεύματος).” Note carefully that Paul does not allow room for human boasting in the flesh in that he clearly articulates that prior to their faith response to the Gospel they were first “sanctified by the Spirit.” Also note that their faith was the result and not the cause of their sanctification (“and belief in the truth”; καὶ πίστει ἀληθείας). The word “and” (καὶ) denotes an object (faith) linked to and subsequent to its predicate (sanctification).

And to be “sanctified in the Spirit” is a reference to spiritual regeneration. Note also that the initiative of the salvation process begins with God and not the sinner. Had their election been on the basis of the Father foreseeing a faith they conjured up within themselves Paul would have likely said something to the effect, “God from the beginning chose you for salvation in response to—or on account of— foreseeing your faith in Christ, and therefore sanctified you by the Spirit….” That assertion is a serious departure from the text. Beloved, the sense of what the apostle is saying is this: in the fullness of time the effectual call of the Spirit came to each of those chosen “in the beginning” through the agency of the Gospel, regenerating the dead heart of stone and replacing it with a heart of flesh, instilling a new nature within inclined toward the things of Spirit and of Christ. Note closely the profound implication of Paul in this passage: regeneration precedes faith which is a gift of grace from God. And as we might expect Paul is consistent in this regard in his many other statements, such as, “But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised” (1 Cor. 2:14).

The Armenian contradicts Paul at this point by insisting that that natural man (the unregenerate man) does in fact accept the things of the Spirit of God because he “makes a decision” for Christ and as a result is born again. But that is the exact opposite of Paul and the Lord Jesus Christ who said to Nicodemus, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (Jn. 3:3). So juxtaposed to the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ the Arminian has the natural man deeming desirable that, which is according to Paul, is viewed as “foolishness”, spiritually seeing, desiring and while unregenerate “choosing” the kingdom of God and Christ while spiritually dead in trespasses and sins (i.e., deaf, blind, and in all ways humanly unresponsive to the Gospel). Is that possible? Not according Scripture. By contrast Paul states that “God from the beginning chose you for salvation” and His choice was by grace alone and was not in response to any human act.

The error of the Arminian is concluding that moral responsibility assumes moral ability. For example, Scripture declares that all sinners are morally responsible before God to perform the Law perfectly lest they perish by the just wrath of God. Does the Arminian contend that unregenerate sinners are able (morally capable) to keep the Law? Certainly not. It is at this intersection that the Arminian embraces a contradictory position and his theology disintegrates. For while he concedes that no man is able to perform the Law of God and that Scripture holds him morally responsible to do so, he turns a deaf ear to the plain truth of Scripture; viz., that in like manner unregenerate sinners are both morally responsible to respond positively to the Gospel, but morally unable to do so apart from the grace of God.

Beloved, salvation is of the Lord. Salvation is not part of the Lord and part man which is why none are able to boast. If salvation where part of the Lord and part man then men would have much to boast about. And this is without question the fruit of Arminianism. In their heart of hearts the Arminian is smug and arrogant, he is in fact like the rich man who stood before God as Lazarus as on his knees, and exclaimed, “I thank you God that I am not like this other fellow…for I made the correct choice in believing the Gospel” In what has this person placed their faith? Have they placed it in the finished work of Christ alone who saved them or are they trusting in “their faith” to save them? We agree that justification is by faith alone and at the same time give glory to God by whom our faith finds its origin, for it is Jesus Christ who is the author and perfecter of our faith and not we ourselves. Certainly Paul labors this point in Romans while discussing the election of Jacob before Esau, “for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls” (Rom. 9:11). Jacob, having been chosen for salvation by grace, is the passive recipient of grace. It is the sanctifying work of the Spirit which comes first in order in Paul’s statement because faith in the truth is the result of regeneration. And while the faith expressed by any sinner is “free” in the sense that the heart is moved with a desire for Christ, its presence is a gift of God to the elect whose salvation from eternity past is guaranteed, for Christ said with absolute certainty “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me” (Jn. 6:37).

The Gospel of Christ and the Apostles proclaims a particular salvation of the elect foreknown to the Father, not some theoretical universal salvation to all mankind where God has done His part by sending His Son, and now the sinner must do his part and in himself believe the Gospel. That is God providing the life-ring to a drowning victim where the swimmer in the end saves himself by taking hold of it. The biblical description of sinners is not that they are in serious trouble and about to go down for the last time, but that they are in fact dead and lying on the bottom of the lake, and dead people cannot take hold of the life-ring. The only way that is possible is that God first must enable them to do so. The Arminian version of grace is not that of the Bible and certainly not a description of grace as used by Paul, it is man focused and not God centered.

It was with joy over the grace of God that hymn writer John Newton beautifully proclaimed, “Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved; how precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed.” Newton rightly confessed that his faith was a gift of God and in response to being the recipient of divine grace. And He who begins a good work in the heart of a sinner is faithful and will complete that which He initiated. Unlike the fruit of Arminianism inclined toward inner pride (“I made the correct choice”) the fruit of the Calvanism is humility in the sight of God and man (“I am what I am by the grace of God”). Sola Dei Gloria!

Copyright (c) 2010 Immutable Word Ministries ("...the word of our God stands forever." Isa. 40:8).

De Servo Arbitrio (On the Bondage of the Will)

[The following abridged discussion On the Bondage of the Will, a theological argument between the Augustinian Monk and the esteemed Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam (defending semi-Pelagianism) is, without equivocation, the most poignant biblical portrait of the enslavement of the human will to unbelief in the Gospel, and the consequent necessity of divine initiative for faith and redemption to occur. A classic and timeless work for all generations and serious students of Soteriology. The reader is, therefore, encouraged to secure a full version of the book and read it several times to grasp Luther's depth of theological insight into this most important subject. J.A. Matteson]


Abridged, 1525 A.D.
by Martin Luther


The Significance of the Issue

It is not irreligious, wasteful, or superficial, but essentially healthy and necessary, for a Christian to know whether or not his will has anything to do in matters pertaining to salvation. Indeed, let me tell you, this is the hinge on which our discussion turns, the crucial issue between us; our aim is, simply, to investigate what ability "free will" has, in what respect it is the subject of divine action and how it stands related to the grace of God. If we know nothing of these things, we shall know nothing whatsoever of Christianity, and shall be in worse than the heathen! He who does not admit this should acknowledge that he is not a Christian; and he who ridicules or derides it should realize that he is the greatest enemy of Christianity. For if I am ignorant in the nature, extent and limits of what I can and must do in relationship to God, I shall be equally ignorant and uncertain of the nature, extent and limits of what God can and will do in me - though God, in fact, works everything in everyone. Now, if I am ignorant of the works and powers of God, I am ignorant of God himself; and if I do not know God, I cannot worship, praise, give thanks or serve Him, for I do not know how much I should attribute to myself and how much to Him. We need, therefore, to have in mind a clear-cut distinction between God's power and ours, and God's work and ours, if we would live a godly life.

There are two parts to Christianity

This problem [the knowledge of what we contribute to our salvation] is one half of the whole sum of Christianity, since on it both knowledge of oneself and the knowledge and glory of God quite vitally depend. That is why we cannot permit you, my dear Erasmus, to call such knowledge "irreverent," "inquisitive," and "vain." The other half of the sum of Christianity is concerned with whether God's foreknowledge is uncertain, and whether everything we do could be done any other way.

Since God's foreknowledge is not uncertain, "free-will" is non-existent

It is fundamentally necessary and healthy for Christians to acknowledge that God foreknows nothing uncertainly, but that He foresees, purposes, and does all things according to His own immutable, eternal and infallible will. This bombshell knocks "free-will" flat, and utterly shatters it; so that those who want to assert it must either deny my bombshell, or pretend not to notice it, or find some other way of dodging it. Surely it was you, my good Erasmus, who a moment ago asserted that God is by nature just, and kindness itself? If this is true, does it not follow that He is immutably just and kind? that, as His nature remains unchanged to all eternity, so do His justice and kindness? And what is said of His justice and kindness must be said also of His knowledge, His wisdom, His goodness, His will, and the other Divine attributes. But if it is religious, godly and wholesome, to affirm these things of God, as you do, what has come over you, that now you should contradict yourself by affirming that it is irreligious, idle and vain to say that God foreknows by necessity? You insist that we should learn the immutability of God's will, while forbidding us to know the immutably of His foreknowledge! Do you suppose that He does not will what He foreknows, or that He does not foreknow what He wills? If he wills what He foreknows, His will is eternal and changeless, because His nature is so. From which it follows, by resistless logic, that all we do, however it may appear to us to be done freely and optionally, is in reality done necessarily and immutably in respect of God's will. For the will of God is effective and cannot be impeded, since power belongs to God's nature; and His wisdom is such that He cannot be deceived. Since, then His will is not impeded, what is done cannot but be done where, when, how, as far as, and by whom, He foresees and wills...

Necessarily does not mean Compulsorily

I could wish, indeed, that a better term was available for our discussion than the accepted one, necessity, which cannot accurately be used of either man's will or God's. Its meaning is too harsh, and foreign to the subject; for it suggests some sort of compulsion, and something that is against one's will, which is no part of the view under debate. This will, whether it be God's or man's does what it does, good or bad, under no compulsion, but just as it wants or pleases, as if totally free. Yet the will of God, which rules over our mutable will, is changeless and sure - as Boetius sings, "Immovable Thyself, Thou movement giv'st to all;" and our will, principally because of its corruption, can do no good of itself. The reader's understanding, therefore, must supply what the word itself fails to convey, from his knowledge of the intended signification - the immutable will of God on the one hand, and the impotence of our corrupt will on the other. Some have called it necessity of immutability, but the phrase is both grammatically and theologically defective.

The importance of knowing that God necessitates all things

I would also point out, not only how true these things are (I shall discuss that more fully from Scripture on a later page), but also how godly, reverent and necessary it is to know them. For where they are not known, there can be no faith, nor any worship of God. To lack this knowledge is really to be ignorant of God - and salvation is notoriously incompatible with such ignorance. For if you hesitate to believe, or are too proud to acknowledge, that God foreknows and wills all things, not contingently, but necessarily and immutably, how can you believe, trust and rely on His promises? When He makes promises, you ought to be out of doubt that He knows, and can and will perform, what He promises; otherwise, you will be accounting Him neither true nor faithful, which is unbelief, and the height of irreverence, and a denial of the most high God! And how can you be thus sure and certain, unless you know that certainly, infallibly, immutably and necessarily, He knows, wills and will perform what He promises? Not only should we be sure that God wills, and will execute His will, necessarily and immutably; we should glory in the fact, as Paul does in Romans 3:4 - "Let God be true, but every man a liar", and again, "Not that the word of God has failed," and in another place, "The foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are His." In Titus 1:2 he says: "Which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began"... If, then, we are taught and believe that we ought to be ignorant of the necessary foreknowledge of God and the necessity of events, Christian faith is utterly destroyed, and the promises of God and the whole gospel fall to the ground completely; for the Christian's chief and only comfort in every adversity lies in knowing that God does not lie, but brings all things to pass immutably, and that His will cannot be resisted, altered or impeded.

A will which has no power without grace is not free

You describe the power of "free-will" as small, and wholly ineffective apart from the grace of God. Agreed? Now then, I ask you: If God's grace is wanting, if it is taken away from that small power, what can it do? It is ineffective, you say, and can do nothing good. So it will not do what God or His grace wills. Why? Because we have now taken God's grace away from it, and what the grace of God does not do is not good. Hence it follows that "free-will" without God's grace is not free at all, but is the permanent prisoner and bondslave of evil, since it cannot turn itself to good. This being so, I give you full permission to enlarge the power of "free-will" as much as you like; make it angelic, make it divine, if you can! - but when you add this doleful postscript, that it is ineffective apart from God's grace, straightway you rob it of all its power. What is ineffective power but (in plain language) no power? So to say that "free-will" exists and has power, albeit ineffective power, is, in the Sophists' phrase, a contradiction in terms. It is like saying "'free-will' is something which is not free" - as if you said that fire is cold and earth hot. Fire certainly has power to heat; but if hell-fire (even) was cold and chilling instead of burning and scorching, I would not call it "fire", let alone "hot" (unless you meant to refer to an imaginary fire, or a painted one). Note, however, that if we meant by "the power of free-will" the power which makes human beings fit subjects to be caught up by the Spirit and touched by God's grace, as creatures made for eternal life or eternal death, we should have a proper definition. And I certainly acknowledge the existence of this power, this fitness, or "dispositional quality" and "passive aptitude" (as the Sophists call it), which, as everyone knows, is not given to plants or animals. As the proverb says, God did not make heaven for geese! It is a settled truth, then, even on the basis of your own testimony, that we do everything of necessity, and nothing by "free-will"; for the power of "free-will" is nil, and it does no good, nor can do, without grace. It follows, therefore, that "free-will" is obviously a term applicable only to Divine Majesty; for only He can do, and does (as the Psalmist sings) "whatever he wills in heaven and earth" [Psalms 135:6]. If "free-will" is ascribed to men, it is ascribed with no more propriety than divinity itself would be - and no blasphemy could exceed that! So it befits theologians to refrain from using the term when they want to speak of human ability, and to leave it to be applied to God only. They would do well also to take the term out of men's mouths and speech, and to claim it for their God, as if it were His own holy and awful Name. If they must at all hazards assign some power to men, let them teach that it be denoted by some other term than "free-will"; especially since we know from our own observation that the mass of men are sadly deceived and misled by this phrase. The meaning which it conveys to their minds is far removed from anything that theologians believe and discuss. The term "free-will" is too grandiose and comprehensive and fulsome. People think it means what the natural force of the phrase would require, namely, a power of freely turning in any direction, yielding to none and subject to none. If they knew that this was not so, and that the term signifies only a tiny spark of power, and that utterly ineffective in itself, since it is the devil's prisoner and slave, it would be a wonder if they did not stone us as mockers and deceivers, who say one thing and mean another - indeed, who have not yet decided what we do mean! Since, therefore, we have lost the meaning and the real reference of this glorious term, or, rather, have never grasped them (as was claimed by the Pelagians, who themselves mistook the phrase) why do we cling so tenaciously to an empty word, and endanger and delude faithful people in consequence? There is no more wisdom in so doing then there is in the modern foible of kings and potentates, who retain, or lay claim to, empty titles of kingdoms and countries, and flaunt them, while all the time they are really paupers, and anything but the possessors of those kingdoms and countries. We can tolerate their antics, for they fool nobody, but just feed themselves up - unprofitably enough - on their own vainglory. But this false idea of "free-will" is a real threat to salvation, and a delusion fraught with the most perilous consequences. If we do not want to drop this term ["free-will"] altogether - which would really be the safest and most Christian thing to do - we may still in good faith teach people to use it to credit man with "free-will" in respect, not of what is above him, but of what is below him. That is to say, man should realize that in regard to his money and possessions he has a right to use them, to do or to leave undone, according to his own "free-will" - though that very "free-will" is overruled by the free-will of God alone, according to His own pleasure. However, with regard to God, and in all that bears on salvation or damnation, he has no "free-will", but is a captive, prisoner and bondslave, either to the will of God, or to the will of Satan.

God preached and not preached, and of His revealed and secret will.

As to why some are touched by the law and others not, so that some receive and others scorn the offer of grace, that is another question, which Ezekiel does not here discuss. He speaks of the published offer of God's mercy, not of the dreadful hidden will of God, Who, according to His own counsel, ordains such persons as He wills to receive and partake of the mercy preached and offered. This will is not to be inquired into, but to be reverently adored, as by far the most awesome secret of the Divine Majesty. He has kept it to Himself and forbidden us to know it; and it is much more worthy of reverence than an infinite number of Corycian caverns! Now, God in His own nature and majesty is to be justify alone; in this regard, we have nothing to do with Him, nor does He wish us to deal with Him. We have to do with Him as clothed and displayed in His Word, by which He presents Himself to us. That is His glory and beauty, in which the Psalmist proclaims Him to be clothed [Ps. 21:5]. I say that the righteous God does not deplore the death of His people which He Himself works in them, but He deplores the death which He finds in His people and desires to remove from them. God preached works to the end that sin and death may be taken away, and we may be saved. "He sent His word and healed them" [Ps. 107:20]. But God hidden in Majesty neither deplores nor takes away death, but works life, and death, and all in all; nor has He set bounds to Himself by His Word, but has kept Himself free over all things. The Diatribe is deceived by its own ignorance in that it makes no distinction between God preached and God hidden, that is, between the Word of God and God Himself. God does many things which He does not show in His word, and He wills many things which he does not in His Word show us that He wills. Thus, He does not will the death of a sinner - that is, in His Word; but He wills it by His inscrutable will. At present, however, we must keep in view His Word and leave alone His inscrutable will; for it is by His Word, and not by His inscrutable will, that we must be guided. In any case, who can direct himself according to a will that is inscrutable and incomprehensible? It is enough simply to know that there is in God an inscrutable will; what, why, and within what limits It wills, it is wholly unlawful to inquire, or wish to know, or be concerned about, or touch upon; we may only fear and adore! So it is right to say: "If God does not desire our death, it must be laid to the charge of our own will if we perish"; this, I repeat, is right if you spoke of God preached. For He desires that all men should be saved, in that He comes to all by the word of salvation, and the fault is in the will which does not receive Him; as He says in Matt. 23:37 "How often would I have gathered thy children together, and thou wouldst not!" But why the Majesty does not remove or change this fault of will in every man (for it is not in the power of man to do it), or why He lays this fault to the charge of the will, when man cannot avoid it, it is not lawful to ask; and though you should ask much, you would never find out; as Paul says in Romans 11: "Who art thou that repliest against God?" [Romans 9:20].

The hardening of Pharaoh

... This is why Moses generally repeats after each plague: "And the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, so that he would not let the people go; as the Lord had spoken" [Exodus 7:13, 22; 8:15; 9:12]. What was the point of: "As the Lord had spoken", but that the Lord might appear true, as having foretold that Pharaoh should be hardened? Had there been in Pharaoh any power to turn, or freedom of will that might have gone either way, God could not with such certainty have foretold his hardening. But as it is, He who neither deceives nor is deceived guarantees it; which means that it is completely certain, and necessary, that Pharaoh's hardening will come to pass. And it would not be so, were not that hardening wholly beyond the strength of man, and in the power of God alone, in the manner that I spoke of above: that is, God was certain that He would not suspend the ordinary operation of omnipotence in Pharaoh, or on Pharaoh's account - indeed, He could not omit it; and He was equally certain that the will of Pharaoh, being naturally evil and perverse, could not consent to the word and work of God which opposed it; hence, while by the omnipotence of God the energy of willing was preserved to Pharaoh within, and the word and work that opposed him was set before him without, nothing could happen in Pharaoh but the offending and hardening of his heart. If God had suspended the action of His omnipotence in Pharaoh when He set before him the word of Moses which opposed him, and if the will of Pharaoh might be supposed to have acted alone by its own power, then there could perhaps have been a place for debating which way it had power to turn. But as it is, since he is impelled and made to act by his own willing, no violence is done to his will; for it is not under unwilling constraint, but by an operation of God consonant with its nature it is impelled to will naturally, according to what it is (that is, evil). Therefore, it could not but turn upon one word, and thus become hardened. Thus we see that this passage makes most forcibly against "free-will" on this account that God, who promises, cannot lie; and, if He cannot lie, then Pharaoh cannot but be hardened.

The comfort of knowing that salvation does not depend on "free-will"

I frankly confess that, for myself, even if it could be, I should not want "free-will" to be given to me, nor anything to be justify in my own hands to enable me to endeavor after salvation; not merely because in face of so many dangers, and adversities, and assaults of devils, I could not stand my ground and hold fast my "free-will" (for one devil is stronger than all men, and on these terms no man could be saved); but because, even were there no dangers, adversities, or devils, I should still be forced to labor with no guarantee of success, and to beat my fists at the air. If I lived and worked to all eternity, my conscience would never reach comfortable certainty as to how much it must do to satisfy God. Whatever work I had done, there would still be a nagging doubt as to whether it pleases God, or whether He required something more. The experience of all who seek righteousness by works proves that; and I learned it well enough myself over a period of many years, to my own great hurt. But now that God has taken my salvation out the control of my own will , and put it under the control of His, and promised to save me, not according to my working or running, but according to His own grace and mercy, I have the comfortable certainty that He is faithful and will not lie to me, and that He is also great and powerful, so that no devils or opposition can break Him or pluck me from Him. "No one," He says, "shall pluck them out of my hand, because my father which gave them me is greater than all" [John 10:28-29]. Thus it is that, if not all, yet some, indeed many, are saved; whereas, by the power of "free-will" none at all could be saved, but every one of us would perish. Furthermore, I have the comfortable certainty that I please God, not by reason of the merit of my works, but by reason of His merciful favor promised to me; so that, if I work too little, or badly, He does not impute it to me, but with fatherly compassion pardons me and makes me better. This is the glorying of all the saints in their God.

The justice of God in His dealings with men

You may be worried that it is hard to defend the mercy and equity of God in damning the undeserving, that is, ungodly persons, who, being born in ungodliness, can by no means avoid being ungodly, and staying so, and being damned, but are compelled by natural necessity to sin and perish; as Paul says: "We were all the children of wrath, even as others" [Eph. 2:3], created such by God Himself from a seed that had been corrupted by the sin of one man, Adam. But here God must be reverenced and held in awe, as being most merciful to those whom He justifies and saves in their own utter unworthiness; and we must show some measure of deference to His Divine wisdom by believing Him just when to us He seems unjust. If His justice were such as could be adjudged just by human reckoning, it clearly would not be Divine; it would in no way differ from human justice. But inasmuch as He is the one true God, wholly incomprehensible and inaccessible to man's understanding, it is reasonable, indeed inevitable, that His justice also should be incomprehensible; as Paul cries, saying: "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!" [Romans 11:33]. They would not, however, be "unsearchable" if we could at every point grasp the grounds on which they are just. What is man compared with God? How much can our power achieve compared with His power? What is our strength compared with His strength? What is our knowledge compared with His wisdom? What is our substance compared with His substance? In a word, what is all that we are compared with all that He is? If, now, even nature teaches to acknowledge that human power, strength, wisdom, knowledge and substance, and all that is ours, is nothing compared with the Divine power, strength, wisdom, knowledge and substance, what perversity is it on our part to worry at the justice and the judgment of the only God, and to arrogate so much to our own judgment as to presume to comprehend, judge and evaluate God's judgment!

Conclusion

... I shall here end this book, ready though I am to pursue the matter further, if need be; but I think that abundant satisfaction has here been afforded for the godly man who is willing to yield to truth without stubborn resistance. For if we believe it to be true that God foreknows and foreordains all things; that He cannot be deceived or obstructed in His foreknowledge and predestination; and that nothing happens but at His will (which reason itself is compelled to grant); then, on reason's own testimony, there can be no "free-will" in man, or angel, or in any creature. So, if we believe that Satan is the prince of this world, ever ensnaring and opposing the kingdom of Christ with all his strength, and that he does not let his prisoners go unless he is driven out by the power of the Divine Spirit, it is again apparent that there can be no "free-will". So, if we believe that original sin has ruined us to such an extent that even in the godly, who are led by the Spirit, it causes abundance of trouble by striving against good, it is clear that in a man who lacks the Spirit nothing is justify that can turn itself to good, but only to evil. Again, if the Jews, who followed after righteousness with all their powers, fell into unrighteousness instead, while the Gentiles, who followed after unrighteousness, attained to an un-hoped-for righteousness, by God's free gift, it is equally apparent from their very works and experience that man without grace can will nothing but evil. And, finally, if we believe that Christ redeemed men by His blood, we are forced to confess that all of man was lost; otherwise, we make Christ either wholly superfluous, or else the redeemer of the least valuable part of man only; which is blasphemy, and sacrilege.

Introductory Essay to John Owen’s Death of Death in the Death of Christ

[J.I. Packer masterfully delineates the irreconcilable differences between the Arminian version of the gospel and the Calvanistic proclamation of the biblical Gospel once for all delivered to the saints. Arminianism is glaringly man-centered while Calvanism is delightfully God-centered. John Owen's work is a classic theological gem that every Christian should chew on and become familiar with.]


The Death of Death in the Death of Christ is a polemical work, designed to show, among other things, that the doctrine of universal redemption is unscriptural and destructive of the gospel. There are many, therefore, to whom it is not likely to be of interest. Those who see no need for doctrinal exactness and have no time for theological debates which show up divisions between so-called Evangelicals may well regret its reappearance. Some may find the very sound of Owen’s thesis so shocking that they will refuse to read his book at all; so passionate a thing is prejudice, and so proud are we of our theological shibboleths. But it is hoped that this reprint will find itself readers of a different spirit. There are signs today of a new upsurge of interest in the theology of the Bible: a new readiness to test traditions, to search the Scriptures and to think through the faith. It is to those who share this readiness that Owen’s treatise is offered, in the belief that it will help us in one of the most urgent tasks facing Evangelical Christendom today—the recovery of the gospel.

This last remark may cause some raising of eyebrows, but it seems to be warranted by the facts.

There is no doubt that Evangelicalism today is in a state of perplexity and unsettlement. In such matters as the practice of evangelism, the teaching of holiness, the building up of local church life, the pastor’s dealing with souls and the exercise of discipline, there is evidence of widespread dissatisfaction with things as they are and of equally widespread uncertainty as to the road ahead. This is a complex phenomenon, to which many factors have contributed; but, if we go to the root of the matter, we shall find that these perplexities are all ultimately due to our having lost our grip on the biblical gospel. Without realising it, we have during the past century bartered that gospel for a substitute product which, though it looks similar enough in points of detail, is as a whole a decidedly different thing. Hence our troubles; for the substitute product does not answer the ends for which the authentic gospel has in past days proved itself so mighty. The new gospel conspicuously fails to produce deep reverence, deep repentance, deep humility, a spirit of worship, a concern for the church. Why? We would suggest that the reason lies in its own character and content. It fails to make men God-centred in their thoughts and God-fearing in their hearts because this is not primarily what it is trying to do. One way of stating the difference between it and the old gospel is to say that it is too exclusively concerned to be “helpful” to man—to bring peace, comfort, happiness, satisfaction—and too little concerned to glorify God. The old gospel was “helpful,” too—more so, indeed, than is the new—but (so to speak) incidentally, for its first concern was always to give glory to God. It was always and essentially a proclamation of Divine sovereignty in mercy and judgment, a summons to bow down and worship the mighty Lord on whom man depends for all good, both in nature and in grace. Its centre of reference was unambiguously God. But in the new gospel the centre of reference is man. This is just to say that the old gospel was religious in a way that the new gospel is not. Whereas the chief aim of the old was to teach men to worship God, the concern of the new seems limited to making them feel better. The subject of the old gospel was God and His ways with men; the subject of the new is man and the help God gives him. There is a world of difference. The whole perspective and emphasis of gospel preaching has changed.

From this change of interest has sprung a change of content, for the new gospel has in effect reformulated the biblical message in the supposed interests of “helpfulness.” Accordingly, the themes of man’s natural inability to believe, of God’s free election being the ultimate cause of salvation, and of Christ dying specifically for His sheep, are not preached. These doctrines, it would be said, are not “helpful”; they would drive sinners to despair, by suggesting to them that it is not in their own power to be saved through Christ. (The possibility that such despair might be salutary is not considered; it is taken for granted that it cannot be, because it is so shattering to our self-esteem.) However this may be (and we shall say more about it later), the result of these omissions is that part of the biblical gospel is now preached as if it were the whole of that gospel; and a half-truth masquerading as the whole truth becomes a complete untruth. Thus, we appeal to men as if they all had the ability to receive Christ at any time; we speak of His redeeming work as if He had done no more by dying than make it possible for us to save ourselves by believing; we speak of God’s love as if it were no more than a general willingness to receive any who will turn and trust; and we depict the Father and the Son, not as sovereignly active in drawing sinners to themselves, but as waiting in quiet impotence “at the door of our hearts” for us to let them in. It is undeniable that this is how we preach; perhaps this is what we really believe. But it needs to be said with emphasis that this set of twisted half-truths is something other than the biblical gospel. The Bible is against us when we preach in this way; and the fact that such preaching has become almost standard practice among us only shows how urgent it is that we should review this matter. To recover the old, authentic, biblical gospel, and to bring our preaching and practice back into line with it, is perhaps our most pressing present need. And it is at this point that Owen’s treatise on redemption can give us help.

II.

“But wait a minute,” says someone, “it’s all very well to talk like this about the gospel; but surely what Owen is doing is defending limited atonement—one of the five points of Calvinism? When you speak of recovering the gospel, don’t you mean that you just want us all to become Calvinists?”

These questions are worth considering, for they will no doubt occur to many. At the same time, however, they are questions that reflect a great deal of prejudice and ignorance. “Defending limited atonement”—as if this was all that a Reformed theologian expounding the heart of the gospel could ever really want to do! “You just want us all to become Calvinists”—as if Reformed theologians had no interest beyond recruiting for their party, and as if becoming a Calvinist was the last stage of theological depravity, and had nothing to do with the gospel at all. Before we answer these questions directly, we must try to remove the prejudices which underlie them by making clear what Calvinism really is; and therefore we would ask the reader to take note of the following facts, historical and theological, about Calvinism in general and the “five points” in particular.

First, it should be observed that the “five points of Calvinism,” so-called, are simply the Calvinistic answer to a five-point manifesto (the Remonstrance) put out by certain “Belgic semi-Pelagians” in the early seventeenth century. The theology which it contained (known to history as Arminianism) stemmed from two philosophical principles: first, that divine sovereignty is not compatible with human freedom, nor therefore with human responsibility; second, that ability limits obligation. (The charge of semi-Pelagianism was thus fully justified.) From these principles, the Arminians drew two deductions: first that since the Bible regards faith as a free and responsible human act, it cannot be caused by God, but is exercised independently of Him; second, that since the Bible regards faith as obligatory on the part of all who hear the gospel, ability to believe must be universal. Hence, they maintained, Scripture must be interpreted as teaching the following positions: (1.) Man is never so completely corrupted by sin that he cannot savingly believe the gospel when it is put before him, nor (2.) is he ever so completely controlled by God that he cannot reject it. (3.) God’s election of those who shall be saved is prompted by His foreseeing that they will of their own accord believe. (4.) Christ’s death did not ensure the salvation of anyone, for it did not secure the gift of faith to anyone (there is no such gift); what it did was rather to create a possibility of salvation for everyone if they believe. (5.) It rests with believers to keep themselves in a state of grace by keeping up their faith; those who fail here fall away and are lost. Thus, Arminianism made man’s salvation depend ultimately on man himself, saving faith being viewed throughout as man’s own work and, because his own, not God’s in him.

The Synod of Dort was convened in 1618 to pronounce on this theology, and the “five points of Calvinism” represent its counter-affirmations. They stem from a very different principle—the biblical principle that “salvation is of the Lord”; and they may be summarized thus: (1.) Fallen man in his natural state lacks all power to believe the gospel, just as he lacks all power to believe the law, despite all external inducements that may be extended to him. (2.) God’s election is a free, sovereign, unconditional choice of sinners, as sinners, to be redeemed by Christ, given faith and brought to glory. (3.) The redeeming work of Christ had as its end and goal the salvation of the elect. (4.) The work of the Holy Spirit in bringing men to faith never fails to achieve its object. (5.) Believers are kept in faith and grace by the unconquerable power of God till they come to glory. These five points are conveniently denoted by the mnemonic TULIP: Total depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement, Irresistible grace, Preservation of the saints.

Now, here are two coherent interpretations of the biblical gospel, which stand in evident opposition to each other. The difference between them is not primarily one of emphasis, but of content. One proclaims a God who saves; the other speaks of a God Who enables man to save himself. One view presents the three great acts of the Holy Trinity for the recovering of lost mankind—election by the Father, redemption by the Son, calling by the Spirit—as directed towards the same persons, and as securing their salvation infallibly. The other view gives each act a different reference (the objects of redemption being all mankind, of calling, those who hear the gospel, and of election, those hearers who respond), and denies that any man’s salvation is secured by any of them. The two theologies thus conceive the plan of salvation in quite different terms. One makes salvation depend on the work of God, the other on a work of man; one regards faith as part of God’s gift of salvation, the other as man’s own contribution to salvation; one gives all the glory of saving believers to God, the other divides the praise between God, Who, so to speak, built the machinery of salvation, and man, who by believing operated it. Plainly, these differences are important, and the permanent value of the “five points,” as a summary of Calvinism, is that they make clear the points at which, and the extent to which, these two conceptions are at variance.

However. it would not be correct simply to equate Calvinism with the “five points.” Five points of our own will make this clear.

In the first place, Calvinism is something much broader than the “five points” indicate. Calvinism is a whole world-view, stemming from a clear vision of God as the whole world’s Maker and King. Calvinism is the consistent endeavour to acknowledge the Creator as the Lord, working all things after the counsel of His will. Calvinism is a theocentric way of thinking about all life under the direction and control of God’s own Word. Calvinism, in other words, is the theology of the Bible viewed from the perspective of the Bible—the God-centred outlook which sees the Creator as the source, and means, and end, of everything that is, both in nature and in grace. Calvinism is thus theism (belief in God as the ground of all things), religion (dependence on God as the giver of all things), and evangelicalism (trust in God through Christ for all things), all in their purest and most highly developed form. And Calvinism is a unified philosophy of history which sees the whole diversity of processes and events that take place in God’s world as no more, and no less, than the outworking of His great preordained plan for His creatures and His church. The five points assert no more than that God is sovereign in saving the individual, but Calvinism, as such, is concerned with the much broader assertion that He is sovereign everywhere.

Then, in the second place, the “five points” present Calvinistic soteriology in a negative and polemical form, whereas Calvinism in itself is essentially expository, pastoral and constructive. It can define its position in terms of Scripture without any reference to Arminianism, and it does not need to be forever fighting real or imaginary Arminians in order to keep itself alive. Calvinism has no interest in negatives, as such; when Calvinists fight, they fight for positive Evangelical values. The negative cast of the “five points” is misleading chiefly with regard to the third (limited atonement, or particular redemption), which is often read with stress on the adjective and taken as indicating that Calvinists have a special interest in confining the limits of divine mercy. But in fact the purpose of this phraseology, as we shall see, is to safeguard the central affirmation of the gospel—that Christ is a Redeemer who really does redeem. Similarly, the denials of an election that is conditional and of grace that is resistible, are intended to safeguard the positive truth that it is God Who saves. The real negations are those of Arminianism, which denies that election, redemption and calling are saving acts of God. Calvinism negates these negations in order to assert the positive content of the gospel, for the positive purpose of strengthening faith and building up the church.

Thirdly, the very act of setting out Calvinistic soteriology in the form of five distinct points (a number due, as we saw, merely to the fact that there were five Arminian points for the Synod of Dort to answer) tends to obscure the organic character of Calvinistic thought on this subject. For the five points, though separately stated, are really inseparable. They hang together; you cannot reject one without rejecting them all, at least in the sense in which the Synod meant them. For to Calvinism there is really only one point to be made in the field of soteriology: the point that God saves sinners. God—the Triune Jehovah, Father, Son and Spirit; three Persons working together in sovereign wisdom, power and love to achieve the salvation of a chosen people, the Father electing, the Son fulfilling the Father’s will by redeeming, the Spirit executing the purpose of Father and Son by renewing. Saves—does everything, first to last, that is involved in bringing man from death in sin to life in glory: plans, achieves and communicates redemption, calls and keeps, justifies, sanctifies, glorifies. Sinners—men as God finds them, guilty, vile, helpless, powerless, unable to lift a finger to do God’s will or better their spiritual lot. God saves sinners—and the force of this confession may not be weakened by disrupting the unity of the work of the Trinity, or by dividing the achievement of salvation between God and man and making the decisive part man’s own, or by soft-pedaling the sinner’s inability so as to allow him to share the praise of his salvation with his Saviour. This is the one point of Calvinistic soteriology which the “five points” are concerned to establish and Arminianism in all its forms to deny: namely, that sinners do not save themselves in any sense at all, but that salvation, first and last, whole and entire, past, present and future, is of the Lord, to whom be glory for ever; amen.

This leads to our fourth remark, which is this: the five-point formula obscures the depth of the difference between Calvinistic and Arminian soteriology. There seems no doubt that it seriously misleads many here. In the formula, the stress falls on the adjectives, and this naturally gives the impression that in regard to the three great saving acts of God the debate concerns the adjectives merely—that both sides agree as to what election, redemption, and the gift of internal grace are, and differ only as to the position of man in relation to them: whether the first is conditional upon faith being foreseen or not; whether the second intends the salvation of every man or not; whether the third always proves invincible or not. But this is a complete misconception. The change of adjective in each case involves changing the meaning of the noun. An election that is conditional, a redemption that is universal, an internal grace that is resistible, is not the same kind of election, redemption, internal grace, as Calvinism asserts. The real issue concerns, not the appropriateness of adjectives, but the definition of nouns. Both sides saw this clearly when the controversy first began, and it is important that we should see it too, for otherwise we cannot discuss the Calvinist-Arminian debate to any purpose at all. It is worth setting out the different definitions side by side.

(i.) God’s act of election was defined by the Arminians as a resolve to receive sonship and glory a duly qualified class of people: believers in Christ. This becomes a resolve to receive individual persons only in virtue of God’s foreseeing the contingent fact that they will of their own accord believe. There is nothing in the decree of election to ensure that the class of believers will ever have any members; God does not determine to make any man believe. But Calvinists define election as a choice of particular undeserving persons to be saved from sin and brought to glory, and to that end to be redeemed by the death of Christ and given faith by the Spirit’s effectual calling. Where the Arminian says: “I owe my election to my faith,” the Calvinist says: “I owe my faith to my election.” Clearly, these two concepts of election are very far apart.

(ii.) Christ’s work of redemption was defined by the Arminians as the removing of an obstacle (the unsatisfied claims of justice) which stood in the way of God’s offering pardon to sinners, as He desired to do, on condition that they believe. Redemption, according to Arminianism, secured for God a right to make this offer, but did not of itself ensure that anyone would ever accept it; for faith, being a work of man’s own, is not a gift that comes to him from Calvary. Christ’s death created an opportunity for the exercise of saving faith, but that is all it did. Calvinists, however, define redemption as Christ’s actual substitutionary endurance of the penalty of sin in the place of certain specified sinners, through which God was reconciled to them, their liability to punishment was for ever destroyed, and a title to eternal life was secured for them. In consequence of this, they now have in God’s sight a right to the gift of faith, as the means of entry into the enjoyment of their inheritance. Calvary, in other words, not merely made possible the salvation of those for whom Christ died; it ensured that they would be brought to faith and their salvation made actual. The Cross saves. Where the Arminian will only say: “I could not have gained my salvation without Calvary,” the Calvinist will say: “Christ gained my salvation for me at Calvary.” The former makes the Cross the sine qua non of salvation, the latter sees it as the actual procuring cause of salvation, and traces the source of every spiritual blessing, faith included, back to the great transaction between God and His Son carried through on Calvary’s hill. Clearly, these two concepts of redemption are quite at variance.

(iii.) The Spirit’s gift of internal grace was defined by the Arminians as “moral suasion,” the bare bestowal of an understanding of God’s truth. This, they granted—indeed, insisted—does not of itself ensure that anyone will ever make the response of faith. But Calvinists define this gift as not merely an enlightening, but also a regenerating work of God in men, “taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto them a heart of flesh; renewing their wills, and by His almighty power determining them to that which is good; and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ; yet so as they come most freely, being made willing by his grace.” Grace proves irresistible just because it destroys the disposition to resist. Where the Arminian, therefore, will be content to say: “I decided for Christ,” “I made up my mind to be a Christian,” the Calvinist will wish to speak of his conversion in more theological fashion, to make plain whose work it really was:

“Long my imprisoned spirit lay
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night:
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray;
I woke; the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off: my heart was free:
I rose, went forth, and followed thee.”

Clearly, these two notions of internal grace are sharply opposed to each other.

Now, the Calvinist contends that the Arminian idea of election, redemption and calling as acts of God which do not save cuts at the very heart of their biblical meaning; that to say in the Arminian sense that God elects believers, and Christ died for all men, and the Spirit quickens those who receive the word, is really to say that in the biblical sense God elects nobody, and Christ died for nobody, and the Spirit quickens nobody. The matter at issue in this controversy, therefore, is the meaning to be given to these biblical terms, and to some others which are also soteriologically significant, such as the love of God, the covenant of grace, and the verb “save” itself, with its synonyms. Arminians gloss them all in terms of the principle that salvation does not directly depend on any decree or act of God, but on man’s independent activity in believing. Calvinists maintain that this principle is itself unscriptural and irreligious, and that such glossing demonstrably perverts the sense of Scripture and undermines the gospel at every point where it is practised. This, and nothing less than this, is what the Arminian controversy is about.

There is a fifth way in which the five-point formula is deficient. Its very form (a series of denials of Arminian assertions) lends colour to the impression that Calvinism is a modification of Arminianism; that Arminianism has a certain primacy in order of nature, and developed Calvinism is an offshoot from it. Even when one shows this to be false as a matter of history, the suspicion remains in many minds that it is a true account of the relation of the two views themselves. For it is widely supposed that Arminianism (which, as we now see, corresponds pretty closely to the new gospel of our own day) is the result of reading the Scriptures in a “natural,” unbiased, unsophisticated way, and that Calvinism is an unnatural growth, the product less of the texts themselves than of unhallowed logic working on the texts, wresting their plain sense and upsetting their balance by forcing them into a systematic framework which they do not themselves provide. Whatever may have been true of individual Calvinists, as a generalisation about Calvinism nothing could be further from the truth than this. Certainly, Arminianism is “natural” in one sense, in that it represents a characteristic perversion of biblical teaching by the fallen mind of man, who even in salvation cannot bear to renounce the delusion of being master of his fate and captain of his soul. This perversion appeared before in the Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism of the Patristic period and the later Scholasticism, and has recurred since the seventeenth century both in Roman theology and, among Protestants, in various types of rationalistic liberalism and modern Evangelical teaching; and no doubt it will always be with us. As long as the fallen human mind is what it is, the Arminian way of thinking will continue to be a natural type of mistake. But it is not natural in any other sense. In fact, it is Calvinism that understands the Scriptures in their natural, one would have thought, inescapable meaning; Calvinism that keeps to what they actually say; Calvinism that insists on taking seriously the biblical assertions that God saves, and that He saves those whom He has chosen to save, and that He saves them by grace without works, so that no man may boast, and that Christ is given to them as a perfect Saviour, and that their whole salvation flows to them from the Cross, and that the work of redeeming them was finished on the Cross. It is Calvinism that gives due honour to the Cross. When the Calvinist sings:

“There is a green hill far away,
Without a city wall,
Where the dear Lord was crucified,
Who died to save us all;
He died the we might be forgiven,
He died to make us good;
That we might go at last to Heaven,
Saved by His precious blood.”

—he means it. He will not gloss the italicised statements by saying that God’s saving purpose in the death of His Son was a mere ineffectual wish, depending for its fulfilment on man’s willingness to believe, so that for all God could do Christ might have died and none been saved at all. He insists that the Bible sees the Cross as revealing God’s power to save, not His impotence. Christ did not win a hypothetical salvation for hypothetical believers, a mere possibility of salvation for any who might possibly believe, but a real salvation for His own chosen people. His precious blood really does “save us all”; the intended effects of His self-offering do in fact follow, just because the Cross was what it was. Its saving power does not depend on faith being added to it; its saving power is such that faith flows from it. The Cross secured the full salvation of all for whom Christ died. “God forbid,” therefore, “that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Now the real nature of Calvinistic soteriology becomes plain. It is no artificial oddity, nor a product of over-bold logic. Its central confession, that God saves sinners, that Christ redeemed us by His blood, is the witness both of the Bible and of the believing heart. The Calvinist is the Christian who confesses before men in his theology just what he believes in his heart before God when he prays. He thinks and speaks at all times of the sovereign grace of God in the way that every Christian does when he pleads for the souls of others, or when he obeys the impulse of worship which rises unbidden within him, prompting him to deny himself all praise and to give all the glory of his salvation to his Saviour. Calvinism is the natural theology written on the heart of the new man in Christ, whereas Arminianism is an intellectual sin of infirmity, natural only in the sense in which all such sins are natural, even to the regenerate. Calvinistic thinking is the Christian being himself on the intellectual level; Arminian thinking is the Christian failing to be himself through the weakness of the flesh. Calvinism is what the Christian church has always held and taught when its mind has not been distracted by controversy and false traditions from attending to what Scripture actually says; that is the significance of the Patristic testimonies to the teaching of the “five points,” which can be quoted in abundance. (Owen appends a few on redemption; a much larger collection may be seen in John Gill’s The Cause of God and Truth.) So that really it is most misleading to call this soteriology “Calvinism” at all, for it is not a peculiarity of John Calvin and the divines of Dort, but a part of the revealed truth of God and the catholic Christian faith. “Calvinism” is one of the “odious names” by which down the centuries prejudice has been raised against it. But the thing itself is just the biblical gospel. In the light of these facts, we can now give a direct answer to the questions with which we began.

“Surely all that Owen is doing is defending limited atonement?” Not really. He is doing much more than that. Strictly speaking, the aim of Owen’s book is not defensive at all, but constructive. It is a biblical and theological enquiry; its purpose is simply to make clear what Scripture actually teaches about the central subject of the gospel—the achievement of the Saviour. As its title proclaims, it is “a treatise of the redemption and reconciliation that is in the blood of Christ: with the merit thereof, and the satisfaction wrought thereby.” The question which Owen, like the Dort divines before him, is really concerned to answer is just this: what is the gospel? All agree that it is a proclamation of Christ as Redeemer, but there is a dispute as to the nature and extent of His redeeming work: well, what saith the Scripture? what aim and accomplishment does the Bible assign to the work of Christ? This is what Owen is concerned to elucidate. It is true that he tackles the subject in a directly controversial way, and shapes his book as a polemic against the “spreading persuasion...of a general ransom, to be paid by Christ for all; that he dies to redeem all and every one.” But his work is a systematic expository treatise, not a mere episodic wrangle. Owen treats the controversy as providing the occasion for a full display of the relevant biblical teaching in its own proper order and connection. As in Hooker’s Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, the polemics themselves are incidental and of secondary interest; their chief value lies in the way that the author uses them to further his own design and carry forward his own argument.

That argument is essentially very simple. Owen sees that the question which has occasioned his writing—the extent of the atonement—involves the further question of its nature, since if it was offered to save some who will finally perish, then it cannot have been a transaction securing the actual salvation of all for whom it was designed. But, says Owen, this is precisely the kind of transaction that the Bible says it was. The first two books of his treatise are a massive demonstration of the fact that according to Scripture the Redeemer’s death actually saves His people, as it was meant to do. The third book consists of a series of sixteen arguments against the hypothesis of universal redemption, all aimed to show, on the one hand, that Scripture speaks of Christ’s redeeming work as effective, which precludes its having been intended for any who perish, and, on the other, that if its intended extent had been universal, then either all will be saved (which Scripture denies, and the advocates of the “general ransom” do not affirm), or else the Father and the Son have failed to do what they set out to do—“which to assert,” says Owen, “seems to us blasphemously injurious to the wisdom, power and perfection of God, as likewise derogatory to the worth and value of the death of Christ.”

Owen’s arguments ring a series of changes on this dilemma. Finally, in the fourth book, Owen shows with great cogency that the three classes of texts alleged to prove that Christ died for persons who will not be saved (those saying that He died for “the world,” for “all,” and those thought to envisage the perishing of those for whom He died), cannot on sound principles of exegesis be held to teach any such thing; and, further, that the theological inferences by which universal redemption is supposed to be established are really quite fallacious. The true evangelical evaluation of the claim that Christ died for every man, even those who perish, comes through at point after point in Owen’s book. So far from magnifying the love and grace of God, this claim dishonours both it and Him, for it reduces God’s love to an impotent wish and turns the whole economy of “saving” grace, so-called (“saving” is really a misnomer on this view), into a monumental divine failure. Also, so far from magnifying the merit and worth of Christ’s death, it cheapens it, for it makes Christ die in vain. Lastly, so far from affording faith additional encouragement, it destroys the Scriptural ground of assurance altogether, for it denies that the knowledge that Christ died for me (or did or does anything else for me) is a sufficient ground for inferring my eternal salvation; my salvation, on this view, depends not on what Christ did for me, but on what I subsequently do for myself. Thus this view takes from God’s love and Christ’s redemption the glory that Scripture gives them, and introduces the anti-scriptural principle of self-salvation at the point where the Bible explicitly says: “not of works, lest any man should boast.” You cannot have it both ways: an atonement of universal extent is a depreciated atonement. It has lost its saving power; it leaves us to save ourselves. The doctrine of the general ransom must accordingly be rejected, as Owen rejects it, as a grievous mistake. By contrast, however, the doctrine which Owen sets out, as he himself shows, is both biblical and God-honouring. It exalts Christ, for it teaches Christians to glory in His Cross alone, and to draw their hope and assurance only from the death and intercession of their Saviour. It is, in other words, genuinely Evangelical. It is, indeed, the gospel of God and the catholic faith.

It is safe to say that no comparable exposition of the work of redemption as planned and executed by the Triune Jehovah has ever been done since Owen published his. None has been needed. Discussing this work, Andrew Thomson notes how Owen “makes you feel when he has reached the end of his subject, that he has also exhausted it.” That is demonstrably the case here. His interpretation of the texts is sure; his power of theological construction is superb; nothing that needs discussing is omitted, and (so far as the writer can discover) no arguments for or against his position have been used since his day which he has not himself noted and dealt with. One searches his book in vain for the leaps and flights of logic by which Reformed theologians are supposed to establish their positions; all that one finds is solid, painstaking exegesis and a careful following through of biblical ways of thinking. Owen’s work is a constructive, broad-based biblical analysis of the heart of the gospel, and must be taken seriously as such. It may not be written off as a piece of special pleading for a traditional shibboleth, for nobody has a right to dismiss the doctrine of the limitedness of atonement as a monstrosity of Calvinistic logic until he has refuted Owen’s proof that it is part of the uniform biblical presentation of redemption, clearly taught in plain text after plain text. And nobody has done that yet.

“You talked about recovering the gospel,” said our questioner; “don’t you mean that you just want us all to become Calvinists?”

This question presumably concerns, not the word, but the thing. Whether we call ourselves Calvinists hardly matters; what matters is that we should understand the gospel biblically. But that, we think, does in fact mean understanding it as historic Calvinism does. The alternative is to misunderstand and distort it. We said earlier that modern Evangelicalism, by and large, has ceased to preach the gospel in the old way, and we frankly admit that the new gospel, insofar as it deviates from the old, seems to us a distortion of the biblical message. And we can now see what has gone wrong. Our theological currency has been debased. Our minds have been conditioned to think of the Cross as a redemption which does less than redeem, and of Christ as a Saviour who does less than save, and of God’s love as a weak affection which cannot keep anyone from hell without help, and of faith as the human help which God needs for this purpose. As a result, we are no longer free either to believe the biblical gospel or to preach it. We cannot believe it, because our thoughts are caught in the toils of synergism. We are haunted by the Arminian idea that if faith and unbelief are to be responsible acts, they must be independent acts; hence we are not free to believe that we are saved entirely by divine grace through a faith which is itself God’s gift and flows to us from Calvary. Instead, we involve ourselves in a bewildering kind of double-think about salvation, telling ourselves one moment that it all depends on God and next moment that it all depends on us. The resultant mental muddle deprives God of much of the glory that we should give Him as author and finisher of salvation, and ourselves of much of the comfort we might draw from knowing that God is for us.

And when we come to preach the gospel, our false preconceptions make us say just the opposite of what we intend. We want (rightly) to proclaim Christ as Saviour; yet we end up saying that Christ, having made salvation possible, has left us to become our own saviours. It comes about in this way. We want to magnify the saving grace of God and the saving power of Christ. So we declare that God’s redeeming love extends to every man, and that Christ has died to save every man, and we proclaim that the glory of divine mercy is to be measured by these facts. And then, in order to avoid universalism, we have to depreciate all that we were previously extolling, and to explain that, after all, nothing that God and Christ have done can save us unless we add something to it; the decisive factor which actually saves us is our own believing. What we say comes to this—that Christ saves us with our help; and what that means, when one thinks it out, is this—that we save ourselves with Christ’s help. This is a hollow anticlimax. But if we start by affirming that God has a saving love for all, and Christ died a saving death for all, and yet balk at becoming universalists, there is nothing else that we can say. And let us be clear on what we have done when we have put the matter in this fashion. We have not exalted grace and the Cross; we have cheapened them. We have limited the atonement far more drastically than Calvinism does, for whereas Calvinism asserts that Christ’s death, as such, saves all whom it was meant to save, we have denied that Christ’s death, as such, is sufficient to save any of them. We have flattered impenitent sinners by assuring them that it is in their power to repent and believe, though God cannot make them do it. Perhaps we have also trivialised faith and repentance in order to make this assurance plausible (“it’s very simple—just open your heart to the Lord...”). Certainly, we have effectively denied God’s sovereignty, and undermined the basic conviction of religion—that man is always in God’s hands. In truth, we have lost a great deal. And it is, perhaps, no wonder that our preaching begets so little reverence and humility, and that our professed converts are so self-confident and so deficient in self-knowledge, and in the good works which Scripture regards as the fruit of true repentance.

It is from degenerate faith and preaching of this kind that Owen’s book could set us free. If we listen to him, he will teach us both how to believe the Scripture gospel and how to preach it. For the first: he will lead us to bow down before a sovereign Saviour Who really saves, and to praise Him for a redeeming death which made it certain that all for whom He died will come to glory. It cannot be over-emphasised that we have not seen the full meaning of the Cross till we have seen it as the divines of Dort display it—as the centre of the gospel, flanked on the one hand by total inability and unconditional election, and on the other by irresistible grace and final preservation. For the full meaning of the Cross only appears when the atonement is defined in terms of these four truths. Christ died to save a certain company of helpless sinners upon whom God had set His free saving love. Christ’s death ensured the calling and keeping—the present and final salvation—of all whose sins He bore. That is what Calvary meant, and means. The Cross saved; the Cross saves. This is the heart of true Evangelical faith; as Cowper sang—

“Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood
Shall never lose its power,
Till all the ransomed church of God
Be saved to sin no more.”

This is the triumphant conviction which underlay the old gospel, as it does the whole New Testament. And this is what Owen will teach us unequivocally to believe.

Then, secondly, Owen could set us free, if we would hear him, to preach the biblical gospel. This assertion may sound paradoxical, for it is often imagined that those who will not preach that Christ died to save every man are left with no gospel at all. On the contrary, however, what they are left with is just the gospel of the New Testament. What does it mean to preach “the gospel of the grace of God”? Owen only touches on this briefly and incidentally, but his comments are full of light. Preaching the gospel, he tells us, is not a matter of telling the congregation that God has set His love on each of them and Christ has died to save each of them, for these assertions, biblically understood, would imply that they will all infallibly be saved, and this cannot be known to be true. The knowledge of being the object of God’s eternal love and Christ’s redeeming death belongs to the individual’s assurance, which in the nature of the case cannot precede faith’s saving exercise; it is to be inferred from the fact that one has believed, not proposed as a reason why one should believe. According to Scripture, preaching the gospel is entirely a matter of proclaiming to men, as truth from God which all are bound to believe and act on, the following four facts:

(1.) that all men are sinners, and cannot do anything to save themselves;

(2.) that Jesus Christ, God’s Son, is a perfect Saviour for sinners, even the worst;

(3.) that the Father and the Son have promised that all who know themselves to be sinners and put faith in Christ as Saviour shall be received into favour, and none cast out (which promise is “a certain infallible truth, grounded upon the superabundant sufficiency of the oblation of Christ in itself, for whomsoever [few or more] it be intended”);

(4.) that God has made repentance and faith a duty, requiring of every man who hears the gospel “a serious full recumbency and rolling of the soul upon Christ in the promise of the gospel, as an all-sufficient Saviour, able to deliver and save to the utmost them that come to God by him; ready, able and willing, through the preciousness of his blood and sufficiency of his ransom, to save every soul that shall freely give up themselves unto him for that end.”

The preacher’s task, in other words, is to display Christ: to explain man’s need of Him, His sufficiency to save, and His offer of Himself in the promises as Saviour to all who truly turn to Him; and to show as fully and plainly as he can how these truths apply to the congregation before him. It is not for him to say, nor for his hearers to ask, for whom Christ died in particular. “There is none called on by the gospel once to enquire after the purpose and intention of God concerning the particular object of the death of Christ, every one being fully assured that his death shall be profitable to them that believe in him and obey him.” After saving faith has been exercised, “it lies on a believer to assure his soul, according as he find the fruit of the death of Christ in him and towards him, of the good-will and eternal love of God to him in sending his Son to die for him in particular”; but not before. The task to which the gospel calls him is simply to exercise faith, which he is both warranted and obliged to do by God’s command and promise.

Some comments on this conception of what preaching the gospel means are in order.

First, we should observe that the old gospel of Owen contains no less full and free an offer of salvation than its modern counterpart. It presents ample grounds of faith (the sufficiency of Christ, and the promise of God), and cogent motives to faith (the sinner’s need, and the Creator’s command, which is also the Redeemer’s invitation). The new gospel gains nothing here by asserting universal redemption. The old gospel, certainly, has no room for the cheap sentimentalising which turns God’s free mercy to sinners into a constitutional soft-heartedness on His part which we can take for granted; nor will it countenance the degrading presentation of Christ as the baffled Saviour, balked in what He hoped to do by human unbelief; nor will it indulge in maudlin appeals to the unconverted to let Christ save them out of pity for His disappointment. The pitiable Saviour and the pathetic God of modern pulpits are unknown to the old gospel. The old gospel tells men that they need God, but not that God needs them (a modern falsehood); it does not exhort them to pity Christ, but announces that Christ has pitied them, though pity was the last thing they deserved. It never loses sight of the Divine majesty and sovereign power of the Christ whom it proclaims, but rejects flatly all representations of Him which would obscure His free omnipotence. Does this mean, however, that the preacher of the old gospel is inhibited or confined in offering Christ to men and inviting them to receive Him? Not at all. In actual fact, just because he recognises that Divine mercy is sovereign and free, he is in a position to make far more of the offer of Christ in his preaching than is the expositor of the new gospel; for this offer is itself a far more wonderful thing on his principles than it can ever be in the eyes of those who regard love to all sinners as a necessity of God’s nature, and therefore a matter of course. To think that the holy Creator, who never needed man for His happiness and might justly have banished our fallen race for ever without mercy, should actually have chosen to redeem some of them! and that His own Son was willing to undergo death and descend into hell to save them! and that now from His throne He should speak to ungodly men as He does in the words of the gospel, urging upon them the command to repent and believe in the form of a compassionate invitation to pity themselves and choose life! These thoughts are the focal points round which the preaching of the old gospel revolves. It is all wonderful, just because none of it can be taken for granted. But perhaps the most wonderful thing of all—the holiest spot in all the holy ground of gospel truth—is the free invitation which “the Lord Christ” (as Owen loves to call Him) issues repeatedly to guilty sinners to come to Him and find rest for their souls. It is the glory of these invitations that it is an omnipotent King who gives them, just as it is a chief part of the glory of the enthroned Christ that He condescends still to utter them. And it is the glory of the gospel ministry that the preacher goes to men as Christ’s ambassador, charged to deliver the King’s invitation personally to every sinner present and to summon them all to turn and live. Owen himself enlarges on this in a passage addressed to the unconverted.

“Consider the infinite condescension and love of Christ, in his invitations and calls of you to come unto him for life, deliverance, mercy, grace, peace and eternal salvation. Multitudes of these invitations and calls are recorded in the Scripture, and they are all of them filled up with those blessed encouragements which divine wisdom knows to be suited unto lost, convinced sinners.... In the declaration and preaching of them, Jesus Christ yet stands before sinners, calling, inviting, encouraging them to come unto him.

“This is somewhat of the word which he now speaks unto you: Why will ye die? why will ye perish? why will ye not have compassion on your own souls? Can your hearts endure, or can your hands be strong, in the day of wrath that is approaching?... Look unto me, and be saved; come unto me, and I will ease you of all sins, sorrows, fears, burdens, and give rest unto your souls. Come, I entreat you; lay aside all procrastinations, all delays; put me off no more; eternity lies at the door...do not so hate me as that you will rather perish than accept of deliverance by me.

“These and the like things doth the Lord Christ continually declare, proclaim, plead and urge upon the souls of sinners.... He doth it in the preaching of the word, as if he were present with you, stood amongst you, and spake personally to every one of you.... He hath appointed the ministers of the gospel to appear before you, and to deal with you in his stead, avowing as his own the invitations which are given you in his name, 2 Cor. v. 19, 20.”

These invitations are universal; Christ addresses them to sinners, as such, and every man, as he believes God to be true, is bound to treat them as God’s words to him personally and to accept the universal assurance which accompanies them, that all who come to Christ will be received. Again, these invitations are real; Christ genuinely offers Himself to all who hear the gospel, and is in truth a perfect Saviour to all who trust Him. The question of the extent of the atonement does not arise in evangelistic preaching; the message to be delivered is simply this—that Christ Jesus, the sovereign Lord, who died for sinners, now invites sinners freely to Himself. God commands all to repent and believe; Christ promises life and peace to all who do so. Furthermore, these invitations are marvellously gracious; men despise and reject them, and are never in any case worthy of them, and yet Christ still issues them. He need not, but He does. “Come unto me...and I will give you rest” remains His word to the world, never cancelled, always to be preached. He whose death has ensured the salvation of all His people is to be proclaimed everywhere as a perfect Saviour, and all men invited and urged to believe on Him, whoever they are, whatever they have been. Upon these three insights the evangelism of the old gospel is based.

It is a very ill-informed supposition that evangelistic preaching which proceeds on these principles must be anaemic and half-hearted by comparison with what Arminians can do. Those who study the printed sermons of worthy expositors of the old gospel, such as Bunyan (whose preaching Owen himself much admired), or Whitefield, or Spurgeon, will find that in fact they hold forth the Saviour and summon sinners to Him with a fulness, warmth, intensity and moving force unmatched in Protestant pulpit literature. And it will be found on analysis that the very thing which gave their preaching its unique power to overwhelm their audiences with broken-hearted joy at the riches of God’s grace-and still gives it that power, let it be said, even with hard-boiled modern readers—was their insistence on the fact that grace is free. They knew that the dimensions of Divine love are not half understood till one realises that God need not have chosen to save nor given his Son to die; nor need Christ have taken upon him vicarious damnation to redeem men, nor need He invite sinners indiscriminately to Himself as He does; but that all God’s gracious dealings spring entirely from His own free purpose. Knowing this, they stressed it, and it is this stress that sets their evangelistic preaching in a class by itself. Other Evangelicals, possessed of a more superficial and less adequate theology of grace, have laid the main emphasis in their gospel preaching on the sinner’s need of forgiveness, or peace, or power, and of the way to get them by “deciding for Christ.” It is not to be denied that their preaching has done good (for God will use His truth, even when imperfectly held and mixed with error), although this type of evangelism is always open to the criticism of being too man-centred and pietistic; but it has been left (necessarily) to Calvinists and those who, like the Wesleys, fall into Calvinistic ways of thought as soon as they begin a sermon to the unconverted, to preach the gospel in a way which highlights above everything else the free love, willing condescension, patient long-suffering and infinite kindness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And, without doubt, this is the most Scriptural and edifying way to preach it; for gospel invitations to sinners never honour God and exalt Christ more, nor are more powerful to awaken and confirm faith, than when full weight is laid on the free omnipotence of the mercy from which they flow. It looks, indeed, as if the preachers of the old gospel are the only people whose position allows them to do justice to the revelation of Divine goodness in the free offer of Christ to sinners.

Then, in the second place, the old gospel safeguards values which the new gospel loses. We saw before that the new gospel, by asserting universal redemption and a universal Divine saving purpose, compels itself to cheapen grace and the Cross by denying that the Father and the Son are sovereign in salvation; for it assures us that, after God and Christ have done all that they can, or will, it depends finally on each man’s own choice whether God’s purpose to save him is realised or not. This position has two unhappy results. The first is that it compels us to misunderstand the significance of the gracious invitations of Christ in the gospel of which we have been speaking; for we now have to read them, not as expressions of the tender patience of a mighty sovereign, but as the pathetic pleadings of impotent desire; and so the enthroned Lord is suddenly metamorphosed into a weak, futile figure tapping forlornly at the door of the human heart, which He is powerless to open. This is a shameful dishonour to the Christ of the New Testament. The second implication is equally serious: for this view in effect denies our dependence on God when it comes to vital decisions, takes us out of His hand, tells us that we are, after all, what sin taught us to think we were—masters of our fate, captain of our souls—and so undermines the very foundation of man’s religious relationship with his Maker. It can hardly be wondered at that the converts of the new gospel are so often both irreverent and irreligious, for such is the natural tendency of this teaching. The old gospel, however, speaks very differently and has a very different tendency. On the one hand, in expounding man’s need of Christ, it stresses something which the new gospel effectively ignores—that sinners cannot obey the gospel, any more than the law, without renewal of heart. On the other hand, in declaring Christ’s power to save, it proclaims Him as the author and chief agent of conversion, coming by His Spirit as the gospel goes forth to renew men’s hearts and draw them to Himself. Accordingly, in applying the message, the old gospel, while stressing that faith is man’s duty, stresses also that faith is not in man’s power, but that God must give what He commands. It announces, not merely that men must come to Christ for salvation, but also that they cannot come unless Christ Himself draws them. Thus it labours to overthrow self-confidence, to convince sinners that their salvation is altogether out of their hands, and to shut them up to a self-despairing dependence on the glorious grace of a sovereign Saviour, not only for their righteousness but for their faith too.

It is not likely, therefore, that a preacher of the old gospel will be happy to express the application of it in the form of a demand to “decide for Christ,” as the current phrase is. For, on the one hand, this phrase carries the wrong associations. It suggests voting a person into office—an act in which the candidate plays no part beyond offering himself for election, and everything then being settled by the voter’s independent choice. But we do not vote God’s Son into office as our Saviour, nor does He remain passive while preachers campaign on His behalf, whipping up support for His cause. We ought not to think of evangelism as a kind of electioneering. And then, on the other hand, this phrase obscures the very thing that is essential in repentance and faith—the denying of self in a personal approach to Christ. It is not at all obvious that deciding for Christ is the same as coming to Him and resting on Him and turning from sin and self-effort; it sounds like something much less, and is accordingly calculated to instil defective notions of what the gospel really requires of sinners. It is not a very apt phrase from any point of view.

To the question: what must I do to be saved? the old gospel replies: believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. To the further question: what does it mean to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? its reply is: it means knowing oneself to be a sinner, and Christ to have died for sinners; abandoning all self-righteousness and self-confidence, and casting oneself wholly upon Him for pardon and peace; and exchanging one’s natural enmity and rebellion against God for a spirit of grateful submission to the will of Christ through the renewing of one’s heart by the Holy Ghost. And to the further question still: how am I to go about believing on Christ and repenting, if I have no natural ability to do these things? it answers: look to Christ, speak to Christ, cry to Christ, just as you are; confess your sin, your impenitence, your unbelief, and cast yourself on His mercy; ask Him to give you a new heart, working in you true repentance and firm faith; ask Him to take away your evil heart of unbelief and to write His law within you, that you may never henceforth stray from Him. Turn to Him and trust Him as best you can, and pray for grace to turn and trust more thoroughly; use the means of grace expectantly, looking to Christ to draw near to you as you seek to draw near to Him; watch, pray, read and hear God’s Word, worship and commune with God’s people, and so continue till you know in yourself beyond doubt that you are indeed a changed being, a penitent believer, and the new heart which you desired has been put within you. The emphasis in this advice is on the need to call upon Christ directly, as the very first step.

“Let not conscience make you linger,
Nor of fitness fondly dream;
All the fitness He requireth
Is to feel your need of Him”

—so do not postpone action till you think you are better, but honestly confess your badness and give yourself up here and now to the Christ who alone can make you better; and wait on Him till His light rises in your soul, as Scripture promises that it shall do. Anything less than this direct dealing with Christ is disobedience of the gospel. Such is the exercise of spirit to which the old evangel summons its hearers. “I believe—help thou mine unbelief”: this must become their cry.

And the old gospel is proclaimed in the sure confidence that the Christ of whom it testifies, the Christ who is the real speaker when the Scriptural invitations to trust Him are expounded and applied, is not passively waiting for man’s decision as the word goes forth, but is omnipotently active, working with and through the word to bring His people to faith in Himself. The preaching of the new gospel is often described as the task of “bringing men to Christ” if only men move, while Christ stands still. But the task of preaching the old gospel could more properly be described as bringing Christ to men, for those who preach it know that as they do their work of setting Christ before men’s eyes, the mighty Saviour whom they proclaim is busy doing His work through their words, visiting sinners with salvation, awakening them to faith, drawing them in mercy to Himself.

It is this older gospel which Owen will teach us to preach: the gospel of the sovereign grace of God in Christ as the author and finisher of faith and salvation. It is the only gospel which can be preached on Owen’s principles, but those who have tasted its sweetness will not in any case be found looking for another. In the matter of believing and preaching the gospel, as in other things, Jeremiah’s words still have their application: “Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.” To find ourselves debarred, as Owen would debar us, from taking up with the fashionable modern substitute gospel may not, after all, be a bad thing, either for us, or for the Church.

More might be said, but to go further would be to exceed the limits of an introductory essay. The foregoing remarks are made simply to show how important it is at the present time that we should attend most carefully to Owen’s analysis of what the Bible says about the saving work of Christ.

III.

It only remains to add a few remarks about this treatise itself. It was Owen’s second major work, and his first masterpiece. (Its predecessor, A Display of Arminianism, published in 1642, when Owen was twenty-six, was a competent piece of prentice-work, rather of the nature of a research thesis.)

The Death of Death is a solid book, made up of detailed exposition and close argument, and requires hard study, as Owen fully realised; a cursory glance will not yield much. (“READER.... If thou art, as many in this pretending age, a sign or title gazer, and comest into books as Cato into the theatre, to go out again—thou has had thy entertainment; farewell!”) Owen felt, however, that he had a right to ask for hard study, for his book was a product of hard work (“a more than seven-years’ serious inquiry...into the mind of God about these things, with a serious perusal of all which I could attain that the wit of man, in former or latter days, hath published in opposition to the truth”), and he was sure in his own mind that a certain finality attached to what he had written. (“Altogether hopeless of success I am not; but fully resolved that I shall not live to see a solid answer given unto it.”) Time has justified his optimism.

Something should be said about his opponents. He is writing against three variations on the theme of universal redemption: that of classical Arminianism, noted earlier; that of the theological faculty at Saumur (the position known as Amyraldism, after its leading exponent); and that of Thomas More, a lay theologian of East Anglia. The second of these views originated with a Scots professor at Saumur, John Cameron; it was taken up and developed by two of his pupils, Amyraut (Amyraldus) and Testard, and became the occasion of a prolonged controversy in which Amyraut, Daillé and Blondel were opposed by Rivet, Spanheim and Des Marets (Maresius). The Saumur position won some support among Reformed divines in Britain, being held in modified form by (among others) Bishops Usher and Davenant, and Richard Baxter. None of these, however, had advocated it in print at the time when Owen wrote.

Goold’s summary of the Saumur position may be quoted. “Admitting that, by the purpose of God, and through the death of Christ, the elect are infallibly secured in the enjoyment of salvation, they contended for an antecedent decree, by which God is free to give salvation to all men through Christ, on the condition that they believe on him. Hence their system was termed hypothetic[al] universalism. The vital difference between it and the strict Arminian theory lies in the absolute security asserted in the former for the spiritual recovery of the elect. They agree, however, in attributing some kind of universality to the atonement, and in maintaining that, on a certain condition, within the reach of fulfilment by all men...all men have access to the benefits of Christ’s death.” From this, Goold continues, “the readers of Owen will understand...why he dwells with peculiar keenness and reiteration of statement upon a refutation of the conditional system.... It was plausible; it had many learned men for its advocates; it had obtained currency in the foreign churches; and it seems to have been embraced by More.”

More is described by Thomas Edwards as “a great Sectary, that did much hurt in Lincolnshire, Norfolk, and Cambridgeshire; who was famous also in Boston, (King’s) Lynn, and even in Holland, and was followed from place to place by many.” Baxter’s description is kinder: “a Weaver of Wisbitch and Lyn, of excellent Parts.” (More’s doctrine of redemption, of course, was substantially Baxter’s own.) Owen, however, has a poor view of his abilities, and makes no secret of the fact. More’s book, The Universality of God’s Free Grace in Christ to Mankind, appeared in 1646 (not, as Goold says, 1643), and must have exercised a considerable influence, for within three years it had evoked four weighty works which were in whole or part polemics against it: A Refutation...of Thomas More, by Thomas Whitfield, 1646; Vindiciae Redemptionis, by John Stalham, 1647; The Universalist Examined and Convicted, by Obadiah Howe, 1648; and Owen’s own book, published in the same year.

More’s exposition seems to be of little intrinsic importance; Owen, however, selects it as the fullest statement of the case for universal redemption that had yet appeared in English and uses it unmercifully as a chopping-block. The modern reader, however, will probably find it convenient to skip the sections devoted to refuting More (I. viii., the closing pages of II. iii. and IV. vi.) on his first passage through Owen’s treatise.

Finally, a word about the style of this work. There is no denying that Owen is heavy and hard to read. This is not so much due to obscure arrangement as to two other factors. The first is his lumbering literary gait. “Owen travels through it (his subject) with the elephant’s grace and solid step, if sometimes also with his ungainly motion.” says Thomson. That puts it kindly. Much of Owen’s prose reads like a roughly-dashed-off translation of a piece of thinking done in Ciceronian Latin. It has, no doubt, a certain clumsy dignity; so has Stonehenge; but it is trying to the reader to have to go over sentences two or three times to see their meaning, and this necessity makes it much harder to follow an argument. The present writer, however, has found that the hard places in Owen usually come out as soon as one reads them aloud. The second obscuring factor is Owen’s austerity as an expositor. He has a lordly disdain for broad introductions which ease the mind gently into a subject, and for comprehensive summaries which gather up scattered points into a small space. He obviously carries the whole of his design in his head, and expects his readers to do the same. Nor are his chapter divisions reliable pointers to the structure of his discourse, for though a change of subject is usually marked by a chapter division, Owen often starts a new chapter where there is no break in the thought at all. Nor is he concerned about literary proportions; the space given to a topic is determined by its intrinsic complexity rather than its relative importance, and the reader is left to work out what is basic and what is secondary by noting how things link together. The reader will probably find it helpful to use a pencil and paper in his study of the book and jot down the progress of the exposition; and it is hoped that the subjoined Analysis will also be of service in helping him keep his bearings.

We would conclude by repeating that the reward to be reaped from studying Owen is worth all the labour involved, and by making the following observations for the student’s guidance. (1.) It is important to start with the epistle “To the Reader,” for there Owen indicates in short compass what he is trying to do, and why. (2.) It is important to read the treatise as a whole, in the order in which it stands, and not to jump into parts III. and IV. before mastering the contents of Parts I. and II., where the biblical foundations of Owen’s whole position are laid. (3.) It is hardly possible to grasp the strength and cogency of this massive statement on a first reading. The work must be read and re-read to be appreciated.

J. I. PACKER.