A.W.
PINK'S
THE
SOVEREIGNTY
OF GOD
SOVEREIGNTY
OF GOD
CONTENTS Note the
first page numbering listed is based on Baker Books second is this document
Pagination which should make it easier to find Principal Texts Examined
references.
- Foreword To The First Edition P 5-8; P 1-2
- Foreword To The Second Edition P 9-10; P 2-3
- Foreword To The Third Edition P 11-12; P 3
- Foreword To The Fourth Edition P 12; P 3
- Introduction P 13-22; P 3-6
- Chapter One - God's
Sovereignty Defined P 23-34; P
6-10
- Chapter Two - The
Sovereignty Of God In Creation P
35-40; P 10-11
- Chapter Three -
Sovereignty Of God In Administration P
41-58; P11-17
- Chapter Four - The
Sovereignty Of God In Salvation P
59-98; P17-28
- Chapter Five - The
Sovereignty Of God In Reprobation P
99-134; P28-38
- Chapter Six - The
Sovereignty Of God In Operation P 135-156;
P38-45
- Chapter Seven - God's
Sovereignty And The Human Will P
157-176; P45-51
- Chapter Eight -
Sovereignty And Human Responsibility P177-202;
P 51-58
- Chapter Nine - God's
Sovereignty And Prayer P 203-220;
P 58-63
- Chapter Ten - Our Attitude
Toward His Sovereignty P 221-236;
P 63-69
- Chapter Eleven -
Difficulties And Objections P
237-260; P 69-76
- Chapter Twelve - The
Value Of This Doctrine P 261- 278;
P 76-82
- Conclusion P 279-296; P 82-87
- Appendix
I The Will of God P 297-302; P
87-88
- Appendix
II The Case of Adam P 303-310; P
88-90
- Appendix
III The Meaning of “Kosmos” in John 3:16 P 311-314; P 90-91
- Appendix
IV I John 2:2 P 315-320; P 91-93
- Principal
Texts Examined P 321-322; P 93-94
FOREWORD
TO THE FIRST EDITION
In the following pages an attempt has been
made to examine anew in the light of God's Word some of the profoundest
questions which can engage the human mind. Others have grappled with these
mighty problems in days gone by and from their labors we are the gainers. While
making no claim for originality the writer, nevertheless, has endeavored to
examine and deal with his subject from an entirely independent viewpoint. We
have studied diligently the writings of such men as Augustine and Aquinas,
Calvin and Melanchthon, Jonathan Edwards and Ralph Erskine, Andrew Fuller and
Robert Haldane*. And sad it is to think that these eminent and honored names
are almost entirely unknown to the present generation. Though, of course, we do
not endorse all their conclusions, yet we gladly acknowledge our deep
indebtedness to their works. We have purposely refrained from quoting freely
from these deeply taught theologians, because we desired that the faith of our
readers should stand not in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. For this
reason we have quoted freely from the Scriptures and have
sought to furnish proof-texts for every statement we have
advanced.
It would be foolish for us to expect that
this work will meet with general approval. The trend of modern theology-if
theology it can be called-is ever toward the deification of the creature rather
than the glorification of the Creator, and the leaven of present-day
Rationalism is rapidly permeating the whole of Christendom. The malevolent
effects of Darwinianism are more far reaching than most are aware. Many of
those among our religious leaders who are still regarded as orthodox would, we
fear, be found to be very heterodox if they were weighed in the balances of the
Sanctuary. Even those who are clear intellectually, upon
*Among those who have dealt most helpfully
with the subject of God's Sovereignty in recent years we mention Drs. Rice, J.
B. Moody, and George S. Bishop, from whose writings we have also received
instruction.
other truths, are rarely sound in doctrine. Few,
very few, today, really believe in the complete ruin and total depravity
of man. Those who speak of man's "free will," and insist upon his
inherent power to either accept or reject the Saviour, do but voice their
ignorance of the real condition of Adam's fallen children. And if there are few
who believe that, so far as he is concerned, the condition of
the sinner is entirely hopeless, there are fewer still who
really believe in the absolute Sovereignty of God.
In addition to the widespread effects of
unscriptural teaching, we also have to reckon with the deplorable superficiality
of the present generation. To announce that a certain book is a treatise on
doctrine is quite sufficient to prejudice against it the great bulk of
church-members and most of our preachers as well. The craving today is for
something light and spicy, and few have patience, still less desire, to examine
carefully that which would make a demand both upon their hearts and their
mental powers. We remember, also, how that it is becoming increasingly
difficult in these strenuous days for those who are desirous
of studying the deeper things of God to find the time which such study
requires. Yet, it is still true that "Where there's a will, there's a
way," and in spite of the discouraging features referred to, we believe
there is even now a godly remnant who will take pleasure in giving this little
work a careful consideration, and such will, we trust, find in it "Meat in
due season."
We do not forget the words of one long since
passed away, namely, that "Denunciation is the last resort of a defeated
opponent." To dismiss this book with the contemptuous
epithet--"Hyper-Calvinism!" will not be worthy of notice. For
controversy we have no taste, and we shall not accept any challenge to enter
the lists against those who might desire to debate the truths discussed in
these pages. So far as our personal reputation is concerned, that we leave our
Lord to take care of, and unto Him we would now commit this volume and whatever
fruit it may bear, praying Him to use it for the enlightening of His own dear
people (insofar as it is in accord with His Holy Word) and to pardon the writer
for and preserve the reader from the injurious effects of any false teaching
that may have crept into it. If the joy and comfort which have come to the
author while penning these pages are shared by those who may scan them, then we
shall be devoutly thankful to the One whose grace alone enables us to discern
spiritual things.
June 1918 Arthur W. Pink.
It is now two years since the first edition
of this work was presented to the Christian public. Its reception has been far
more favorable than the author had expected. Many have notified him of the help
and blessing received from a perusal of his attempts to expound what is
admittedly a difficult subject. For every word of appreciation we return hearty
thanks to Him in Whose light we alone "see light." A few have
condemned the book in unqualified terms, and these we commend to God and to the
Word of His grace, remembering that it is written, "a man can receive
nothing, except it be given him from Heaven" (John 3:27).
Others have sent us friendly criticisms and these have been weighed carefully,
and we trust that, in consequence, this revised edition will be unto those who
are members of the household of faith more profitable than the former one.
One word of explanation seems to be called
for. A number of respected brethren in Christ felt that our treatment of the
Sovereignty of God was too extreme and one-sided. It has been pointed out that
a fundamental requirement in expounding the Word of God is the need of preserving
the balance of Truth. With this we are in hearty accord. Two things
are beyond dispute: God is Sovereign, and man is a responsible creature. But in
this book we are treating of the Sovereignty of God, and while the
responsibility of man is readily owned, yet, we do not pause on every page
to insist on it; instead, we have sought to stress that side
of the Truth which in these days is almost universally neglected. Probably 95
per cent of the religious literature of the day is devoted to a setting forth
of the duties and obligations of men. The fact is that those who undertake to
expound the Responsibility of man are the very ones who have lost 'the
balance of Truth' by ignoring, very largely, the Sovereignty of God. It is
perfectly right to insist on the responsibility of man, but what of
God?-has He no claims, no rights! A hundred such works as this
are needed, ten thousand sermons would have to be preached throughout the land
on this subject, if the 'balance of Truth' is to be regained. The 'balance of
Truth' has been lost, lost through a disproportionate emphasis being thrown on
the human side, to the minimizing, if not the exclusion, of the Divine side. We
grant that this book is one-sided, for it only pretends to deal with one side
of the Truth and that is, the neglected side, the Divine side. Furthermore, the
question might be raised: Which is the more to be deplored-an over emphasizing
of the human side and an insufficient emphasis on the Divine side, or, an over
emphasizing of the Divine side and an insufficient emphasis on the human side?
Surely, if we err at all it is on the right side. Surely, there is far more
danger of making too much of man and too little of God, than there is of making
too much of God and too little of man. Yea, the question might well be asked, Can
we press God's claims too far? Can we be too extreme
in insisting upon the absoluteness and universality of the Sovereignty of God?
It is with profound thankfulness to God that,
after a further two years diligent study of Holy Writ, with the earnest desire
to discover what almighty God has been pleased to reveal to His children on
this subject, we are able to testify that we see no reason for making any
retractions from what we wrote before, and while we have re-arranged the
material of this work, the substance and doctrine of it remains unchanged. May
the One Who condescended to bless the first edition of this work be pleased to
own even more widely this revision.
ARTHUR W. PINK, 1921 SWENGEL, PA.
That a third edition of this work is now
called for, is a cause of fervent praise to God. As the darkness deepens and
the pretentions of men are taking on an ever-increasing blatancy, the need
becomes greater for the claims of God to be emphasized. As the twentieth
century Babel of religious tongues is bewildering so many, the duty of God's
servants to point to the one sure anchorage for the heart, is the more
apparent. Nothing is so tranquilizing and so stabilishing as the assurance that
the Lord Himself is on the Throne of the universe, "working all things
after the counsel of His own will."
The Holy Spirit has told us that there are in
the Scriptures some things hard to be understood," but mark it is
"hard" not "impossible!" A patient waiting on the
Lord, a diligent comparison of Scripture with Scripture, often issues in a
fuller apprehension of that which before was obscure to us. During the last ten
years it has pleased God to grant us further light on certain parts of His
Word, and this we have sought to use in improving our expositions of different
passages. But it is with unfeigned thanksgiving that we find it unnecessary to
either change or modify any doctrine contained in the former
editions. Yea, as time goes by, we realize (by Divine grace) with
ever-increasing force, the truth, the importance, and the value of the
Sovereignty of God as it pertains to every branch of our lives.
Our hearts have been made to rejoice again
and again by unsolicited letters which have come to hand from every quarter of
the earth, telling of help and blessing received from the former editions of
this work. One Christian friend was so stirred by reading it and so impressed
by its testimony, that a check was sent to be used in sending free copies to
missionaries in fifty foreign countries, "that its glorious message may
encircle the globe"; numbers of whom have written us to say how much they
have been strengthened in their fight with the powers of darkness. To God alone
belongs all the glory. May He deign to use this third edition
to the honor of His own great Name, and to the feeding of His scattered and
starved sheep.
Morton's Gap, A. W. P. Kentucky 1929
It is with profound praise to "God most
high" that another edition of this valuable and helpful book is now called
for. Though its teaching runs directly counter to that which is being
promulgated on every hand today, yet we are happy to be able to say that its
circulation is increasing to the strengthening of the faith, comfort and hope
of an increasing number of God's elect. We commit this new edition to Him whom
we "delight to honor," praying that He may be pleased to bless its
circulation to the enlightening of many more of His own, to the "praise of
the glory of His grace," and a clearer apprehension of the majesty of God
and His Sovereign mercy. I. C. HERENDEEN. 1949.
Who is regulating affairs on this earth
today-God, or the Devil? That God reigns supreme in Heaven is generally
conceded; that He does so over this world, is almost universally denied-if not
directly, then indirectly. More and more are men in their philosophizing and
theorizing relegating God to the background. Take the material realm. Not only
is it denied that God created everything by personal and
direct action, but few believe that He has any immediate concern in regulating the
works of His own hands. Everything is supposed to be ordered according to the
(impersonal and abstract) "laws of Nature." Thus is the Creator
banished from His own creation. Therefore we need not be surprised that men, in
their degrading conceptions, exclude Him from the realm of human affairs.
Throughout Christendom, with an almost negligible exception, the theory is held
that man is "a free agent," and therefore, lord of his fortunes and the
determiner of his destiny. That Satan is to be blamed for much of the evil
which is in the world is freely affirmed by those who, though having so much to
say about "the responsibility of man," often deny their own
responsibility, by attributing to the Devil what, in fact, proceeds from
their own evil hearts (Mark 7:21-23).
But who is regulating
affairs on this earth today-God, or the Devil? Attempt to take a serious and
comprehensive view of the world. What a scene of confusion and chaos confronts
us on every side! Sin is rampant; lawlessness abounds; evil men and
seducers are waxing "worse and worse" (2 Tim. 3:13).
Today, everything appears to be out of joint. Thrones are creaking
and tottering, ancient dynasties are being overturned, democracies are
revolting, civilization is a demonstrated failure; half of Christendom was but
recently locked-together in a death grapple; and now that the titanic conflict
is over, instead of the world having been made "safe for democracy,"
we have discovered that democracy is very unsafe for the
world. Unrest, discontent, and lawlessness are rife everywhere, and none can
say how soon another great war will be set in motion. Statesmen are perplexed
and staggered. Men's hearts are "failing them for fear, and for looking
after those things which are coming on the earth" (Luke 21:26).
Do these things look as though God had full
control?
But let us confine our attention to the
religious realm. After nineteen centuries of Gospel preaching, Christ is still
"despised and rejected of men." Worse still, He (the
Christ of Scripture) is proclaimed and magnified by very few. In the majority
of modern pulpits He is dishonored and disowned. Despite frantic efforts to
attract the crowds, the majority of the churches are being emptied rather than
filled. And what of the great masses of non-church goers? In the light of
Scripture we are compelled to believe that the "many" are on the
Broad Road that leadeth to destruction, and that only "few" are on
the Narrow Way that leadeth unto life. Many are declaring that Christianity is
a failure, and despair is settling on many faces. Not a few of the Lord's own
people are bewildered, and their faith is being severely tried. And what of
God? Does He see and hear? Is He impotent or indifferent? A number of
those who are regarded as leaders of Christian-thought told us that God could
not help the coming of the late awful War, and that He was unable to
bring about its termination. It was said, and said openly, that conditions
were beyond God's control. Do these things look as
though God were ruling the world?
Who is regulating affairs on this earth
today-God, or the Devil? What impression is made upon the minds of those men of
the world who, occasionally, attend a Gospel service? What are the conceptions
formed by those who hear even those preachers who are counted as
"orthodox?" Is it not that a disappointed God is the
One whom Christians believe in? From what is heard from the average evangelist
today, is not any serious hearer obliged to conclude that he
professes to represent a God who is filled with benevolent intentions, yet
unable to carry them out; that He is earnestly desirous of blessing men, but
that they will not let Him? Then, must not the average hearer
draw the inference that the Devil has gained the upper hand, and that God is to
be pitied rather than blamed?
But does not everything seem to show that the
Devil has far more to do with the affairs of earth than God
has? Ah, it all depends upon whether we are walking by faith, or walking by
sight. Are your thoughts, my reader, concerning this world and God's relation
to it, based upon what you see? Face this question seriously
and honestly. And if you are a Christian you will, most probably, have cause to
bow your head with shame and sorrow, and to acknowledge that it is so.
Alas, in reality, we walk very little "by faith." But what does
"walking by faith" signify? It means that our thoughts are formed,
our actions regulated, our lives molded by the Holy Scriptures, for,
"faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God" (Rom. 10:17). It
is from the Word of Truth, and that alone, that we can learn what is God's
relation to this world.
Who is regulating affairs on this earth
today-God or the Devil? What saith the Scriptures? Ere we
consider the direct reply to this query, let it be said that the
Scriptures predicted just what we now see and hear. The
prophecy of Jude is in course of fulfillment. It would lead us too far astray
from our present inquiry to fully amplify this assertion, but what we have
particularly in mind is a sentence in verse 8-"Likewise also these filthy
dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion and speak evil of
dignities." Yes, they "speak evil" of the Supreme
Dignity, the "Only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords."
Ours is peculiarly an age of irreverence, and as the consequence, the spirit of
lawlessness, which brooks no restraint and which is desirous of casting off
everything which interferes with the free course of self-will, is rapidly
engulfing the earth like some giant tidal wave. The members of the rising
generation are the most flagrant offenders, and in the decay and disappearing
of parental authority we have the certain precursor of the abolition of civic
authority. Therefore, in view of the growing disrespect for human law and the
refusal to "render honor to whom honor is due," we need not be
surprised that the recognition of the majesty, the authority, the Sovereignty
of the Almighty law-giver should recede more and more into the background, and
the masses have less and less patience with those who insist upon them. And
conditions will not improve; instead, the more sure Word of Prophecy makes
known to us that they will grow worse and worse. Nor do we expect to be able to
stem the tide-it has already risen much too high for that. All we can now hope
to do is warn our fellow-saints against the spirit of the age, and thus seek to
counteract its baneful influence upon them.
Who is regulating affairs on this earth
today-God, or the Devil? What saith the Scriptures? If we believe their plain
and positive declarations, no room is left for uncertainty. They affirm, again
and again, that God is on the throne of the universe; that the sceptre is in
His hands; that He is directing all things "after the
counsel of His own will." They affirm, not only that God created all
things, but also that God is ruling and reigning over all the works of His
hands. They affirm that God is the "Almighty," that His will is
irreversible, that He is absolute Sovereign in every realm of all His vast
dominions. And surely it must be so. Only two alternatives are
possible: God must either rule, or be ruled; sway, or be swayed; accomplish His
own will, or be thwarted by His creatures. Accepting the fact that He is the
"Most High," the only Potentate and King of kings, vested with
perfect wisdom and illimitable power, and the conclusion is irresistible that
He must be God in fact as well as in name.
It is in view of what we have briefly
referred to above that we say, Present-day conditions call loudly for a new
examination and new presentation of God's omnipotency, God's sufficiency, God's
Sovereignty. From every pulpit in the land it needs to be thundered forth that
God still lives, that God still observes, that God still reigns. Faith is now
in the crucible, it is being tested by fire, and there is no fixed and
sufficient resting-place for the heart and mind but in the Throne of
God. What is needed now, as never before, is a full, positive,
constructive setting forth of the Godhood of God. Drastic diseases call for
drastic remedies. People are weary of platitudes and mere generalizations-the
call is for something definite and specific. Soothing-syrup may serve for
peevish children, but an iron tonic is better suited for adults, and we know of
nothing which is more calculated to infuse spiritual vigor into our frames than
a scriptural apprehension of the full character of God. It is written,
"The people that do know their God shall be strong and do
exploits" (Dan. 11:32).
Without a doubt a world-crisis is at hand,
and everywhere men are alarmed. But God is not! He is never
taken by surprise. It is no unexpected emergency which now confronts Him, for
He is the One who "worketh all things after the counsel of His own
will" (Eph. 1:11).
Hence, though the world is panic-stricken, the word to the believer is,
"Fear not!" "All things" are subject to His immediate
control: "all things" are moving in accord with His eternal purpose,
and therefore "all things" are "working together for
good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to
His purpose." It must be so, for "of Him, and through Him, and to Him
are all things" (Rom. 11:36). Yet
how little is this realized today even by the people of God! Many suppose that
He is little more than a far-distant Spectator, taking no immediate hand in the
affairs of earth. It is true that man is endowed with power, but God is
all-powerful. It is true that, speaking generally, the material world is
regulated by law, but behind that law is the law-Giver and law-Administrator.
Man is but the creature. God is the Creator, and endless ages before man first
saw the light "the mighty God" (Isa. 9:6)
existed, and ere the world was founded, made His plans; and being infinite in
power and man only finite, His purpose and plan cannot be withstood or thwarted
by the creatures of His own hands.
We readily acknowledge that life is a
profound problem, and that we are surrounded by mystery on every side; but we
are not like the beasts of the field-ignorant of their origin, and unconscious
of what is before them. No: "We have also a more sure
Word of Prophecy," of which it is said ye do well that ye "take heed,
as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day
star arise in your hearts" (2 Peter 1:19). And
it is to this Word of Prophecy we indeed do well to "take heed," to
that Word which had not its origin in the mind of man but in the Mind of God,
for, "the prophecy came not at any time by the will of man: but holy men
of God spake moved by the Holy Spirit." We say again, it is to this
"Word" we do well to take heed. As we turn to this Word and
are instructed thereout, we discover a fundamental principle which must be
applied to every problem: Instead of beginning with man and his world and
working back to God, we must begin with God and work down to man-"In the
beginning God!" Apply this principle to the present
situation. Begin with the world as it is today and try and work back to God,
and everything will seem to show that God has no connection with the world at
all. But begin with God and work down to the world, and light, much light, is
cast on the problem. Because God is holy His anger burns
against sin; because God is righteous His judgments fall upon those
who rebel against Him; because God is faithful the solemn
threatenings of His Word are fulfilled; because God is omnipotent none
can successfully resist Him, still less overthrow His counsel; and because God
is omniscient no problem can master Him and no difficulty baffle
His wisdom. It is just because God is who He is and what He is that we are now
beholding on earth what we do-the beginning of His outpoured judgments: in view
of His inflexible justice and immaculate holiness we could not expect anything
other than what is now spread before our eyes.
But let it be said very emphatically that the
heart can only rest upon and enjoy the blessed truth of the
absolute Sovereignty of God as faith is in exercise. Faith is
ever occupied with God. That is the character of it; that is
what differentiates it from intellectual theology. Faith endures "as
seeing Him who is invisible" (Heb. 11:27):
endures the disappointments, the hardships, and the heartaches of life by
recognizing that all comes from the hand of Him who is too
wise to err and too loving to be unkind. But so long as we are occupied with
any other object than God Himself there will be neither rest for the heart nor
peace for the mind. But when we receive all that enters our lives as from His
hand, then, no matter what may be our circumstances or surroundings-whether
in a hovel, a prison-dungeon, or a martyr's stake-we shall be enabled to say,
"The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places" (Psa. 16:6).
But that is the language of faith, not of
sight or of sense.
But if instead of bowing to the testimony of
Holy Writ, if instead of walking by faith, we follow the evidence of our eyes,
and reason therefrom, we shall fall into a quagmire of virtual
atheism. Or, if we are regulated by the opinions and views of others, peace
will be at an end. Granted that there is much in this world of
sin and suffering which appalls and saddens us; granted that there is much in
the providential dealings of God which startle and stagger us; that is no
reason why we should unite with the unbelieving worldling who says, "If I
were God, I would not allow this or tolerate that," etc. Better far, in
the presence of bewildering mystery, to say with one of old, "I was dumb,
I opened not my mouth: because Thou didst it" (Psa. 39:9).
Scripture tells us that God's judgments are "unsearchable,"
and His ways "past finding out" (Rom. 11:33). It
must be so if faith is to be tested, confidence in His wisdom and righteousness
strengthened, and submission to His holy will fostered.
Here is the fundamental difference between
the man of faith and the man of unbelief. The unbeliever is "of the
world," judges everything by worldly standards, views life from the
standpoint of time and sense, and weighs everything in the balances of his own
carnal making. But the man of faith brings in God, looks at
everything from His standpoint, estimates values by spiritual
standards, and views life in the light of eternity. Doing this, he receives
whatever comes as from the hand of God. Doing this, his heart is calm in the
midst of the storm. Doing this, he "rejoices in hope of the glory of
God."
In these opening paragraphs we have indicated
the lines of thought followed out in this book. Our first postulate is, that
because God is God He does as He pleases, only as He pleases,
always as He pleases; that His great concern is the accomplishment of His own
pleasure and the promotion of His own glory; that He is the Supreme Being, and
therefore Sovereign of the universe. Starting with this postulate we have
contemplated the exercise of God's Sovereignty, first in
Creation, second in Governmental Administration over the works of His hands,
third in the Salvation of His own elect, fourth in the Reprobation of the
wicked, and fifth in Operation upon and within men. Next we have viewed the
Sovereignty of God as it relates to the human Will in particular and human
Responsibility in general, and have sought to show what is the only becoming
attitude for the creature to take in view of the majesty of the Creator. A
separate chapter has been set apart for a consideration of some of the
difficulties which are involved, and to answering the questions which are
likely to be raised in the minds of our readers; while one chapter has been
devoted to a more careful yet brief examination of God's Sovereignty in
relation to prayer. Finally, we have sought to show that the Sovereignty of God
is a truth revealed to us in Scripture for the comfort of our hearts, the
strengthening of our souls, and the blessing of our lives. A due apprehension
of God's Sovereignty promotes the spirit of worship, provides an incentive to
practical godliness, and inspires zeal in service. It is deeply humbling to the
human heart, but in proportion to the degree that it brings man into the dust
before his Maker, to that extent is God glorified.
We are well aware that what we have written
is in open opposition to much of the teaching that is current both in religious
literature and in the representative pulpits of the land. We freely grant that
the postulate of God's Sovereignty with all its corollaries is at direct
variance with the opinions and thoughts of the natural man, but the truth is,
we are quite unable to think upon these matters: we
are incompetent for forming a proper estimate of God's
character and ways, and it is because of this that God has given us a
revelation of His mind, and in that revelation He plainly
declares, "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). In view of this
Scripture, it is only to be expected that much of the contents of the
Bible conflicts with the sentiments of the carnal mind, which
is enmity against God. Our appeal then is not to the popular
beliefs of the day, nor to the creeds of the churches, but to the Law and
Testimony of Jehovah. All that we ask for is an impartial and attentive examination
of what we have written, and that made prayerfully in the light of the Lamp of
Truth. May the reader heed the Divine admonition to "prove all things;
hold fast that which is good" (1 Thess. 5:21).
CHAPTER
ONE
GOD'S
SOVEREIGNTY DEFINED
"Thine,
O LORD, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and
the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is Thine; Thine is
the kingdom, O LORD, and Thou art exalted as Head above all" (1 Chron. 29:11).
The Sovereignty of God is an expression that
once was generally understood. It was a phrase commonly used in religious literature.
It was a theme frequently expounded in the pulpit. It was a truth which brought
comfort to many hearts, and gave virility and stability to Christian character.
But, today, to make mention of God's Sovereignty is, in many quarters, to speak
in an unknown tongue. Were we to announce from the average pulpit that the
subject of our discourse would be the Sovereignty of God, it would sound very
much as though we had borrowed a phrase from one of the dead languages. Alas!
that it should be so. Alas! that the doctrine which is the key to history, the
interpreter of Providence, the warp and woof of Scripture, and the foundation
of Christian theology should be so sadly neglected and so little understood.
The Sovereignty of God. What do we mean by
this expression? We mean the supremacy of God, the kingship of God, the
god-hood of God. To say that God is Sovereign is to declare that God is God. To
say that God is Sovereign is to declare that He is the Most High, doing
according to His will in the army of Heaven, and among the inhabitants of the
earth, so that none can stay His hand or say unto Him what doest Thou? (Dan. 4:35). To
say that God is Sovereign is to declare that He is the Almighty, the Possessor
of all power in Heaven and earth, so that none can defeat His counsels, thwart
His purpose, or resist His will (Psa. 115:3). To
say that God is Sovereign is to declare that He is "The Governor among the
nations" (Psa. 22:28),
setting up kingdoms, overthrowing empires, and determining the course of
dynasties as pleaseth Him best. To say that God is Sovereign is to declare that
He is the "Only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords" (1 Tim. 6:15).
Such is the God of the Bible.
How different is the God of the Bible from
the God of modern Christendom! The conception of Deity which prevails most
widely today, even among those who profess to give heed to the Scriptures, is a
miserable caricature, a blasphemous travesty of the Truth. The God of the
twentieth century is a helpless, effeminate being who commands the respect of
no really thoughtful man. The God of the popular mind is the creation of
maudlin sentimentality. The God of many a present-day pulpit is an object of
pity rather than of awe-inspiring reverence. To say that God the Father has
purposed the salvation of all mankind, that God the Son died with the express
intention of saving the whole human race, and that God the Holy Spirit is now
seeking to win the world to Christ; when, as a matter of common observation, it
is apparent that the great majority of our fellowmen are dying in sin, and
passing into a hopeless eternity; is to say that God the Father is disappointed, that
God the Son is dissatisfied, and that God the Holy Spirit is defeated. We
have stated the issue baldly, but there is no escaping the conclusion. To argue
that God is "trying His best" to save all mankind, but that the
majority of men will not let Him save them, is to insist that the will of the
Creator is impotent, and that the will of the creature is omnipotent. To throw
the blame, as many do, upon the Devil, does not remove the difficulty, for if
Satan is defeating the purpose of God, then, Satan is Almighty and God is no
longer the Supreme Being.
To declare that the Creator's original plan has
been frustrated by sin, is to dethrone God. To suggest that
God was taken by surprise in Eden and that He is now attempting to remedy an
unforeseen calamity, is to degrade the Most High to the level
of a finite, erring mortal. To argue that man is a free moral agent and the
determiner of his own destiny, and that therefore he has the power to checkmate
his Maker, is to strip God of the attribute of Omnipotence. To
say that the creature has burst the bounds assigned by his Creator, and that
God is now practically a helpless Spectator before the sin and suffering
entailed by Adam's fall, is to repudiate the express
declaration of Holy Writ, namely, "Surely the wrath of man shall praise
Thee: the remainder of wrath shalt Thou restrain" (Psa. 76:10). In
a word, to deny the Sovereignty of God is to enter upon a path which, if
followed to its logical terminus, is to arrive at blank atheism.
The Sovereignty of the God of Scripture is
absolute, irresistible, infinite. When we say that God is Sovereign we affirm
His right to govern the universe which He has made for His own glory, just as
He pleases. We affirm that His right is the right of the
Potter over the clay, i. e., that He may mold that clay into whatsoever form He
chooses, fashioning out of the same lump one vessel unto honor and
another unto dishonor. We affirm that He is under no rule or law outside of His
own will and nature, that God is a law unto
Himself, and that He is under no obligation to give an account of His matters
to any.
Sovereignty characterizes the whole Being of
God. He is Sovereign in all His attributes. He is Sovereign
in the exercise of His power. His power is exercised as He
wills, when He wills, where He wills. This
fact is evidenced on every page of Scripture. For a long season that power
appears to be dormant, and then it is put forth in irresistible might. Pharaoh
dared to hinder Israel from going forth to worship Jehovah in the
wilderness-what happened? God exercised His power, His people were delivered
and their cruel task-masters slain. But a little later, the Amalekites dared to
attack these same Israelites in the wilderness, and what happened? Did God put
forth His power on this occasion and display His hand as He did at the Red Sea?
Were these enemies of His people promptly overthrown and destroyed? No, on the
contrary, the Lord swore that He would "have war with Amalek from
generation to generation" (Exo. 17:16).
Again, when Israel entered the land of Canaan, God's power was
signally displayed. The city of Jericho barred their progress-what happened?
Israel did not draw a bow nor strike a blow: the Lord stretched forth His hand
and the walls fell down flat. But the miracle was never repeated! No
other city fell after this manner. Every other city had to be captured
by the sword!
Many other instances might be adduced
illustrating the Sovereign exercise of God's power. Take one other example. God
put forth His power and David was delivered from Goliath, the giant; the mouths
of the lions were closed and Daniel escaped unhurt; the three Hebrew children
were cast into the burning fiery furnace and came forth unharmed and
unscorched. But God's power did not always interpose for the
deliverance of His people, for we read: "And others had
trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and
imprisonment: they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were
slain with the sword; they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being
destitute, afflicted, tormented" (Heb. 11:36, 37). But why? Why were not
these men of faith delivered like the others? Or, why were not the others
suffered to be killed like these? Why should God's power interpose and rescue
some and not the others? Why allow Stephen to be stoned to death, and then
deliver Peter from prison?
God is Sovereign
in the delegation of His power to others. Why did God endow Methuselah
with a vitality which enabled him to outlive all his contemporaries? Why did
God impart to Samson a physical strength which no other human has ever possessed?
Again; it is written, "But thou shalt remember the Lord thy God: for it is
He that giveth thee power to get wealth" (Deut. 8:18), but
God does not bestow this power on all alike. Why not? Why has He given such
power to men like Morgan, Carnegie, Rockefeller? The answer to all of these
questions is, Because God is Sovereign, and being Sovereign He does as He
pleases.
God is Sovereign in the exercise of His
mercy. Necessarily so, for mercy is directed by
the will of Him that showeth mercy. Mercy is not a right to
which man is entitled. Mercy is that adorable attribute of God by which He
pities and relieves the wretched. But under the righteous government of God no
one is wretched who does not deserve to be so. The objects of
mercy, then, are those who are miserable, and all misery is the result of sin, hence
the miserable are deserving of punishment not mercy. To speak of deserving
mercy is a contradiction of terms.
God bestows His mercies on whom He pleases
and withholds them as seemeth good unto Himself. A remarkable illustration of
this fact is seen in the manner that God responded to the prayers of two men
offered under very similar circumstances. Sentence of death was passed upon
Moses for one act of disobedience, and he besought the Lord for a reprieve. But
was his desire gratified? No; he told Israel, "The LORD was wroth with me
for your sakes, and would not hear me: and the LORD
said unto me, Let it suffice thee" (Deut. 3:26). Now
mark the second case: "In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And the
prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz came to him, and said unto him, Thus saith the
LORD, Set thine house in order; for thou shalt die, and not live. Then he
turned his face to the wall, and prayed unto the LORD, saying, I beseech Thee,
O LORD, remember now how I have walked before Thee in truth and with a perfect
heart, and have done that which is good in Thy sight. And Hezekiah wept sore.
And it came to pass, afore Isaiah was gone out into the middle court, that the
word of the LORD came to him, saying, Turn again, and tell Hezekiah the captain
of my people, Thus saith the LORD, the God of David thy father, I have
heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will heal thee: on
the third day thou shalt go unto the house of the LORD. And I will add unto thy
days fifteen years" (2 Kings 20:1-6).
Both of these men had the sentence of death in themselves, and both prayed
earnestly unto the Lord for a reprieve: the one wrote: "The Lord would not
hear me," and died; but to the other it was said, "I have heard thy
prayer," and his life was spared. What an illustration and exemplification
of the truth expressed in Romans 9:15!-"For
He saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and
I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion."
The Sovereign exercise of God's mercy-pity
shown to the wretched-was displayed when Jehovah became flesh and tabernacled
among men. Take one illustration. During one of the Feasts of the Jews, the
Lord Jesus went up to Jerusalem. He came to the Pool of Bethesda where
lay "a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt,
withered, waiting for the moving of the water." Among this "great
multitude" there was "a certain man which had an infirmity thirty and
eight years." What happened? "When Jesus saw him He,
and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt
thou be made whole? The impotent man answer Him, Sir, I have no man, when the
water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but when I am coming, another
steppeth down before me. Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.
And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked" (John 5:3-9). Why
was this one man singled out from all the others? We are not told that he cried
"Lord, have mercy on me." There is not a word in the narrative which
intimates that this man possessed any qualifications which entitled him to
receive special favor. Here then was a case of the Sovereign exercise of Divine
mercy, for it was just as easy for Christ to heal the whole of that "great
multitude" as this one "certain man." But He did not. He put
forth His power and relieved the wretchedness of this one particular sufferer,
and for some reason known only to Himself, He declined to do the same for the
others. Again, we say, what an illustration and exemplification of Romans 9:15!-"I
will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I
will have compassion."
God is Sovereign in the exercise of His
love. Ah! that is a hard saying, who then can
receive it? It is written, "A man can receive nothing, except it be given
him from Heaven" (John 3:27).
When we say that God is Sovereign in the exercise of His love, we mean that He
loves whom He chooses. God does not love everybody*; if He did, He would love
the Devil. Why does not God love the Devil? Because there is nothing in
him to love; because there is nothing in him to attract the
heart of God. Nor is there anything to attract God's love in
any of the fallen sons of Adam, for all of them are, by
nature, "children of wrath" (Eph. 2:3). If
then there is nothing in any member of the human race to attract God's love,
and if, notwithstanding, He does love some, then
it necessarily follows that the cause of His love must be found in Himself,
which is only another way of saying that the exercise of God's love towards the
fallen sons of men is according to His own good pleasure.
In the final analysis, the exercise of God's
love must he traced back to His Sovereignty or, otherwise, He
would love by rule; and if He loved by rule, then is He
under a law of love, and if He is under alaw of
love then is He not supreme, but is Himself ruled by law.
"But," it may be asked, "Surely you do not deny that
God loves the entire human family?" We reply, it is written, "Jacob
have I loved, but Esau have I hated" (Rom. 9:13). If
then God loved Jacob and hated Esau, and that before they were born or had done
either good or evil, then the reason for His love was not in
them, but in Himself.
That the exercise of God's love is according
to His own Sovereign pleasure is also clear from the language of Ephesians 1:3-5,
where we read, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:
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. Having
predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself according
to the good pleasure of His will." It was "in
love" that God the Father predestined His chosen ones unto the
adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself,
"according"-according to what? According to some
excellency He discovered in them? No. What then? According to what He foresaw they
would become? No; mark carefully the inspired answer-"According to the
good pleasure of His will."
We are not unmindful of the fact that men
have invented the distinction between God's love of complacency and
His love of compassion, but this is an invention
pure and simple. Scripture terms the latter God's
"pity" (see Matt. 18:33), and
"He is kind unto the unthankful and the evil" (Luke 6:35)!
God is Sovereign in the exercise of His
grace. This of necessity, for grace is favor shown
to the undeserving, yea, to the Hell-deserving. Grace is the
antithesis of justice. Justice demands the impartial enforcement of law.
Justice requires that each shall receive his legitimate due, neither more nor
less. Justice bestows no favors and is no respecter of persons. Justice, as
such, shows no pity and knows no mercy. But after justice has been fully
satisfied, grace flows forth. Divine grace is not exercised at the expense of
justice, but "grace reigns through righteousness" (Rom. 5:21), and
if grace "reigns," then is grace Sovereign.
Grace has been defined as the unmerited favor
of God*; and if unmerited, then none can claim it as their inalienable right.
If grace is unearned and undeserved, then none are entitled to
it. If grace is a gift, then none can demand it. Therefore, as
salvation is by grace, the free gift of God, then He bestows it on whom He
pleases. Because salvation is by grace, the very chief of sinners is not beyond
the reach of Divine mercy. Because salvation is by grace, boasting is excluded
and God gets all the glory.
The Sovereign exercise of grace is
illustrated on nearly every page of Scripture. The Gentiles are left to walk in
their own ways while Israel becomes the covenant people of Jehovah. Ishmael the
firstborn is cast out comparatively unblest, while Isaac the son of his
parents' old age is made the child of promise. Esau the generous-hearted and
forgiving-spirited is denied the blessing, though he sought it carefully with
tears, while the worm Jacob receives the inheritance and is fashioned into a
vessel of honor. So in the New Testament. Divine Truth is hidden from the wise
and prudent, but is revealed to babes. The Pharisees and Sadducees
*An esteemed friend who kindly read through
this book in its manuscript form, and to whom we are indebted for a number of
excellent suggestions, has pointed out that grace is something more than
"unmerited favor." To feed a tramp who calls on me is "unmerited
favor," but it is scarcely grace. But suppose that
after robbing me I should feed this starving tramp-that would
be "grace." Grace, then, is favor shown where there is positive
de-merit in the one receiving it.
are left to go their own way, while publicans
and harlots are drawn by the cords of love.
In a remarkable manner Divine grace was
exercised at the time of the Saviour's birth. The incarnation of God's Son was
one of the greatest events in the history of the universe, and yet its actual
occurrence was not made known to all mankind; instead, it was specially
revealed to the Bethlehem shepherds and wise men of the East. And this was
prophetic and indicative of the entire course of this dispensation, for even
today Christ is not made known to all. It would have been an easy matter for
God to have sent a company of angels to every nation and to have
announced the birth of His Son. But He did not. God could have readily
attracted the attention of all mankind to the "star"; but He did not.
Why? Because God is Sovereign and dispenses His favors as He pleases. Note
particularly the two classes to whom the birth of the Saviour was made
known, namely, the most unlikely classes-illiterate shepherds
and heathen from a far country. No angel stood before the Sanhedrin and
announced the advent of Israel's Messiah! No "star" appeared unto the
scribes and lawyers as they, in their pride and self-righteousness, searched
the Scriptures! They searched diligently to find out where He should be born,
and yet it was not made known to them when He was actually
come. What a display of Divine Sovereignty-the illiterate shepherds singled out
for peculiar honor, and the learned and eminent passed by! And why was
the birth of the Saviour revealed to these foreigners, and not to those in
whose midst He was born? See in this a wonderful foreshadowing of God's
dealings with our race throughout the entire Christian dispensation-Sovereign
in the exercise of His grace, bestowing His favors on whom He pleases, often on
the most unlikely and unworthy. *
It has been pointed out to us that God's
Sovereignty was signally displayed in His choice of the place where
His Son was born. Not to Greece or Italy did the Lord of Glory come, but to the
insignificant land of Palestine! Not in Jerusalem-the royal city-was Immanuel
born, but in Bethlehem, which was "little among the
thousands (of towns and villages) in Judah" (Micah 5:2)! And
it was in despised Nazareth that He grew up!! Truly, God's ways are
not ours.
CHAPTER
TWO
THE
SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD IN CREATION
"Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and honor, and power: for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created" (Rev. 4:11).
Having shown that Sovereignty characterizes
the whole Being of God, let us now observe how it marks all His ways and
dealings.
In the great expanse of eternity which
stretches behind Genesis 1:1, the
universe was unborn and creation existed only in the mind of the great Creator.
In His Sovereign majesty God dwelt all alone. We refer to that far distant
period before the heavens and the earth were created. There were then no angels
to hymn God's praises, no creatures to occupy His notice, no rebels to be
brought into subjection. The great God was all alone amid the awful Silence of
His own vast universe. But even at that time, if time it could be called, God
was Sovereign. He might create or not create according to His own good
pleasure. He might create this way or that way; He might create one
world or one million worlds, and who was there to resist His will? He might
call into existence a million different creatures and place them on absolute
equality, endowing them with the same faculties and placing them in
the same environment; or, He might create a million creatures each differing
from the others, and possessing nothing in common save their creaturehood, and
who was there to challenge His right? If He so pleased, He might call into
existence a world so immense that its dimensions were utterly beyond finite
computation; and were He so disposed, He might create an organism so small that
nothing but the most powerful microscope could reveal its existence to human
eyes. It was His Sovereign right to create, on the one hand, the
exalted seraphim to burn around His throne, and on the other hand, the tiny
insect which dies the same hour that it is born. If the mighty God chose to
have one vast gradation in His universe, from loftiest seraph
to creeping reptile, from revolving worlds to floating atoms, from macrocosm to
microcosm, instead of making everything uniform, who was there
to question His Sovereign pleasure?
Behold then the exercise of Divine
Sovereignty long before man ever saw the light. With whom took God counsel in
the creation and disposition of His creatures? See the birds as they fly
through the air, the beasts as they roam the earth, the fishes as they swim in
the sea, and then ask, Who was it that made them to differ? Was it not their
Creator who Sovereignly assigned their various locations and
adaptations to them!
Turn your eye to the heavens and observe the mysteries of Divine Sovereignty which
there confront the thoughtful beholder: "There is one glory of the sun,
and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth
from another star in glory" (1 Cor. 15:41). But
why should they? Why should the sun be more glorious than all the other
planets? Why should there be stars of the first magnitude and others of the
tenth? Why such amazing inequalities? Why should some of the
heavenly bodies be more favorably placed than others in their
relation to the sun? And why should there be "shooting stars,"
falling stars, "wandering stars" (Jude 13), in
a word, ruined stars? And the only possible answer is,
"For Thy pleasure they are and were created" (Rev. 4:11).
Come now to our
own planet. Why should two thirds of its surface be covered with water, and
why should so much of its remaining third be unfit for human cultivation or habitation?
Why should there be vast stretches of marshes, deserts and ice-fields? Why
should one country be so inferior, topographically, from another? Why should
one be fertile, and another almost barren? Why should one be rich in minerals
and another own none? Why should the climate of one be congenial and healthy,
and another uncongenial and unhealthy? Why should one abound in rivers and
lakes, and another be almost devoid of them? Why should one be constantly
troubled with earthquakes, and another be almost entirely free from then? Why?
Because thus it pleased the Creator and Upholder of all things.
Look at the animal kingdom and note the wondrous variety. What comparison is
possible between the lion and the lamb, the bear and the kid, the elephant and the
mouse? Some, like the horse and the dog, are gifted with great intelligence;
while others, like sheep and swine, are almost devoid of it. Why? Some are
designed to be beasts of burden, while others enjoy a life of freedom. But why
should the mule and the donkey be shackled to a life of drudgery while the lion
and tiger are allowed to roam the jungle at their pleasure? Some are fit for
food, others unfit; some are beautiful, others ugly; some are endowed with
great strength, others are quite helpless; some are fleet of foot, others can
scarcely crawl-contrast the hare and the tortoise; some are of use to man,
others appear to be quite valueless; some live for centuries, others a few
months at most; some are tame, others fierce. But why all these variations and
differences? What is true of the animals is equally true of the birds and
fishes.
But consider now the vegetable
kingdom. Why should roses have thorns, and lilies grow without them?
Why should one flower emit a fragrant aroma and another have none? Why should
one tree bear fruit which is wholesome and another that which is poisonous? Why
should one vegetable be capable of enduring frost and another wither under it?
Why should one apple tree be loaded with fruit, and another tree of the same
age and in the same orchard be almost barren? Why should one plant flower a
dozen times in a year and another bear blossoms but once a century? Truly, "whatsoever
the LORD pleased, that did He in Heaven, and in the earth, in the
seas, and all deep places" (Psa. 135:6).
Consider the angelic hosts. Surely we shall find uniformity here. But no; there, as
elsewhere, the same Sovereign pleasure of the Creator is displayed. Some are
higher in rank than others; some are more powerful than others; some are nearer
to God than others. Scripture reveals a definite and well-defined gradation in
the angelic orders. From arch-angel, past seraphim and cherubim, we come to
"principalities and powers" (Eph. 3:10), and
from principalities and powers to "rulers" (Eph. 6:12), and
then to the angels themselves, and even among them we read of "the elect
angels" (1 Tim. 5:21).
Again we ask, Why this inequality, this difference in rank and
order? And all we can say is "Our God is in the heavens, He hath done
whatsoever He hath pleased" (Psa. 115:3).
If then we see the Sovereignty of God
displayed throughout all creation, why should it be thought a strange thing if
we behold it operating in the midst of the human family? Why should
it be thought strange if to one God is pleased to give five talents and to
another only one? Why should it be thought strange if one is born with a robust
constitution and another of the same parents is frail and sickly? Why should it
be thought strange if Abel is cut off in his prime, while Cain is suffered to
live on for many years? Why should it be thought strange that some should be
born black and others white; some be born idiots and others with high intellectual
endowments; some be born constitutionally lethargic and others full of energy;
some be born with a temperament that is selfish, fiery, egotistical, others who
are naturally self-sacrificing, submissive and meek? Why should it be thought
strange if some are qualified by nature to lead and rule, while others are only
fitted to follow and serve? Heredity and environment cannot account for all
these variations and inequalities. No; it is God who maketh
one to differ from another. Why should He? "Even so, Father, for so it
seemed good in Thy sight" must be our reply.
Learn then this basic truth, that the Creator
is absolute Sovereign, executing His own will, performing His own pleasure, and
considering nought but His own glory. "The LORD hath made all things
FOR HIMSELF" (Prov. 16:4). And
had He not a perfect right to? Since God is God,
who dare challenge His prerogative? To murmur against Him is rank rebellion. To
question His ways is to impugn His wisdom. To criticize Him is sin of the
deepest dye. Have we forgotten who He is? Behold, "All nations
before Him as are nothing; and they are counted to Him less than nothing, and
vanity. To whom then will ye liken God?" (Isa. 40:17, 18).
CHAPTER
THREE
SOVEREIGNTY
OF GOD IN ADMINISTRATION
First, a word concerning the need for
God to govern the material world. Suppose the opposite for a
moment. For the sake of argument, let us say that God created the world,
designed and fixed certain laws (which men term "the laws of
Nature"), and that He then withdrew, leaving the world to
its fortune and the out-working of these laws. In such a case, we should have a
world over which there was no intelligent, presiding Governor, a world
controlled by nothing more than impersonal laws-a concept
worthy of gross Materialism and blank Atheism. But, I say, suppose it for a
moment; and in the light of such a supposition weigh well the following
question: What guaranty have we that some day ere long the world will not be
destroyed? A very superficial observation of 'the laws of Nature' reveals the
fact that they are not uniform in their working. The proof of
this is seen in the fact that no two seasons are alike. If then Nature's laws
are irregular in their operations, what guaranty have we against some dreadful
catastrophe striking our earth? "The wind bloweth where it
listeth" (pleaseth), which means that man can neither harness nor
hinder it. Sometimes the wind blows with great fury, and it might be that it
should suddenly gather in volume and velocity until it became a hurricane
earth-wide in its range. If there is nothing more than the laws of Nature
regulating the wind, then, perhaps tomorrow, there may come a terrific tornado
and sweep everything from the surface of the earth! What assurance have we
against such a calamity? Again; of late years we have heard and read much about
clouds bursting and flooding whole districts, working fearful havoc in the
destruction of both property and life. Man is helpless before them, for science
can devise no means to prevent clouds bursting. Then how do we
know that these bursting clouds will not be multiplied indefinitely and the
whole earth be deluged by their downpour? This would be nothing new: why should
not the Flood of Noah's day be repeated? And what of earthquakes? Every few
years some island or some great city is swept out of existence by one of
them-and what can man do? Where is the guaranty that ere long a mammoth
earthquake will not destroy the whole world. Science tells us of great
subterranean fires burning beneath the comparatively thin crust of our earth.
How do we know but what these fires will not suddenly burst forth and consume
our entire globe? Surely every reader now sees the point we are seeking to
make: Deny that God is governing matter, deny that He is "upholding
all things by the word of His power" (Heb. 1:3), and
all sense of security is gone!
Let us pursue a similar course of reasoning
in connection with the human race. Is God governing this world
of ours? Is He shaping the destinies of nations, controlling the course of
empires, determining the limits of dynasties? Has He prescribed the limits of
evil-doers, saying, Thus far shalt thou go and no further? Let us suppose the
opposite for a moment. Let us assume that God has delivered over the helm into
the hand of His creatures and see where such a supposition leads us. For the
sake of argument we will say that every man enters this world endowed with a
will that is absolutely free, and that it is impossible to
compel or even coerce him without destroying his freedom. Let
us say that every man possesses a knowledge of right and wrong, that he has the
power to choose between them, and that he is left entirely free to make his own
choice and go his own way. Then what? Then it follows that man is Sovereign,
for he does as he pleases and is the architect of his own
fortune. But in such a case we can have no assurance that ere long every man
will reject the good and choose the evil. In such a case we have no guaranty
against the entire human race committing moral suicide. Let all Divine
restraints be removed and man be left absolutely free, and all ethical
distinctions would immediately disappear, the spirit of barbarism would prevail
universally, and pandemonium would reign supreme. Why not? If one nation
deposes its rulers and repudiates its constitution, what is there to prevent
all nations from doing the same?
If little more than a century ago the streets
of Paris ran with the blood of rioters, what assurance have we that before the
present century closes every city throughout the world will not witness a
similar sight? What is there to hinder earth-wide lawlessness and universal
anarchy? Thus we have sought to show the need, the imperative
need, for God to occupy the Throne, take the government upon His shoulder, and
control the activities and destinies of His creatures.
But has the man of faith any difficulty in
perceiving the government of God over this world? Does not the anointed eye
discern, even amid much seeming confusion and chaos, the hand of the Most High
controlling and shaping the affairs of men, even in the common concerns of
every day life? Take for example farmers and their crops. Suppose God left them
to themselves: what would prevent them, one and all, from grassing their arable
lands and devoting themselves exclusively to rearing of cattle and dairying? In
such a case there would be a world-famine of wheat and corn! Take the work of
the post office. Suppose that everybody decided to write letters on Mondays
only, could the authorities cope with the mail on Tuesdays? and how would they
occupy their time the balance of the week? So again with storekeepers. What
would happen if every housewife did her shopping on Wednesday,
and stayed at home the rest of the week? But instead of such things happening,
farmers in different countries both raise sufficient cattle and grow enough
grain of various kinds to supply the almost incalculable needs of the human
race; the mails are almost evenly distributed over the six days of the week;
and some women shop on Monday, some on Tuesday, and so on. Do not these things
clearly evidence the overruling and controlling hand of God!
Having shown, in brief, the imperative need
for God to reign over our world, let us now observe still further the fact that
God does rule, actually rule, and that His government extends to and is
exercised over all things and all creatures.
1. GOD GOVERNS INANIMATE MATTER.
That God governs inanimate matter, that
inanimate matter performs His bidding and fulfills His decrees, is clearly
shown on the very frontispiece of Divine revelation. God said, "Let there
be light," and we read, "There was light." God said,
"Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together unto one place, and
let the dry land appear," and "it was so." And
again, "God said, Let the earth bring forth grass the herb yielding seed,
and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon
the earth: and it was so." And the Psalmist declares,
"He spake and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast."
What is stated in Genesis One is afterwards
illustrated all through the Bible. After the creation of Adam, sixteen
centuries went by before ever a shower of rain fell upon the earth, for before
Noah "there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of
the ground" (Gen. 2:6).
But, when the iniquities of the antediluvians had come to the full, then God
said, "And, behold, I even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the
earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under
Heaven; and everything that is in the earth shall die"; and in fulfillment
of this we read, "In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second
month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of
the great deep broken up, and the windows of Heaven were opened. And the rain
was upon the earth forty days and forty nights" (Gen. 6:17 and 7:11, 12).
Witness God's absolute (and Sovereign) control
of inanimate matter in connection with the plagues of Egypt. At His bidding the
light was turned into darkness and rivers into blood; hail fell, and death came
down upon the godless land of the Nile, until even its haughty monarch was
compelled to cry out for deliverance. Note particularly how the inspired record
here emphasizes God's absolute control over the elements-"And Moses
stretched forth his rod toward Heaven: and the LORD sent thunder
and hail, and the fire ran along upon the ground; and the LORD
rained hail upon the land of Egypt. So there was hail, and fire
mingled with the hail, very grievous, such as there was none like it in all the
land of Egypt since it became a nation. And the hail smote throughout all the
land of Egypt all that was in the field, both man and beast; and the hail smote
every herb of the field, and brake every tree of the field. Only in the
land of Goshen, where the children of Israel were, was there no hail"
(Exo. 9:23-26). The same distinction was observed in
connection with the ninth plague: "And the LORD said unto Moses, Stretch
out thine hand toward Heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of
Egypt, even darkness which may be felt. And Moses stretched forth his hand
toward Heaven; and there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three
days: They saw not one another, neither rose any from his place for three days:
but all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings" (Exo. 10:21-23).
The above examples are by no means isolated cases.
At God's decree fire and brimstone descended from Heaven and the cities of the
Plain were destroyed, and a fertile valley was converted into a loathsome sea
of death. At His bidding the waters of the Red Sea parted asunder so that the
Israelites passed over dry shod, and at His word they rolled back again and
destroyed the Egyptians who were pursuing them. A word from Him, and the earth
opened her mouth and Korah and his rebellious company were swallowed up. The
furnace of Nebuchadnezzar was heated seven times beyond its normal temperature,
and into it three of God's children were cast, but the fire did not so much as
scorch their clothes, though it slew the men who cast them into it.
What a demonstration of the Creator's
governmental control over the elements was furnished when He became flesh and
tabernacled among men! Behold Him asleep in the boat. A storm arises. The winds
roar and the waves are lashed into fury. The disciples who are with Him,
fearful lest their little craft should founder, awake their Master, saying,
"Carest Thou not that we perish?" And then we read, "And He
arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And
the wind ceased, and there was a great calm" (Mark 4:39).
Mark again, the sea, at the will of its Creator, bore Him up upon its waves. At
a word from Him, the fig-tree withered; at His touch disease fled instantly.
The heavenly bodies are also ruled by their
Maker and perform His Sovereign pleasure. Take two illustrations. At God's
bidding the sun went back ten degrees on the dial of Ahaz to help the weak
faith of Hezekiah. In New Testament times, God caused a star to herald the
incarnation of His Son-the star which appeared unto the wise men of the East.
This star, we are told, "went before them till it came
and stood over where the young Child was" (Matt. 2:9).
What a declaration is this: "He sendeth
forth His commandment upon earth: His word runneth very swiftly. He
giveth snow like wool: He scattereth the hoar frost like
ashes. He casteth forth His ice like morsels: who can stand
before His cold? He sendeth out His word, and melteth
them: He causeth His wind to blow, and the waters flow" (Psa. 147:15-18). The
mutations of the elements are beneath God's Sovereign control. It is God who
withholds the rain, and it is God who gives the rain when He wills,
where He wills, as He wills, and on whom He wills. Weather Bureaus may attempt
to give forecasts of the weather, but how frequently God mocks their
calculations! Sun 'spots,' the varying activities of the planets, the appearing
and disappearing of comets (to which abnormal weather is sometimes attributed),
atmospheric disturbances, are merely secondary causes, for behind them all is
God Himself. Let His Word speak once more: "And also I have
withholden the rain from you, when there were yet three months to the
harvest: and I caused it to rain upon one city, and caused it not
to rain upon another city: one piece was rained upon, and the piece whereon it
rain not withered. So two or three cities wandered unto one city, to drink
water; but they were not satisfied: yet have ye not returned unto Me, saith the
LORD. I have smitten you with blasting and mildew: when your
gardens and your vineyards and your fig trees and your olive trees increased,
the palmerworm devoured them: yet have ye not returned unto Me, saith the
LORD. I have sent among you the pestilence after the manner of
Egypt: your young men have I slain with the sword, and have taken away your
horses; and I have made the stink of your camps to come up into your nostrils:
yet have ye not returned unto Me, saith the LORD" (Amos 4:7-10).
Truly, then, God governs inanimate matter.
Earth and air, fire and water, hail and snow, stormy winds and angry seas, all
perform the word of His power and fulfill His Sovereign pleasure. Therefore,
when we complain about the weather we are, in reality, murmuring against God.
2. GOD GOVERNS IRRATIONAL
CREATURES.
What a striking illustration of God's
government over the animal kingdom is found in Genesis 2:19!
"And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and
every fowl of the air:and brought them unto Adam to see what he
would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the
name thereof." Should it be said that this occurred in Eden, and took
place before the fall of Adam and the consequent curse which was inflicted on
every creature, then our next reference fully meets the objection: God's
control of the beasts was again openly displayed at the Flood. Mark how God
caused to "come unto" Noah every specie of living creature "of
every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the
ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female. Of fowls
after their kind, of every creeping thing after his kind: two of every
sort shall come unto thee" (Gen. 6:19, 20)-all were beneath God's
Sovereign control. The lion of the jungle, the elephant of the forest, the bear
of the polar regions; the ferocious panther, the untameable wolf, the fierce
tiger; the high-soaring eagle and the creeping crocodile-see them all in their
native fierceness, and yet, quietly submitting to the will of their Creator,
and coming two by two into the ark!
We referred to the plagues sent upon Egypt as
illustrating God's control of inanimate matter, let us now turn to them again
to see how they demonstrate His perfect rulership over irrational creatures. At
His Word the river brought forth frogs abundantly, and these frogs entered the
palace of Pharaoh and the houses of his servants and, contrary to their natural
instincts, they entered the beds, the ovens and the kneadingtroughs (Exo. 8:13).
Swarms of flies invaded the land of Egypt, but there were no flies in the land
of Goshen! (Exo. 8:22).
Next, the cattle were stricken, and we read, "Behold, the hand of the
LORD is upon the asses, upon the camels, upon the oxen, and upon the
sheep: there shall be a very grievous murrain. And the LORD shall sever between
the cattle of Israel and the cattle of Egypt: and there shall nothing die of
all that is the children's of Israel. And the LORD appointed a set time,
saying, Tomorrow the LORD shall do this thing in the land. And the LORD did
that thing on the morrow, and all the cattle of Egypt died: but of the cattle
of the children of Israel died not one" (Exo. 9:3-6). In
like manner God sent clouds of locusts to plague Pharaoh and his land,
appointing the time of their visitation, determining the course and assigning
the limits of their depredations.
Angels are not the only ones who do God's
bidding. The brute beasts equally perform His pleasure. The sacred ark, the ark
of the covenant, is in the country of the Philistines. How is it to be brought
back to its home land? Mark the servants of God's choice, and how completely
they were beneath His control: "And the Philistines called for the priests
and the diviners saying, What shall we do to the ark of the Lord? tell us
wherewith we shall send it to his place. And they said... Now therefore make a
new cart, and take two mileb kine, on which there hath come no yoke, and tie
the kine to the cart, and bring their calves home from them: And take the ark
of the Lord, and lay it upon the cart; and put the jewels of gold, which ye
return Him for a trespass offering, in a coffer by the side thereof, and send
it away that it may go. And see, if it goeth up by the way of
his own coast to Bethshemesh, then He hath done us this great evil: but if not,
then we shall know that it is not His hand that smote us; it was a chance that
happened to us." And what happened? How striking the sequel! "And the
kine took the straight way to the way of Bethshemesh, and went
along the highway, lowing as they went, and turned not aside to the
right hand or to the left" (1 Sam. 6:12).
Equally striking is the case of Elijah: "And the word of the LORD came
unto him, saying, Get thee hence, and hide thyself by the brook Cherith, that
is before Jordan. And it shall be, that thou shalt drink of the brook; and
I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there" (1 Kings 17:2-4). The
natural instinct of these birds of prey was held in subjection, and instead of
consuming the food themselves, they carried it to Jehovah's servant in his
solitary retreat.
Is further proof required? then it is ready
at hand. God makes a dumb ass to rebuke the prophet's madness. He sends forth
two she-bears from the woods to devour forty and two of Elijah's tormentors. In
fulfillment of His word, He causes the dogs to lick up the blood of the wicked
Jezebel. He seals the mouths of Babylon's lions when Daniel is cast into the
den, though, later, He causes them to devour the prophet's accusers. He
prepares a great fish to swallow the disobedient Jonah and then, when His
ordained hour struck, compelled it to vomit him forth on dry
land. At His biding a fish carries a coin to Peter for tribute money,
and in order to fulfill His word He makes the cock crow twice after Peter's
denial. Thus we see that God reigns over irrational creatures: beasts of the
field, birds of the air, fishes of the sea, all perform His Sovereign bidding.
3. GOD GOVERNS THE CHILDREN OF MEN.
We fully appreciate the fact that this is the
most difficult part of our subject, and, accordingly, it will be dealt with at
greater length in the pages that follow; but at present we consider the fact of
God's government over men in general, before we attempt to deal with the
problem in detail.
Two alternatives confront us, and between
them we are obliged to choose: either God governs, or He is governed; either
God rules, or He is ruled; either God has His way, or men have theirs.
And is our choice between these alternatives
hard to make? Shall we say that in man we behold a creature so unruly that he is beyond God's
control? Shall we say that sin has alienated the sinner so far
from the thrice Holy One that he is outside the pale of His
jurisdiction? Or, shall we say that man has been endowed with moral
responsibility, and therefore God must leave him entirely free, at least during
the period of his probation? Does it necessarily follow because the natural man
is an outlaw against Heaven, a rebel against the Divine government, that God is
unable to fulfill His purpose through him? We mean, not merely that He
may overrule the effects of the actions of evil-doers, nor
that He will yet bring the wicked to stand before His judgment-bar so that
sentence of punishment may be passed upon them-multitudes of non-Christians
believe these things-but, we mean, that every action of the most lawless of His
subjects is entirely beneath His control, yea that the actor is, though unknown
to himself, carrying out the secret decrees of the Most High. Was it not thus
with Judas? and is it possible to select a more extreme case? If then the arch-rebel
was performing the counsel of God is it any greater tax upon our faith to
believe the same of all rebels?
Our present object is no philosophic inquiry
nor metaphysical causistry, but to ascertain the teaching of Scripture upon
this profound theme. To the Law and the Testimony, for there only can we learn
of the Divine government-its character, its design, its modus operandi, its
scope. What then has it pleased God to reveal to us in His blessed Word
concerning His rule over the works of His hands, and particularly, over the one
who originally was made in His own image and likeness?
"In Him we live, and move,
and have our being" (Acts 17:28).
What a sweeping assertion is this! These words, be it noted, were addressed,
not to one of the churches of God, not to a company of saints who had reached
an exalted plane of spirituality, but to a heathen audience, to those who
worshipped "the unknown God" and who "mocked" when they
heard of the resurrection of the dead. And yet, to the Athenian philosophers,
to the Epicureans and Stoics, the Apostle Paul did not hesitate to affirm that
they lived and moved and had their being in God, which signified not only that
they owed their existence and preservation to the One who made the world and
all things therein, but also that their very actions were encompassed and
therefore controlled by the Lord of Heaven and earth. Compare Daniel 5:23, last
clause!
"The disposings (margin)
of the heart, and the answer of the tongue is from the LORD" (Prov. 16:1).
Mark that the above declaration is of general application-it is of
"man," not simply of believers, that this is predicated. "A
man's heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps"
(Prov. 16:9). If
the Lord directs the steps of a man, is it not proof that he
is being controlled or governed by God? Again: "There are many devices in
a man's heart; nevertheless the counsel of the LORD, that shall
stand" (Prov. 19:21). Can
this mean anything less than, that no matter what man may desire and plan, it
is the will of his Maker which is executed? As an illustration take the
"Rich Fool." The "devices" of his heart are made known to
us-"And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have
no room where to bestow my fruits? And he said, This will I do: I
will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there I will bestow
all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul,
thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and
be merry." Such were the "devices" of his heart,
nevertheless it was "the counsel of the Lord" that stood. The "I
will's" of the rich man came to nought, for "God said unto
him, Thou fool, this night shall thy soul be required of thee" (Luke 12:17-20).
"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).
What could be more explicit? Out of the heart are "the issues of
life" (Prov. 4:23), for
as a man "thinketh in his heart, so is he" (Prov. 23:7). If
then the heart is in the hand of the Lord, and if "He turneth it
whithersoever He will," then is it not clear that men, yea, governors and
rulers, and so all men, are completely beneath the
governmental control of the Almighty!
No limitations must be placed upon the above
declarations. To insist that some men, at least, do thwart
God's will and overturn His counsels, is to repudiate other Scriptures equally
explicit. Weigh well the following: "But He is one mind, and who can turn
Him? and what His soul desireth, even that He doeth" (Job 23:13).
"The counsel of the LORD standeth for ever, the
thoughts of His heart to all generations" (Psa. 33:11).
"There is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the LORD" (Prov. 21:30).
"For the LORD of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul
it? And His hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?" (Isa. 14:27).
"Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else!
I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and
from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel
shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure" (Isa. 46:9, 10). There is no ambiguity in
these passages. They affirm in the most unequivocal and unqualified terms that
it is impossible to bring to naught the purpose of Jehovah.
We read the Scriptures in vain if we fail to
discover that the actions of men, evil men as well as good, are governed by the
Lord God. Nimrod and his fellows determined to erect the tower of Babel, but
ere their task was accomplished God frustrated their plans. God called Abraham
"alone" (Isa. 51:2), but
his kinsfolk accompanied him as he left Ur of the Chaldees. Was then the will
of the Lord defeated? Nay, verily. Mark the sequel. Terah died before
Canaan was reached (Gen. 11:32), and
though Lot accompanied his uncle into the land of promise, he soon separated
from him and settled down in Sodom. Jacob was the child to whom the inheritance
was promised, and though Isaac sought to reverse Jehovah's decree and bestow
the blessing upon Esau, his efforts came to naught. Esau again swore vengeance
upon Jacob, but when next they met they wept for joy instead of fighting in
hate. The brethren of Joseph determined his destruction but their evil counsels
were overthrown. Pharaoh refused to let Israel carry out the instructions of
Jehovah and perished in the Red Sea for his pains. Balak hired Balaam to curse
the Israelites but God compelled him to bless them. Haman
erected a gallows for Mordecai but was hanged upon it himself. Jonah resisted
the revealed will of God but what became of his efforts?
Ah, the heathen may "rage" and the
people imagine a "vain thing"; the kings of earth may "set
themselves," and the rulers take counsel together against the
Lord and against His Christ, saying, "Let us break Their bands asunder,
and cast away Their cords from us (Psa. 2:1-3). But
is the great God perturbed or disturbed by the rebellion of his puny creatures?
No, indeed: "He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the
LORD shall have them in derision" (v. 4). He is
infinitely exalted above all, and the greatest confederacies or earth's pawns,
and their most extensive and vigorous preparations to defeat His purpose are,
in His sight, altogether puerile. He looks upon their puny
efforts, not only without any alarm, but He "laughs" at their folly;
He treats their impotency with "derision." He knows that He can crush
them like moths when He pleases, or consume them in a moment with the breath of
His mouth. Ah, it is but "a vain thing" for the potsherds of
the earth to strive with the glorious Majesty of Heaven. Such is our God;
worship ye Him.
Mark, too, the Sovereignty which
God displayed in His dealings with men! Moses who was slow of speech, and not
Aaron his elder brother who was not slow of speech, was the one chosen to be
His ambassador in demanding from Egypt's monarch the release of His oppressed
people. Moses again, though greatly beloved, utters one hasty word
and was excluded from Canaan; whereas Elijah, passionately murmurs and suffers
but a mild rebuke, and was afterwards taken to Heaven without seeing death!
Uzzah merely touched the ark and was instantly slain, whereas the Philistines
carried it off in insulting triumph and suffered no immediate harm. Displays of
grace which would have brought a doomed Sodom to repentance failed to move an
highly privileged Capernaum. Mighty works which would have subdued Tyre and
Sidon left the upbraided cities of Galilee under the curse of a rejected
Gospel. If they would have prevailed over the former, why were they not wrought
there? If they proved ineffectual to deliver the latter then why perform them?
What exhibitions are these of the Sovereign will of the Most High!
4. GOD GOVERNS ANGELS: BOTH GOOD AND EVIL
ANGELS.
The angels are God's servants, His
messengers, His chariots. They ever hearken to the word of His mouth and do His
commands. "And God sent an angel unto Jerusalem to
destroy it: and as he was destroying, the LORD beheld, and He repented Him of
the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed. It is enough, stay now thine
hand... And the LORD commanded the angel; and he put his sword again
into the sheath thereof" (1 Chron. 21:15, 27). Many other
Scriptures might be cited to show that the angels are in subjection to the will
of their Creator and perform His bidding -"And when Peter was come to
himself, he said, Now I know of a surety, that the Lord hath sent His
angel, and hath delivered me out of the hand of Herod" (Acts 12:11).
"And the Lord God of the holy prophets sent His angel to shew
unto His servants the things which must shortly be done" (Rev. 22:6). So
it will be when our Lord returns: "The Son of Man shall send forth
His angels and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that
offend, and them which do iniquity" (Matt. 13:41).
Again, we read, "He shall send His angels with a great
sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four
winds, from one end of Heaven to the other" (Matt. 24:31).
The same is true of evil spirits:
they, too, fulfill God's Sovereign decrees. An evil spirit is sent by God to
stir up rebellion in the camp of Abimelech: "Then God sent an evil
spirit between Abimelech and the men of Shechem," which aided him
in the killing of his brethren (Judges 9:23).
Another evil spirit He sent to be a lying spirit in the mouth of Ahab's
prophets-"Now therefore, behold, the LORD hath put a
lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the LORD hath spoken
evil concerning thee" (1 Kings 22:23). And
yet another was sent by the Lord to trouble Saul-"But the Spirit of the
LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled
him" (1 Sam. 16:14). So, too, in the New Testament: a whole legion of the
demons go not out of their victim until the Lord gave them permission to
enter the herd of swine.
It is clear from Scripture, then, that the
angels, good and evil, are under God's control, and willingly or unwillingly
carry out God's purpose. Yea, SATAN himself is absolutely
subject to God's control. When arraigned in Eden, he listened to the awful
sentence but answered not a word. He was unable to touch Job
until God granted him leave. So, too, he had to gain our Lord's consent before
he could "sift" Peter. When Christ commanded him to depart-"Get
thee hence, Satan"-we read, "Then the Devil leaveth
Him" (Matt. 4:11).
And, in the end, he will be cast into the Lake of Fire which has been prepared
for him and his angels.
The Lord God omnipotent reigneth. His
government is exercised over inanimate matter, over the brute beasts, over the
children of men, over angels good and evil, and over Satan himself. No
revolving world, no shining of star, no storm, no creature moves, no actions of
men, no errands of angels, no deeds of Devil-nothing in all the vast
universe can come to pass otherwise than God has eternally purposed. Here
is a foundation of faith. Here is a resting place for the intellect. Here is an
anchor for the soul, both sure and steadfast. It is not blind fate, unbridled
evil, man or Devil, but the Lord Almighty who is ruling the world, ruling it
according to His own good pleasure and for His own eternal glory.
"Ten
thousand ages ere the skies
Were into motion brought;
All the long years and worlds to come,
Stood present to His thought:
There's not a sparrow nor a worm,
But's found in His decrees,
He raises monarchs to their thrones
And sings as He may please."
All the long years and worlds to come,
Stood present to His thought:
There's not a sparrow nor a worm,
But's found in His decrees,
He raises monarchs to their thrones
And sings as He may please."
CHAPTER
FOUR
THE
SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD IN SALVATION
"O the depths of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out" (Rom. 11:33).
"Salvation is of the LORD" (Jonah 2:9); but
the Lord does not save all. Why not? He does save some; then
if He saves some, why not others? Is it because they are too sinful and
depraved? No; for the Apostle wrote, "This is a faithful saying, and
worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save
sinners; of whom I am chief" (1 Tim. 1:15). Therefore,
if God saved the "chief" of sinners, none are excluded because of
their depravity. Why then does not God save all? Is it because some are too
stony-hearted to be won? No; because it is written, that God will "take
the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh" (Ezek. 11:19).
Then is it because some are so stubborn, so intractable, so defiant that God
is unable to woo them to Himself? Before we answer this
question let us ask another; let us appeal to the experience of the Christian
reader.
Friend, was there not a time when you walked
in the counsel of the ungodly, stood in the way of sinners, sat in the seat of
the scorners, and with them said, "We will not have this
Man to reign over us" (Luke 19:14)? Was
there not a time when you "would not come to Christ that
you might have life" (John 5:40)?
Yea, was there not a time when you mingled your voice with those
who said unto God, "Depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge of Thy
ways. What is the Almighty, that we should serve Him? and what profit should we
have, if we pray unto Him?" (Job 21:14, 15)? With shamed face you
have to acknowledge there was. But how is it that all is now
changed? What was it that brought you from haughty self-sufficiency to a humble
suppliant; from one that was at enmity with God to one that is at peace with
Him; from lawlessness to subjection; from hate to love? And as one 'born of the
Spirit' you will readily reply, "By the grace of God I am what
I am" (1 Cor. 15:10). Then do you not see that it is due to no lack of power
in God, nor to His refusal to coerce man, that other rebels are
not saved too? If God was able to subdue your will and win your heart,
and that without interfering with your moral responsibility,
then is He not able to do the same for others? Assuredly He is. Then how
inconsistent, how illogical, how foolish of you, in seeking to account
for the present course of the wicked and their ultimate fate, to argue
that God is unable to save them, that they will not
let Him. Do you say, "But the time came when I was
willing, willing to receive Christ as my Saviour"? True, but it was the
Lord who made you willing (Psa. 110:3; Phil. 2:13); why
then does He not make all sinners willing? Why, but for the
fact that He is Sovereign and does as He pleases! But to return to our opening
inquiry.
Why is it that all are not saved,
particularly all who hear the Gospel? Do you still answer, Because the majority
refuse to believe? Well, that is true, but it is only a part of the truth. It
is the truth from the human side. But there is a Divine side
too, and this side of the truth needs to be stressed or God will be robbed of
His glory. The unsaved are lost because they refuse to believe; the others are
saved because they believe. But why do these others believe?
What is it that causes them to put their trust in Christ? Is it because they
are more intelligent than their fellows, and quicker to discern their need of
salvation? Perish the thought-"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). It is
God Himself who maketh the difference between the elect and the non-elect, for
of His own it is written, "And we know that the Son of God is come,
and hath given us an understanding, that we may
know Him that is true" (1 John 5:20).
Faith is God's gift, and
"all men have not faith" (2 Thess. 3:2); therefore, we
see that God does not bestow this gift upon all. Upon whom then does He bestow
this saving favor? And we answer, upon His own elect-"As many as were
ordained to eternal life believed" (Acts 13:48).
Hence it is that we read of "the faith of God's elect" (Titus 1:1). But
is God partial in the distribution of His favors? Has He not the right
to be? Are there still some who murmur against the Goodman of the
house'? Then His own words are sufficient reply-"Is it not lawful for
Me to do what I will with Mine own?" (Matt. 20:15). God
is Sovereign in the bestowment of His gifts, both in the natural and in the
spiritual realms. So much then for a general statement, and now to
particularize.
1. THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD THE
FATHER IN SALVATION.
Perhaps the one Scripture which most
emphatically of all asserts the absolute Sovereignty of God in connection with
His determining the destiny of His creatures, is the Ninth of Romans. We shall
not attempt to review here the entire chapter, but will confine ourselves to
verses 21-23- "Hath not the potter power over the clay of the same lump,
to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor? What if God, willing
to show His wrath, and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering
the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: And that He might make known the
riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had afore prepared unto
glory?" These verses represent fallen mankind as inert and as impotent as
a lump of lifeless clay. This Scripture evidences that there is "no
difference," in themselves, between the elect and the non-elect; they are
clay of "the same lump," which agrees with Ephesians 2:3,
where we are told that all are by nature "children of
wrath." It teaches us that the ultimate destiny of every individual is
decided by the will of God, and blessed it is that such be the case; if it were
left to our wills, the ultimate destination of us all would be
the Lake of Fire. It declares that God Himself does make a
difference in the respective destinations to which He assigns His creatures,
for one vessel is made "unto honor and another unto dishonor";
some are "vessels of wrath fitted to destruction," others are
"vessels of mercy, which He had afore prepared unto glory."
We readily acknowledge that it is very
humbling to the proud heart of the creature to behold all mankind in the hand
of God as the clay in the potter's hand, yet this is precisely how the
Scriptures of Truth represent the case. In this day of human boasting,
intellectual pride, and deification of man, it needs to be insisted upon that
the potter forms his vessels for himself. Let man strive with his Maker as he
will, the fact remains that he is nothing more than clay in the Heavenly
Potter's hands, and while we know that God will deal justly with His creatures,
that the Judge of all the earth will do right, nevertheless, He
shapes His vessels for His own purpose and according to His own pleasure. God
claims the indisputable right to do as He wills with His own.
Not only has God the right to do as He wills
with the creatures of His own hands, but He exercises this right, and
nowhere is that seen more plainly than in His predestinating grace. Before the
foundation of the world God made a choice, a selection, an election. Before His
omniscient eye stood the whole of Adam's race, and from it He singled out a
people and predestinated them "to be conformed to the image of His
Son," "ordained" them unto eternal life. Many are the Scriptures
which set forth this blessed truth, seven of which will now engage our
attention.
"As many as were ordained to eternal
life, believed" (Acts 13:48).
Every artifice of human ingenuity has been employed to blunt the sharp edge of
this Scripture and to explain away the obvious meaning of these words, but it
has been employed in vain, though nothing will ever be able to reconcile this
and similar passages to the mind of the natural man. "As many as were
ordained to eternal life, believed." Here we learn four
things: First, that believing is the consequence and not the
cause of God's decree. Second, that a limited number only are
"ordained to eternal life," for if all men without exception were
thus ordained by God, then the words "as many as" are a meaningless
qualification. Third, that this "ordination" of God is not to mere
external privileges but to "eternal life," not to service but to
salvation itself. Fourth, that all-"as many as," not one less-who are
thus ordained by God to eternal life will most certainly believe.
The comments of the beloved Spurgeon on the
above passage are well worthy of our notice. Said he, "Attempts have been
made to prove that these words do not teach predestination, but these attempts
so clearly do violence to language that I shall not waste time in answering
them. I read: 'As many as were ordained to eternal life believed,' and I shall
not twist the text but shall glorify the grace of God by ascribing to that
grace the faith of every man. Is it not God who gives the disposition to
believe? If men are disposed to have eternal life, does not He-in every
case-dispose them? Is it wrong for God to give grace? If it be right for Him to
give it, is it wrong for Him to purpose to give it? Would you
have Him give it by accident? If it is right for Him to purpose to give grace
today, it was right for Him to purpose it before today-and, since He changes
not-from eternity."
"Even so then at this present time also
there is a remnant according to the election of grace. And if
by grace, then it is 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. 11:5, 6).
The words "Even so" at the beginning of this quotation refer us to the
previous verse where we are told, "I have reserved to Myself seven
thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal." Note particularly the
word "reserved." In the days of Elijah there were seven thousand-a
small minority-who were Divinely preserved from idolatry and brought to the
knowledge of the true God. This preservation and illumination was not from
anything in themselves, but solely by God's special influence and agency. How
highly favored such individuals were to be thus "reserved" by God!
Now says the Apostle, Just as there was a "remnant" in Elijah's days
"reserved by God," even so there is in this present dispensation.
"A remnant according to the election of
grace." Here the cause of election is traced back to its
source. The basis upon which God elected this "remnant" was not faith
foreseen in them, because a choice founded upon the foresight of good works is
just as truly made on the ground of works as any choice can
be, and in such a case it would not be "of grace"; for,
says the Apostle, "if by grace, then it is no more of works: otherwise
grace is no more grace"; which means that grace and works are opposites,
they have nothing in common, and will no more mingle than oil and water. Thus
the idea of inherent good foreseen in those chosen, or of anything meritorious
performed by them, is rigidly excluded. "A remnant according to the
election of grace" signifies an unconditional choice
resulting from the Sovereign favor of God; in a word, it is absolutely a gratuitous election.
"For ye see your calling, brethren, how
that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are
called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the
wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which
are mighty: and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath
God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:
That no flesh should glory in His presence" (1 Cor. 1:26-29).
Three times over in this passage reference is made to God's
choice, and choice necessarily supposes a selection, the taking of
some and the leaving of others. The Chooser here is God Himself, as said the
Lord Jesus to the Apostles, "Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen
you" (John 15:16). The
number chosen is strictly defined-"not many wise men after the
flesh, not many noble," etc., which agree with Matthew 20:16,
"So the last shall be first, and the first last; for many be called, but
few chosen." So much then for the fact of God's
choice; now mark the objects of His choice.
The ones spoken of above as chosen of God are
"the weak things of the world, base things of the world, and things which
are despised." But why? To demonstrate and magnify His grace. God's ways
as well as His thoughts are utterly at variance with man's. The carnal mind
would have supposed that a selection had been made from the ranks of the
opulent and influential, the amiable and cultured, so that Christianity might
have won the approval and applause of the world by its pageantry and fleshly
glory. Ah, but "that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in
the sight of God" (Luke 16:15). God
chooses the "base things." He did so in Old
Testament times. The nation which He singled out to be the depository of His
holy oracles and the channel through which the promised Seed should come was
not the ancient Egyptians, the imposing Babylonians, nor the highly civilized
and cultured Greeks. No; that people upon whom Jehovah set His love and
regarded as 'the apple of His eye' were the despised, nomadic Hebrews. So it
was when our Lord tabernacled among men. The ones whom He took into favored
intimacy with Himself and commissioned to go forth as His ambassadors were, for
the most part, unlettered fishermen. And so it has been ever since. So it is
today: at the present rates of increase, it will not be long before it is
manifested that the Lord has more in despised China who are really His, than He
has in the highly favored U.S.A.; more among the uncivilized blacks of Africa,
than He has in cultured (?) Germany! And the purpose of God's choice, the raison
d' etre of the selection He has made is, "that no flesh should
glory in His presence"-there being nothing whatever in the objects of His
choice which should entitle them to His special favors, then, all the praise
will be freely ascribed to the exceeding riches of His manifold grace.
"Blessed be the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places in Christ: According as He hath chosen us in
Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and
without blame before Him; having predestinated us unto the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will... In
whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the
purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will" (Eph. 1:3-5, 11). Here again we are told
at what point in time-if time it could be called-when God made choice of those
who were to be His children by Jesus Christ. It was not after Adam had fallen
and plunged his race into sin and wretchedness, but long ere Adam saw the
light, even before the world itself was founded, that God chose us in Christ.
Here also we learn the purpose which God had before Him in connection
with His own elect: it was that they "should be holy and without blame
before Him"; it was "unto the adoption of children"; it was that
they should "obtain an inheritance." Here also we discover the motive which
prompted Him. It was "in love that He predestinated us
unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself"-a statement
which refutes the oft made and wicked charge that, for God to decide the
eternal destiny of His creatures before they are born, is tyrannical and
unjust. Finally, we are informed here, that in this matter He took counsel with
none, but that we are "predestinated according to the good pleasure of His
will."
"But we are bound to give thanks alway
to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the
beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit
and belief of the truth" (2 Thess. 2:13). There are three
things here which deserve special attention. First, the fact that we are
expressly told that God's elect are "chosen to salvation." Language
could not be more explicit. How summarily do these words dispose of the
sophistries and equivocations of all who would make election refer to nothing
but external privileges or rank in service! It is to "salvation"
itself that God hath chosen us. Second, we are warned here that election unto
salvation does not disregard the use of appropriate means: salvation is reached
through "sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth." It is
not true that because God has chosen a certain one to salvation that he will be
saved willy-nilly, whether he believes or not: nowhere do the Scriptures so represent
it. The same God who predestined the end also appointed the means; the same God
who "chose unto salvation" decreed that His purpose should be
realized through the work of the Spirit and belief of the truth. Third, that
God has chosen us unto salvation is a profound cause for fervent praise. Note
how strongly the Apostle expresses this-"we are bound to
give thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved of the
Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to
salvation," etc. Instead of shrinking hack in horror from the doctrine of
predestination, the believer, when he sees this blessed truth as it is unfolded
in the Word, discovers a ground for gratitude and thanksgiving such as nothing
else affords, save the unspeakable gift of the Redeemer Himself.
"Who hath saved us, and called us with
an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose
and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began" (2 Tim.
1:9). How plain and pointed is the language of Holy Writ! It is man who, by his
words, darkeneth counsel. It is impossible to state the case more clearly, or
strongly, than it is stated here. Our salvation is not "according to our works";
that is to say, it is not due to anything in us, nor the rewarding of anything
from us; instead, it is the result of God's own "purpose and grace";
and this grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. It is
by grace we are saved, and in the purpose of God this grace
was bestowed upon us not only before we saw the light, not only before Adam's
fall, but even before that far distant "beginning" of Genesis 1:1. And
herein lies the unassailable comfort of God's people. If His choice has been
from eternity it will last to eternity! "Nothing can survive to eternity
but what came from eternity, and what has so come, will"
(George S. Bishop).
"Elect according to the foreknowledge of
God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and
sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 1:2).
Here again election by the Father precedes the work of the Holy Spirit in, and
the obedience of faith by, those who are saved; thus taking it entirely off
creature ground, and resting it in the Sovereign pleasure of the Almighty. The
"foreknowledge of God the Father" does not here refer to His prescience
of all things, but signifies that the saints were all eternally present in
Christ before the mind of God. God did not "foreknow" that certain
ones who heard the Gospel would believe it apart from the fact that He
had "ordained" these certain ones to eternal life. What
God's prescience saw in all men was, love of sin and hatred of Himself. The
"foreknowledge" of God is based upon His own decrees as
is clear from Acts 2:23-"Him,
being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have
taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain"-note the order here:
first God's "determinate counsel" (His decree), and second His
"foreknowledge." So it is again in Romans 8:28, 29, "For whom He did
foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His
Son," but the first word here, "for," looks
back to the preceding verse and the last clause of its reads, "to them who
are the called according to His purpose"-these are the ones whom He did
"foreknow and predestinate." Finally, it needs to be pointed out that
when we read in Scripture of God "knowing" certain people the word is
used in the sense of knowing with approbation and love: "But if any man
love God, the same is known of Him" (1 Cor. 8:3). To
the hypocrites Christ will yet say "I never knew you"-He never loved
them. "Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father"
signifies, then, chosen by Him as the special objects of His approbation and
love.
Summarizing the teaching of these seven passages
we learn that, God has "ordained to eternal life" certain ones, and
that in consequence of His ordination they, in due time, "believe";
that God's ordination to salvation of His own elect is not due to any good
thing in them nor to anything meritorious from them, but solely of "His
grace"; that God has designedly selected the most unlikely objects
to be the recipients of His special favors in order that "no flesh should
glory in His presence"; that God chose His people in Christ before the
foundation of the world, not because they were so, but in order that they
"should be holy and without blame before Him"; that
having selected certain ones to salvation. He also decreed the means by which
His eternal counsel should be made good; that the very "grace" by
which we are saved was, in God's purpose, "given us in Christ Jesus before
the world began"; that long before they were actually created God's elect
stood present before His mind, were "foreknown" by Him, i.e., were
the definite objects of His eternal love.
Before turning to the next division of this
chapter, a further word concerning the subjects of God's
predestinating grace. We go over this ground again because it is at this point
that the doctrine of God's Sovereignty in predestining certain ones to
salvation is most frequently assaulted. Perverters of this truth invariably seek
to find some cause outside God's own will which moves Him
to bestow salvation on sinners; something or other is attributed to the
creature which entitles him to receive mercy at the hands of the Creator. We
return then to the question, Why did God choose the ones He
did?
What was there in the elect themselves which
attracted God's heart to them? Was it because of certain virtues they
possessed? because they were generous-hearted, sweet-tempered, truth-speaking?
in a word, because they were "good," that God chose them? No; for our
Lord said, "There is none good but one, that is God" (Matt. 19:17). Was
it because of any good works they had performed? No; for it is
written, "There is none that doeth good, no, not one" (Rom. 3:12). Was
it because they evidenced an earnestness and zeal in inquiring after God? No;
for it is written again, "There is none that seeketh after God" (Rom. 3:11). Was
it because God foresaw they would believe? No; for how can those who are "dead in
trespasses and sins" believe in Christ? How could God foreknow some men as
believers when belief was impossible to them? Scripture declares that we
"believe through grace" (Acts 18:27).
Faith is God's gift, and apart from this gift none would believe. The cause of
His choice then lies within Himself and not in the objects of His choice. He
chose the ones He did simply because He chose to choose them.
"Sons
we are by God's election
Who on
Jesus Christ believe,
By eternal destination,
Sovereign grace we now receive,
Lord Thy mercy,
Doth both grace and glory give!"
By eternal destination,
Sovereign grace we now receive,
Lord Thy mercy,
Doth both grace and glory give!"
2. THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD THE SON IN SALVATION.
For whom did Christ die? It surely does not
need arguing that the Father had an express purpose in giving Him to die, or
that God the Son had a definite design before Him in laying down His
life-"Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the
world" (Acts 15:18).
What then was the purpose of the Father and the design of the Son. We answer,
Christ died for "God's elect."
We are not unmindful of the fact that
the limited design in the death of Christ has been the subject
of much controversy-what great truth revealed in Scripture has not? Nor do we
forget that anything which has to do with the Person and work of our blessed
Lord requires to be handled with the utmost reverence, and that a "Thus
saith the Lord" must be given in support of every assertion we make. Our
appeal shall be to the Law and to the Testimony.
For whom did Christ die? Who were the ones He
intended to redeem by His blood-shedding? Surely the Lord Jesus had some absolute
determination before Him when He went to the Cross. If He had, then it
necessarily follows that the extent of that purpose was limited, because
an absolute determination of purpose must be
effected. If the absolute determination of Christ included all
mankind, then all mankind would most certainly be saved. To escape this
inevitable conclusion many have affirmed that there was not such absolute
determination before Christ, that in His death a merely conditional
provision of salvation has been made for all mankind. The refutation
of this assertion is found in the promises made by the Father
to His Son before He went to the Cross, yea, before He became
incarnate. The Old Testament Scriptures represent the Father as promising the
Son a certain reward for His sufferings on behalf of sinners.
At this stage we shall confine ourselves to one or two statements recorded in
the well known Fifty-third of Isaiah. There we find God saying, "When Thou
shalt make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed," that
"He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied,"
and that God's righteous Servant "should justify many" (vv. 10 and
11). But here we would pause and ask, How could it be certain that
Christ should "see His seed," and "see of the
travail of His soul and be satisfied," unless the
salvation of certain members of the human race had been Divinely
decreed, and therefore was sure? How could it be certain that
Christ should "justify many," if no effectual provision
was made that any should receive Him as their Lord and
Saviour? On the other hand, to insist that the Lord Jesus did expressly
purpose the salvation of all mankind is to charge Him with
that which no intelligent being should be guilty of, namely, to design that
which by virtue of His omniscience He knew would never come to
pass. Hence, the only alternative left us is that, so far as the
pre-determined purpose of His death is concerned Christ died for the elect
only. Summing up in a sentence, which we trust will be intelligible to every
reader, we would say, Christ died not merely to make possible the
salvation of all mankind, but to make certain the salvation of
all that the Father had given to Him. Christ died not simply to render sins
pardonable, but "to put away sin by the sacrifice of
Himself" (Heb. 9:26). As
to whose "sin" (i.e., guilt, as in 1 John 1:7,
etc.) has been "put away," Scripture leaves us in no
doubt-it was that of the elect, the "world" (John 1:29) of
God's people!
(1) The limited design in
the Atonement follows, necessarily, from the eternal choice of the Father of
certain ones unto salvation. The Scriptures inform us that before the Lord
became incarnate He said, "Lo, I come, to do Thy will O
God" (Heb. 10:7), and
after He had become incarnate He declared, "For I came
down from Heaven, not to do Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent
Me" (John 6:38). If
then God had from the beginning chosen certain ones to salvation, then, because
the will of Christ was in perfect accord with the will of the Father, He would
not seek to enlarge upon His election. What we have just said is not
merely a plausible deduction of our own, but is in strict harmony with the
express teaching of the Word. Again and again our Lord referred to those whom
the Father had "given" Him, and concerning whom He was particularly
exercised. Said He, "All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me; and
him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out... And this is the Father's
will which hath sent Me, that of all which He hath given Me I should lose
nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day" (John 6:37, 39). And again, "These
words spake Jesus, and lifted up His eyes to Heaven, and said, Father, the hour
is come; glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son also may glorify Thee; As Thou hast
given Him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many
as Thou hast given Him...I have manifested Thy name unto the men
which Thou gavest Me out of the world: Thine they were, and Thou
gavest them Me; and they have kept Thy Word... I pray for them: I pray not for
the world, but for them which Thou hast given Me; for they are
Thine... Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be
with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me:
for Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world" (John 17:1, 2, 6, 9, 24). Before the foundation of
the world the Father predestinated a people to be conformed to the image of His
Son, and the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus was in order to the
carrying out of the Divine purpose.
(2) The very nature of the
Atonement evidences that, in its application to sinners, it was limited in
the purpose of God. The Atonement of Christ may be considered
from two chief viewpoints-Godward and manward. Godward, the Cross-work of
Christ was a propitiation, an appeasing of Divine wrath, a
satisfaction rendered to Divine justice and holiness; manward, it was a substitution, the
Innocent taking the place of the guilty, the Just dying for the unjust. But a
strict substitution of a Person for persons, and the infliction upon Him of
voluntary sufferings, involve the definite recognition on the
part of the Substitute and of the One He is to propitiate of the
persons for whom He acts, whose sins He bears, whose legal obligations
He discharges. Furthermore, if the Lawgiver accepts the satisfaction which is
made by the Substitute, then those for whom the Substitute acts, whose place He
takes, must necessarily be acquitted. If I am in debt and unable to discharge
it and another comes forward and pays my creditor in full and receives a
receipt in acknowledgment, then, in the sight of the law, my creditor no longer
has any claim upon me. On the Cross the Lord Jesus gave Himself a ransom, and
that it was accepted by God was attested by the open grave three days later;
the question we would here raise is, For whom was this ransom
offered? If it was offered for all mankind then the debt incurred by every man
has been cancelled. If Christ bore in His own body on the tree the sins of all
men without exception, then none will perish. If Christ was "made a
curse" for all of Adam's race then none are now "under condemnation."
"Payment God cannot twice demand, first at my bleeding
Surety's hand and then again at mine." But Christ did not discharge
the debts of all men without exception, for some there are who will be
'"cast into prison" (cf. 1 Peter 3:19 where
the same Greek word for "prison" occurs), and they shall "by no
means come out thence, till they have paid the uttermost
farthing" (Matt. 5:26),
which, of course, will never be. Christ did not bear the sins
of all mankind, for some there are who "die in their
sins" (John 8:21), and
whose "sin remaineth" (John 9:41).
Christ was not "made a curse" for all of Adam's race, for
some there are to whom He will yet say, "Depart from Me ye
cursed" (Matt. 25:41). To
say that Christ died for all alike, to say that He became the Substitute and
Surety of the whole human race, to say that He suffered on behalf of and in the
stead of all mankind, is to say that He "bore the curse for many who are
now bearing the curse for themselves; that He suffered punishment for many who
are now lifting up their own eyes in Hell, being in torments; that He paid the
redemption price for many who shall yet pay in their own eternal anguish the
wages of sin, which is death" (George S. Bishop). But, on the other hand,
to say as Scripture says, that Christ was stricken for the transgressions of
God's people, to say that He gave His life "for the
sheep," to say He gave His life a ransom "for many," is to
say that He made an atonement which fully atones; it is to say He paid a price
which actually ransoms; it is to say He was set forth a propitiation which
really propitiates; it is to say He is a Saviour who truly saves.
(3) Closely connected with, and confirmatory
of what we have said above, is the teaching of Scripture concerning our Lord's priesthood. It
is as the great High Priest that Christ now makes intercession. But for
whom does He intercede? for the whole human race, or only for His own
people? The answer furnished by the New Testament to this question is clear as
a sunbeam. Our Saviour has entered into Heaven itself "now to appear in
the presence of God for us" (Heb. 9:24),
that is, for those who are "partakers of the heavenly calling" (Heb. 3:1). And
again it is written, "Wherefore He is able also to save them to the
uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make
intercession for them" (Heb. 7:25). This
is in strict accord with the Old Testament type. After slaying the sacrificial
animal, Aaron went into the holy of holies as the representative and on behalf
of the people of God: it was the names of Israel's tribes
which were engraven on his breastplate, and it was in their interests
he appeared before God. Agreeable to this are our Lord's words in John 17:9-"I
pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which
Thou hast given Me; for they are Thine." Another Scripture which deserves
careful attention in this connection is found in Romans 8. In verse 33 the
question is asked, "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's
elect?" and then follows the inspired answer-"It is God that
justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that
is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh
intercession for us." Note particularly that the death
and intercession of Christ have one and the same objects! As it was in the type
so it is with the antitype-expiation and supplication are co-extensive. If then
Christ intercedes for the elect only, and "not for the world," then
He died for them only. And observe further, that the death, resurrection,
exaltation and intercession of the Lord Jesus are here assigned as the reason
why none can lay any "charge" against God's elect. Let
those who would still take issue with what we are advancing weigh carefully the
following question-If the death of Christ extends equally to all, how does it
become security against a "charge," seeing that all who
believe not are "under condemnation"? (John 3:18).
(4) The number of those who share the
benefits of Christ's death is determined not only by the nature of
the Atonement and the priesthood of Christ but also by His
power. Grant that the One who died upon the Cross was God manifest in the flesh
and it follows inevitably that what Christ has purposed that will He perform;
that what He has purchased that will He possess; that what He has set His heart
upon that will He secure. If the Lord Jesus possesses all power in Heaven and
earth then none can successfully resist His will. But it may be said, This is
true in the abstract, nevertheless, Christ refuses to exercise this power,
inasmuch as He will never force anyone to receive Him as their
Lord and Saviour. In one sense that is true, but in another sense it is
positively untrue. 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" (Psa. 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? If He is able to win the heart of one
sinner to Himself why not that of another? To say, as is usually said, the
others will not let Him is to impeach His sufficiency. It is a
question of His will. If the Lord Jesus has decreed, desired,
purposed the salvation of all mankind, then the entire human race will
be saved, or, otherwise, He lacks the power to make good His
intentions; and in such a case it could never be said, "He shall see
of the travail of His soul and be satisfied." The issue
raised involves the deity of the Saviour, for a defeated
Saviour cannot be God.
Having reviewed some of the general
principles which require us to believe that the death of Christ was limited in
its design, we turn now to consider some of the explicit statements of
Scripture which expressly affirm it. In that wondrous and matchless Fifty-third
of Isaiah God tells us concerning His Son, "He was taken from prison and
from judgment: and who shall declare His generation? for He was cut off out of
the land of the living: for the transgression of My people was He
stricken" (v. 8). In perfect harmony with this was the word of
the angel to Joseph, "Thou shalt call His name JESUS, for He shall
save His people from their sins" (Matt. 1:21) i.e.,
not merely Israel, but all whom the Father had "given" Him. Our Lord
Himself declared, "The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to
minister, and to give His life a ransom for many" (Matt. 20:28), but
why have said "for many" if all without exception were
included? It was "His people" whom He "redeemed" (Luke 1:68). It
was for "the sheep," and not the "goats," that the Good
Shepherd gave His life (John 10:11). It
was the "Church of God" which He purchased with His own blood" (Acts 20:28).
If there is one Scripture more than any other
upon which we should be willing to rest our case it is John 11:49-52. Here
we are told, "And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest that
same year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all, nor consider that it is
expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole
nation perish not. And this spake he not of himself: but being high priest that
year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation; And not for that
nation only, but that also He should gather together in one
the children of God that were scattered abroad." Here we are told that
Caiaphas "prophesied not of himself," that is, like
those employed by God in Old Testament times (see 2 Peter 1:21),
his prophecy originated not with himself, but he spake as he was moved by the
Holy Spirit; thus is the value of his utterance carefully guarded, and the
Divine source of this revelation expressly vouched for. Here, too, we are
definitely informed that Christ died for "that
nation," i.e., Israel, and also for the One Body, His Church, for it is
into the Church that the children of God-"scattered" among the
nations-are now being "gathered together in one." And is it not
remarkable that the members of the Church are here called "children of
God" even before Christ died, and therefore before He commenced to build
His Church! The vast majority of them had not then been born, yet they were
regarded as "children of God"; children of God because they had been
chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, and therefore
"predestinated unto the adoption of children by Jesus
Christ to Himself" (Eph. 1:4, 5). In like manner, Christ
said, "Other sheep I have (not "shall have")
which are not of this fold" (John 10:16).
If ever the real design of the Cross was
uppermost in the heart and speech of our blessed Saviour it was during the last
week of His earthly ministry. What then do the Scriptures which treat of this
portion of His ministry record in connection with our present inquiry? They
say, "When Jesus knew that His hour was come that He should depart out of
this world unto the Father, having loved His own which were in
the world, He loved them unto the end" (John 13:1).
They tell us how He said, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man
lay down His life for His friends" (John 15:13).
They record His word, "For their sakes I sanctify Myself,
that they also might be sanctified through the truth" (John 17:19);
which means, that for the sake of His own, those "given" to Him by
the Father, He separated Himself unto the death of the Cross. One may well ask,
Why such discrimination of terms if Christ died for all men indiscriminately?
Ere closing this section of the chapter we
shall consider briefly a few of those passages which seem to teach most
strongly an unlimited design in the death of Christ. In 2 Corinthians 5:14 we
read, "One died for all." But that is not all this
Scripture affirms. If the entire verse and passage from which these words are
quoted be carefully examined, it will be found that instead of teaching an
unlimited atonement, it emphatically argues a limited design in the death of
Christ. The whole verse reads, "For the love of Christ constraineth us;
because we thus judge, that if One died for all, then were all dead." It
should be pointed out that in the Greek there is the definite article before the
last "all," and that the verb here is in the aorist tense, and
therefore should read, "We thus judge: that if One died for all, then the
all died." The Apostle is here drawing a conclusion as is clear from the
words "we thus judge, that if... then were." His meaning is, that
those for whom the One died are regarded, judicially, as
having died too. The next verse goes on to say, "And He died for
all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto
themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose
again." The One not only died but "rose again," and so, too, did
the "all" for whom He died, for it is here said they
"live." Those for whom a substitute acts are legally regarded as
having acted themselves. In the sight of the law the substitute and those whom
he represents are one. So it is in the sight of God. Christ was
identified with His people and His people were identified with
Him, hence when He died they died (judicially) and when He rose they rose also.
But further we are told in this passage (v. 17), that if any man be in Christ
he is a new creation; he has received a new life in fact as well as in the
sight of the law, hence the "all" for whom Christ died are here
bidden to live henceforth no more unto themselves, "but unto Him which
died for them, and rose again." In other words, those who belonged to this
"all" for whom Christ died, are here exhorted to manifest practically
in their daily lives what is true of them judicially: they are to "live
unto Christ who died for them." Thus the "One died for
all" is defined for us. The "all" for which Christ died
are they which "live," and which are here bidden to live "unto
Him." This passage then teaches three important truths, and the better to
show its scope we mention them in their inverse order: certain ones are here
bidden to live no more unto themselves but unto Christ; the ones thus
admonished are "they which live," that is live spiritually, hence,
the children of God, for they alone of mankind possess spiritual life, all
others being dead in trespasses and sins; those who do thus
live are the ones, the "all," the "them," for whom Christ
died and rose again. This passage therefore teaches that Christ died for all
His people, the elect, those given to Him by the Father; that as the
result of His death (and rising again "for them") they
"live"-and the elect are the only ones who do thus
"live"; and this life which is theirs through Christ must be lived
"unto Him," Christ's love must now
"constrain" them.
"For there is one God, and one Mediator,
between God and men (not "man," for this would have been a generic
term and signified mankind. O the accuracy of Holy Writ!), the Man Christ
Jesus; who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in
due time" (1 Tim. 2:5, 6). It is upon the words
"who gave Himself a ransom for all" we would now comment. In
Scripture the word "all" (as applied to humankind) is used in two
senses-absolutely and relatively. In some passages it means all without
exception; in others it signifies all without
distinction. As to which of these meanings it bears in any particular
passage, must be determined by the context and decided by a comparison of
parallel Scriptures. That the word "all" is used in a relative
and restricted sense, and in such case means all without distinction
and not all without exception, is clear from a number of
Scriptures, from which we select two or three as samples. "And there went
out unto him all the land of Judea, and they of Jerusalem, and were all baptized
of him in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins" (Mark 1:5).
Does this mean that every man, woman and child from "all the
land of Judea and they of Jerusalem" were baptized of John in Jordan?
Surely not. Luke 7:30 distinctly
says, "But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel of God against
themselves, being not baptized of him." Then what does "all
baptized of him" mean? We answer it does not mean all
without exception, but all without distinction, that is, all
classes and conditions of men. The same explanation applies to Luke 3:21.
Again we read, "And early in the morning He came again into the Temple,
and all the people came unto Him; and He sat down, and taught
them" (John 8:2); are
we to understand this expression absolutely or relatively? Does "all the
people" mean all without exception or all without distinction, that is,
all classes and conditions of people? Manifestly the latter; for the Temple was
not able to accommodate everybody that was in Jerusalem at this
time, namely, the Feast of Tabernacles. Again, we read in Acts 22:15,
"For thou (Paul) shalt be His witness unto all men of
what thou hast seen and heard." Surely "all men" here does not
mean every member of the human race. Now we submit that the words "who
gave Himself a ransom for all" in 1 Timothy 2:6 mean
all without distinction, and not all without exception. He
gave Himself a ransom for men of all nationalities, of all generations, of all
classes; in a word, for all the elect, as we read in Revelation 5:9,
"For Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood out
of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation." That this
is not an arbitrary definition of the "all" in our
passage is clear from Matthew 20:28 where
we read, "The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister,
and to give His life a ransom for many," which limitation
would be quite meaningless if He gave Himself a ransom for all without
exception. Furthermore, the qualifying words here, "to be testified in due
time" must be taken into consideration. If Christ gave Himself a ransom
for the whole human race, in what sense will this be "testified in due
time"? seeing that multitudes of men will certainly be eternally lost. But
if our text means that Christ gave Himself a ransom for God's elect, for all
without distinction, without distinction of nationality, social prestige, moral
character, age or sex, then the meaning of these qualifying words is quite
intelligible, for in "due time" this will
be "testified" in the actual and accomplished salvation
of every one of them.
"But we see Jesus, who was made a little
lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor;
that He by the grace of God should taste death for every
man" (Heb. 2:9).
This passage need not detain us long. A false doctrine has been erected here on
a false translation. There is no word whatever in the Greek corresponding to
"man" in our English version. In the Greek it is left in the
abstract-"He tasted death for every." The Revised Version has
correctly omitted "man" from the text, but has
wrongly inserted it in italics. Others suppose the word "thing"
should be supplied-"He tasted death for every thing"-but this, too,
we deem a mistake. It seems to us that the words which immediately follow
explain our text: "For it became Him, for whom are all
things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make
the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings." It is of "sons" the
Apostle is here writing, and we suggest an ellipsis of "son"-thus:
"He tasted death for every"-and supply son in italics.
Thus instead of teaching the unlimited design of Christ's death, Hebrews 2:9, 10 is in perfect accord
with the other Scriptures we have quoted which set for the restricted purpose
in the Atonement: it was for the "sons" and not the human race our
Lord "tasted death." *
In closing this section of the chapter let us
say that the only limitation in the Atonement we have contended for arises from
pure Sovereignty; it is a limitation not of value and
virtue, but of design and application. We turn now
to consider-
3. THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD THE HOLY SPIRIT IN SALVATION.
Since the Holy Spirit is one of the three
Persons in the blessed Trinity, it necessarily follows that He is in full
sympathy with the will and design of the other Persons of the Godhead. The
eternal purpose of the Father in election, the limited
design in the death of the Son, and the restricted scope of
the Holy Spirit's operations are in perfect accord. If the Father chose certain
ones before the foundation of the world and gave them to His Son, and if it was
for them that Christ gave Himself a ransom, then the Holy Spirit is not now
working to "bring the world to Christ." The mission of the Holy
Spirit in the world today is to apply the
benefits of Christ's redemptive sacrifice. The question which is now to engage
us is not the extent of the Holy Spirit's power-on that
point there can he no doubt, it is infinite-but what we shall seek to show is
that His power and operations are directed by Divine wisdom
and Sovereignty.
We have just said that the power and
operations of the Holy Spirit are directed by Divine wisdom and indisputable
Sovereignty. In proof of this assertion we appeal first to our Lord's words to
Nicodemus in John 3: 8-
"The wind bloweth where it listeth, and
thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not
tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth; so is every one that is born of
the Spirit." A comparison is here drawn between the wind and the Spirit.
The comparison is a double one: first, both are Sovereign
in their actions, and second, both are mysterious in their
operations. The comparison is pointed out in the word "so."
The first point of analogy is seen in the words, "where it listeth"
or "pleaseth"; the second is found in the words
"canst not tell." With the second point of analogy we are not now
concerned, but upon the first we would comment further.
"The wind bloweth where it pleaseth... so
is every one that is born of the Spirit." The
wind is an element which man can neither harness nor hinder. The wind neither
consults man's pleasure nor can it be regulated by his devices. So it is with
the Spirit. The wind blows when it pleases, where it pleases, as it pleases. So
it is with the Spirit. The wind is regulated by Divine wisdom, yet, so far as
man is concerned, it is absolutely Sovereign in its
operations. So it is with the Spirit. Sometimes the wind blows so softly it
scarcely rustles a leaf; at other times it blows so loudly that its roar can be
heard for miles. So it is in the matter of the new birth; with some the Holy
Spirit deals so gently that His work is imperceptible to human onlookers; with
others His action is so powerful, radical, revolutionary, that His operations
are patent to many. Sometimes the wind is purely local in its reach, at other
times widespread in its scope. So it is with the Spirit: today He acts on one
or two souls, tomorrow He may, as at Pentecost, "prick in the heart"
a whole multitude. But whether He works on few or many He consults not man. He
acts as He pleases. The new birth is due to the
Sovereign will of the Spirit
Each of the three Persons in the blessed
Trinity is concerned with our salvation: with the Father it is predestination;
with the Son propitiation; with the Spirit regeneration. The Father chose us;
the Son died for us; the Spirit quickens us. The Father was concerned about us;
the Son shed His blood for us, the Spirit performs His
work within us. What the One did was eternal, what
the Other did was external, what the Spirit does is internal. It
is with the work of the Spirit we are now concerned, with His work in the new
birth, and particularly His Sovereign operations in the new
birth. The Father purposed our new birth; the Son has made possible (by His
"travail") the new birth; but it is the Spirit who effects the
new birth-"Born of the Spirit" (John 3:6).
The new birth is solely the work of God the
Spirit and man has no part or lot in it. This from the very nature of the case.
Birth altogether excludes the idea of any effort or work on the part of the one
who is born. Personally we have no more to do with our spiritual
birth than we had with our natural birth. The new birth is a spiritual
resurrection, a "passing from death unto life" (John 5:24) and,
clearly, resurrection is altogether outside of man's province.
No corpse can re-animate itself. Hence it is written, "It is the Spirit
that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing" (John 6:63). But
the Spirit does not "quicken" everybody-why? The usual answer
returned to this question is, Because everybody does not trust in Christ. It is
supposed that the Holy Spirit quickens only those who believe. But this is to
put the cart before the horse. Faith is not the cause of the new birth, but the
consequence of it. This ought not to need arguing. Faith (in God) is an exotic,
something that is not native to the human heart. If faith were a
natural product of the human heart, the exercise of a principle common to human
nature, it would never have been written, "All men have not faith" (2 Thess. 3:2).
Faith is a spiritual grace, the fruit of the spiritual nature, and because the
unregenerate are spiritually dead-"dead in trespasses and sins"-then
it follows that faith from them is impossible, for a dead man cannot believe
anything. "So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God" (Rom. 8:8)-but
they could if it were possible for the flesh to believe. Compare with
this last-quoted Scripture Hebrews 11:6-"But
without faith it is impossible to please Him." Can God be "pleased"
or satisfied with any thing which does not have its origin in Himself?
That the work of the Holy Spirit precedes our
believing is unequivocally established by 2 Thessalonians
2:13-"God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification
of the Spirit and belief of the truth." Note that "sanctification of
the Spirit" comes before and makes possible "belief of the
truth." What then is the "sanctification of the
Spirit?" We answer, the new birth. In Scripture
"sanctification" always means
"separation," separation for something and unto something or someone.
Let us now amplify our assertion that the "sanctification of the
Spirit" corresponds to the new birth and points to the positional effect
of it.
Here is a servant of God who preaches the
Gospel to a congregation in which are an hundred unsaved people. He brings
before them the teaching of Scripture concerning their ruined and lost
condition: he speaks of God, His character and righteous demands; he tells of
Christ meeting God's demands, and dying the Just for the unjust, and declares
that through "this Man" is now preached the forgiveness of sins; he
closes by urging the lost to believe what God has said in His Word and receive
His Son as their Lord and Saviour. The meeting is over; the congregation
disperses; ninety-nine of the unsaved have refused to come to Christ that they
might have life, and go out into the night having no hope, and without God in
the world. But the hundredth heard the Word of life; the Seed sown fell into ground
which had been prepared by God; he believed the Good News, and goes home
rejoicing that his name is written in Heaven. He has been "born
again," and just as a newly-born babe in the natural world begins life by
clinging instinctively, in its helplessness, to its mother, so this new-born
soul has clung to Christ. Just as we read, "The Lord opened" the
heart of Lydia "that she attended unto the things which were
spoken of Paul" (Acts 16:14), so
in the case supposed above, the Holy Spirit quickened that one before he
believed the Gospel message. Here then is the "sanctification of the
Spirit": this one soul who has been born again has, by virtue of his new
birth, been separated from the other ninety-nine. Those born again are,
by the Spirit, set apart from those who are dead in
trespasses and sins.
A beautiful type of the operations of the
Holy Spirit antecedent to the sinner's "belief of the
truth," is found in the first chapter of Genesis. We read in verse 2, "And
the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the
deep." The original Hebrew here might be literally rendered thus:
"And the earth had become a desolate ruin, and darkness
was upon the face of the deep." In "the beginning" the
earth was not created in the condition described in verse 2. Between the first
two verses of Genesis 1 some awful catastrophe had occurred-possibly the
fall of Satan--and, as the consequence, the earth had been blasted and blighted,
and had become a "desolate ruin," lying beneath a pall of
"darkness." Such also is the history of man. Today, man is not in the
condition in which he left the hands of his Creator: an awful catastrophe has
happened, and now man is a "desolate ruin" and in total
"darkness" concerning spiritual things. Next we read in Genesis
1 how God refashioned the ruined earth and created new beings to inhabit
it. First we read, "And the Spirit of God moved upon the
face of the water." Next we are told, "And God said, Let
there be light; and there was light." The order is the same in the new
creation: there is the first the action of the Spirit, and then the Word of God
giving light. Before the Word found entrance into the scene of
desolation and darkness, bringing with it the light, the Spirit of God
"moved." So it is in the new creation. "The entrance of Thy word
giveth light" (Psa. 119:130),
but before it can enter the darkened human heart the Spirit of
God must operate upon it.*
* The priority contended for
above is rather in order of nature than of time, just as the effect must ever
be preceded by the cause. A blind man must have his eyes opened before he can
see, and yet there is no interval of time between the one and
the other. As soon as his eyes are opened, he sees. So a man must be born
again before he can "see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3). Seeing the
Son is necessary to believing in Him. Unbelief is attributed to spiritual blindness-those
who believed not the "report" of the Gospel "saw no beauty"
in Christ that they should desire Him. The work of the Spirit in
"quickening" the one dead in sins, precedes faith in
Christ, just as cause ever precedes effect. But no sooner is the heart turned
toward Christ by the Spirit, than the Saviour is embraced by the sinner.
To return to 2 Thessalonians 2:13:
"But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved
of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation
through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth." The order of
thought here is most important and instructive. First, God's eternal choice;
second, the sanctification of the Spirit; third, belief of the truth. Precisely
the same order is found in 1 Peter 1:2-"Elect
according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the
Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ." We
take it that the "obedience" here is the "obedience to the
faith" (Rom. 1:5),
which appropriates the virtues of the sprinkled blood of the Lord Jesus. So
then before the "obedience" (of faith, cf. Heb. 5:9),
there is the work of the Spirit setting us apart, and behind that is the
election of God the Father. The ones "sanctified of the Spirit" then,
are they whom "God hath from the beginning chosen to salvation" (2 Thess. 2:13),
those who are "elect according to the foreknowledge of God the
Father" (1 Peter 1:2).
But, it may be said, is not the present
mission of the Holy Spirit to "convict the world of
sin"? And we answer, it is not. The mission of the Spirit is
threefold; to glorify Christ, to vivify the elect, to edify the saints. John 16:8-11 does
not describe the "mission" of the Spirit, but sets forth the significance of
His presence here in the world. It treats not
of His subjective work in sinners, showing them their need of Christ, by
searching their consciences and striking terror to their hearts; what we have
there is entirely objective. To illustrate. Suppose I saw a man hanging on the
gallows, of what would that "convince" me? Why, that he was a
murderer. How would I thus be convinced? By reading the record
of his trial? by hearing a confession from his own lips? No; but by the fact
that he was hanging there. So the fact that the Holy Spirit
is here furnishes proof of the world's guilt, of God's
righteousness, and of the Devil's judgment.
The Holy Spirit ought not to be here at all.
That is a startling statement, but we make it deliberately. Christ is
the One who ought to be here. He was sent here by the Father, but
the world did not want Him, would not have Him, hated Him, and cast Him out.
And the presence of the Spirit here instead evidences its guilt. The
coming of the Spirit was a proof to demonstration of the resurrection,
ascension, and glory of the Lord Jesus. His presence on earth reverses the
world's verdict, showing that God has set aside the blasphemous judgment in the
palace of Israel's high priest and in the hall of the Roman governor. The
"reproof" of the Spirit abides, and abides altogether irrespective of
the world's reception or rejection of His testimony.
Had our Lord been referring here to the
gracious work which the Spirit would perform in those who
should be brought to feel their need of Him, He had said that the Spirit would
convict men of their un-righteousness, their lack of righteousness. But this is
not the thought here at all. The descent of the Spirit from Heaven establishes God's
righteousness, Christ's righteousness. The proof of that is, Christ has
gone to the Father. Had Christ been an Impostor, as the
religious world insisted when they cast Him out, the Father had not received
Him. The fact that the Father did exalt Him to His own right hand,
demonstrates that He was innocent of the charges laid against Him; and the
proof that the Father has received Him, is the presence now of
the Holy Spirit on earth, for Christ has sent Him from the Father (John 16:7)! The
world was unrighteous in casting Him out, the Father righteous in glorifying
Him; and this is what the Spirit's presence here establishes.
"Of judgment, because the Prince of this
world is judged" (v. 11). This is the logical and inevitable climax. The
world is brought in guilty for their rejection of, for their refusal to
receive, Christ. Its condemnation is exhibited by the Father's exaltation of
the spurned One. Therefore nothing awaits the world, and its Prince, but
judgment. The "judgment" of Satan is already established by the
Spirit's presence here, for Christ, through death, set at nought him who had
the power of death, that is, the Devil (Heb. 2:14).
When God's time comes for the Spirit to depart from the earth then His sentence
will be executed, both on the world and its Prince. In the
light of this unspeakably solemn passage we need not be surprised to find
Christ saying, "The Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive,
because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him." No, the world wants Him
not; He condemns the world.
"And when He is come, He will reprove
(or, better, "convict"-bring in guilty) the world of sin, and of
righteousness, and of judgment: Of sin, because they believe not on Me; of
righteousness, because I go to My Father, and ye see Me no more; Of judgment,
because the prince of this world is judged" (John 16:8-11).
Three things, then, the presence of the Holy Spirit on earth demonstrates to
the world: first, its sin, because the world refused to believe on Christ;
second, God's righteousness in exalting to His own right hand the One cast out,
and now no more seen by the world; third, judgment, because Satan the world's
prince is already judged, though execution of his judgment is yet future. Thus
the Holy Spirit's presence here displays things as they really
are. We repeat, John 16:8-11 makes
no reference to the mission of the Spirit of God in the world,
for during this dispensation, the Spirit has no mission and
ministry worldward.
The Holy Spirit is Sovereign in His
operations and His mission is confined to God's elect: they are the ones He
"comforts," "seals," guides into all truth, shows things to
come, etc. The work of the Spirit is necessary in order to the
complete accomplishment of the Father's eternal purpose. Speaking
hypothetically, but reverently, be it said, that if God had done nothing more
than given Christ to die for sinners, not a single sinner would ever have been
saved. In order for any sinner to see his need of a Saviour
and be willing to receive the Saviour he needs the work of the
Holy Spirit upon and within him as imperatively required. Had God done nothing
more than given Christ to die for sinners and then sent forth His servants to
proclaim salvation through Jesus Christ, thus leaving sinners entirely to
themselves to accept or reject as they pleased, then every
sinner would have rejected, because at heart every man hates
God and is at enmity with Him. Therefore the work of the Holy Spirit was needed
to bring the sinner to Christ, to overcome his innate opposition, and compel
him to accept the provision God has made. We say "compel" the sinner,
for this is precisely what the Holy Spirit does, has to do, and this leads us
to consider at some length, though as briefly as possible, the parable of the
"Marriage Supper."
In Luke 14:16 we
read, "A certain man made a great supper, and bade many." By
comparing carefully what follows here with Matthew 22:2-10 several
important distinctions will be observed. We take it that these passages are two
independent accounts of the same parable, differing in detail according to the
distinctive purpose and design of the Holy Spirit in each Gospel. Matthew's
account-in harmony with the Spirit's presentation there of Christ as the King
says, "A certain king made a marriage for his son."
Luke's account-where the Spirit presents Christ as the Son of Man-says "A
certain man made a great supper and bade many." Matthew 22:3 says,
"And sent forth His servants"; Luke 14:17 says,
"And sent His servant." Now what we wish
particularly to call attention to is, that all through Matthew's account it is
"servants," whereas in Luke it is always "servant." The
class of readers for whom we are writing are those that believe, unreservedly,
in the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures, and such will
readily acknowledge there must be some reason for this change from the plural
number in Matthew to the singular number in Luke. We believe the reason is a
weighty one and that attention to this variation reveals an important truth. We
believe that the "servants" in Matthew, speaking generally, are all who
go forth preaching the Gospel, but that the "Servant" in Luke
14 is the Holy Spirit, for God the Son, in the days of His earthly
ministry, was the Servant of Jehovah (Isa. 42:1). It
will be observed that in Matthew 22 the "servants" are sent forth
to do three things: first, to "call" to the wedding
(v. 3); second, to "tell those which are bidden.. all
things are ready: come unto the marriage" (v. 4); third, to "bid to
the marriage" (v. 9); and these three are the things which
those who minister the Gospel today are now doing. In Luke 14 the Servant is
also sent forth to do three things: first, He is to say to
them that were bidden, Come: for all things are now ready" (v. 17);
second, He is to "bring in the poor, and the maimed, and
the halt, and the blind" (v. 21); third, He is to "compel them
to come in" (v. 23), and the last two of these the Holy Spirit alone can
do!
In the above Scripture we see that "the Servant,"
the Holy Spirit, compels certain ones to come in to the
"supper" and herein is seen His Sovereignty, His omnipotency, His
Divine sufficiency. The clear implication from this word "compel" is,
that those whom the Holy Spirit does "bring
in" are not willing of themselves to come. This
is exactly what we have sought to show in previous paragraphs. By nature, God's
elect are children of wrath even as others (Eph. 2:3), and
as such their hearts are at enmity with God. But this "enmity" of
theirs is overcome by the Spirit and He "compels" them to come
in. Is it not clear then that the reason why others are left
outside, is not only because they are unwilling to go in, but
also because the Holy Spirit does not "compel" them to
come in? Is it not manifest that the Holy Spirit is\ Sovereign in the
exercise of His power, that as the wind "bloweth where it pleaseth" so the
Holy Spirit operates where He pleases?
And now to sum up. We have sought to show
the perfect consistency of God's ways: that each Person in the Godhead acts in
sympathy and harmony with the Others. God the Father elected certain ones to
salvation, God the Son died for the elect, and God the Spirit quickens the
elect. Well may we sing,
Praise
God from whom all blessings flow,
Praise
Him all creatures here below,
Praise Him above ye heavenly host,
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Praise Him above ye heavenly host,
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
CHAPTER
FIVE
THE
SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD IN REPROBATION
In the last chapter when treating of the
Sovereignty of God the Father in Salvation, we examined seven passages which
represent Him as making a choice from among the children of men, and
predestinating certain ones to be conformed to the image of His Son. The
thoughtful reader will naturally ask, And what of those who were not “ordained
to eternal life?" The answer which is usually returned to this question,
even by those who profess to believe what the Scriptures teach concerning God's
Sovereignty, is, that God passes by the non-elect, leaves
them alone to go their own way, and in the end casts them into the
Lake of Fire because they refused His way, and rejected the
Saviour of His providing. But this is only a part of the truth; the other
part-that which is most offensive to the carnal mind-is either ignored or
denied.
In view of the awful solemnity of the subject
here before us, in view of the fact that today almost all-even those who
profess to be Calvinists-reject and repudiate this doctrine, and in view of the
fact that this is one of the points in our book which is likely to raise the
most controversy, we feel that an extended inquiry into this aspect of God's
Truth is demanded. That this branch of the subject of God's Sovereignty is
profoundly mysterious we freely allow, yet, that is no reason why we should
reject it. The trouble is that, nowadays, there are so many who receive the
testimony of God only so far as they can satisfactorily account for
all the reasons and grounds of His conduct, which means they will accept
nothing but that which can be measured in the petty scales of their
own limited capacities.
Stating it in its baldest form the point now
to be considered is, Has God foreordained certain ones to damnation? That many will
be eternally damned is clear from Scripture, that each one will be
judged according to his works and reap as he has sown, and that in consequence
his "damnation is just" (Rom. 3:8), is
equally sure, and that God decreed that the non-elect should choose
the course they follow we now undertake to prove.
From what has been before us in the previous
chapter concerning the election of some to salvation, it would
unavoidably follow, even if Scripture had been silent upon it, that there must
be a rejection of others. Every choice evidently and necessarily
implies a refusal, for where there is no leaving out there can be no choice. If
there be some whom God has elected unto salvation (2 Thess. 2:13),
there must be others who are not elected unto salvation. If
there are some that the Father gave to Christ (John 6:37),
there must be others whom He did not give unto Christ. If there be some whose
names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life (Rev. 21:27),
there must be others whose names are not written there. That
this is the case we shall fully prove below.
Now all will acknowledge that from the
foundation of the world God certainly foreknew and foresaw who would and who
would not receive Christ as their Saviour, therefore in giving being and birth
to those He knew would reject Christ, He necessarily created
them unto damnation. All that can be said in reply to this is,
No, while God did foreknow these would reject Christ, yet He did
not decree that they should. But this is a begging
of the real question at issue. God had a definite reason why He
created men, a specific purpose why He created this and that individual, and in
view of the eternal destination of His creatures, He purposed either
that this one should spend eternity in Heaven or that this one should spend
eternity in the Lake of Fire. If then He foresaw that
in creating a certain person that that person would despise and reject the
Saviour, yet knowing this beforehand He, nevertheless, brought that person into
existence, then it is clear He designed and ordained that that person should be
eternally lost. Again; faith is God's gift, and the purpose to give it only to
some, involves the purpose not to give it to others. Without
faith there is no salvation--"He that believeth not shall be
damned"-hence if there were some of Adam's descendants to whom He purposed
not to give faith, it must be because He ordained that they should
be damned.
Not only is there no escape from these
conclusions, but history confirms them. Before the Divine
Incarnation, for almost two thousand years, the vast majority of mankind were
left destitute of even the external means of grace, being favored with no
preaching of God's Word and with no written revelation of His will. For many
long centuries Israel was the only nation to whom the Deity
vouchsafed any special discovery of Himself- "Who in times past suffered all nations
to walk in their own ways" (Acts 14:16)--"You only (Israel)
have I known of all the families of the earth" (Amos 3:2).
Consequently, as all other nations were deprived of the preaching
of God's Word, they were strangers to the faith that cometh thereby (Rom. 10:17).
These nations were not only ignorant of God Himself, but of the way to please
Him, of the true manner of acceptance with Him, and the means of arriving at
the everlasting enjoyment of Himself.
Now if God had willed their salvation, would
He not have vouchsafed them the means of salvation? Would He not have given
them all things necessary to that end? But it is an undeniable matter of fact
that He did not. If, then, Deity can, consistently, with His
justice, mercy, and benevolence, deny to some the means of grace, and shut them
up in gross darkness and unbelief (because of the sins of their forefathers,
generations before), why should it be deemed incompatible with His perfections
to exclude some persons, many, from grace itself, and from that eternal life
which is connected with it? seeing that He is Lord and Sovereign Disposer both
of the end to which the means lead, and the means which lead to that end?
Coming down to our own day, and to those in
our own country-leaving out the almost unnumerable crowds of unevangelized
heathen-is it not evident that there are many living in lands where the Gospel
is preached, lands which are full of churches, who die strangers to God and His
holiness? True, the means of grace were close to their hand, but many of them
knew it not. Thousands are born into homes where they are taught from infancy
to regard all Christians as hypocrites and preachers as arch-humbugs. Others,
are instructed from the cradle in Roman Catholicism, and are trained to regard
Evangelical Christianity as deadly heresy, and the Bible as a book highly
dangerous for them to read. Others, reared in "Christian Science"
families, know no more of the true Gospel of Christ than do the unevangelized
heathen. The great majority of these die in utter ignorance of the Way of
Peace. Now are we not obliged to conclude that it was not
God's will to communicate grace to them? Had His will been
otherwise, would He not have actually communicated His grace
to them? If, then, it was the will of God, in time, to refuse to
them his grace, it must have been His will from all eternity, since His will
is, as Himself, the same yesterday, and today and forever. Let it not be
forgotten that God's providences are but the manifestations of
His decrees: what God does in time is only what
He purposed in eternity-His own will being the alone cause of
all His acts and works. Therefore from His actually leaving some men in final
impenitency and unbelief we assuredly gather it was His everlasting
determination so to do; and consequently that He reprobated some from before
the foundation of the world.
In the Westminster Confession it is said,
"God from all eternity did by the most wise and holy counsel of His own
will, freely and unchangeably foreordain whatsoever comes to
pass." The late Mr. F. W. Grant-a most careful and cautious student and
writer-commenting on these words said: "It is perfectly, divinely true,
that God hath ordained for His own glory whatsoever comes to pass." Now if
these statements are true, is not the doctrine of Reprobation established by
them? What, in human history, is the one thing which does come to pass every
day? What, but that men and women die, pass out of this world into a hopeless
eternity, an eternity of suffering and woe. If then God has foreordained whatsoever
comes to pass then He must have decreed that vast numbers of human beings
should pass out of this world unsaved to suffer eternally in the Lake of Fire.
Admitting the general premise, is not the specific conclusion inevitable?
In reply to the preceding paragraphs the
reader may say, All this is simply reasoning, logical no
doubt, but yet mere inferences. Very well, we will now point out that in
addition to the above conclusions there are many passages in Holy Writ which
are most clear and definite in their teaching on this solemn subject; passages
which are too plain to be misunderstood and too strong to be evaded. The marvel
is that so many good men have denied their undeniable affirmations.
"Joshua made war a long time with all
those kings. There was not a city that made peace with the children of Israel,
save the Hivites the inhabitants of Gibeon: all other they took in battle. For
it was of the LORD to harden their hearts, that they should come against Israel
in battle, that He might destroy them utterly, and that they might have no
favor, but that He might destroy them as the LORD commanded Moses" (Josh. 11:18-20).
What could be plainer than this? Here was a large number of Canaanites whose
hearts the Lord hardened, whom He had purposed to utterly destroy, to whom He
showed "no favor." Granted that they were wicked,
immoral, idolatrous; were they any worse than the immoral,
idolatrous cannibals of the South Sea Islands (and many other places), to whom
God gave the Gospel through John G. Paton! Assuredly not. Then why did not
Jehovah command Israel to teach the Canaanites His laws and instruct them
concerning sacrifices to the true God? Plainly, because He had marked them out
for destruction, and if so, that from all eternity.
"The LORD hath made all things for
Himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil" (Prov. 16:4).
That the Lord made all, perhaps every reader of this book will allow: that He
made all for Himself is not so widely believed. That God made
us, not for our own sakes, but for Himself; not for our own happiness, but for
His glory, is, nevertheless, repeatedly affirmed in Scripture-Revelation 4:11. But Proverbs 16:4 goes
even farther: it expressly declares that the Lord made the wicked for the
Day of Evil: that was His design in giving
them being. But why? Does not Romans 9:17 tell
us, "For the Scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have
I raised thee up, that I might shew My power in thee, and that My name might be
declared throughout all the earth"! God has made the wicked that, at the
end, He may demonstrate His power"-demonstrate it by
showing what an easy matter it is for Him to subdue the stoutest rebel and to
overthrow His mightiest enemy.
"And then will I profess unto them, I
never knew you: depart from Me, ye that work iniquity" (Matt. 7:23). In
the previous chapter it has been shown that the words "know" and
"foreknowledge" when applied to God in the Scriptures, have reference
not simply to His prescience (i.e., His bare knowledge beforehand),
but to His knowledge of approbation. When God said to Israel, "You
only have I known of all the families of the earth" (Amos 3:2), it
is evident that He meant, "You only had I any favorable regard to."
When we read in Romans 11:2 "God
hath not cast away His people (Israel) which He foreknew," it
is obvious that what was signified is, "God has not finally rejected that
people whom He has chosen as the objects of His love"-cf. Deuteronomy 7:8. In
the same way (and it is the only possible way) are we to
understand Matthew 7:23. In the Day of Judgment the Lord will say unto many,
"I never knew you." Note, it is more than simply "I know you not."
His solemn declaration will be, "I never knew
you"-you were never the objects of My approbation. Contrast this with
"I know (love) My sheep, and am known (loved) of
Mine" (John 10:14). The
"sheep," His elect, the "few" He does "know";
but the reprobate, the non-elect, the "many" He knows not-no, not
even before the foundation of the world did He know them-He "NEVER"
knew them!
In Romans 9 the doctrine of God's
Sovereignty in its application to both the elect and the reprobate is treated
of at length. A detailed exposition of this important chapter would be beyond
our present scope; all that we can essay is to dwell upon the part of it which
most clearly bears upon the aspect of the subject which we are now considering.
Verse 17. "For the Scripture
saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I
might show My power in thee, and that My name might be declared throughout all
the earth." These words refer us back to verses 13 and 14. In
verse 13 God's love to Jacob and His hatred to Esau are declared. In verse 14
it is asked "Is there unrighteousness with God?" and here in verse 17
the Apostle continues his reply to the objection. We cannot do
better now than quote from Calvin's comments upon this verse. "There are
here two things to be considered-the predestination of Pharaoh to ruin, which
is to be referred to the past and yet the hidden counsel of God-and then, the
design of this, which was to make known the name of God. As many interpreters,
striving to modify this passage, pervert it, we must observe, that for the word
'I have raised thee up,' or stirred up, in the Hebrew is, 'I have appointed,'
by which it appears, that God, designing to show that the contumacy of Pharaoh
would not prevent Him to deliver His people, not only affirms that his fury had
been foreseen by Him, and that He had prepared means for restraining it, but
that He had also thus designedly ordained it and indeed for
this end,-that He might exhibit a more illustrious evidence of His own
power." It will be observed that Calvin gives as the force of the Hebrew
word which Paul renders "For this cause have I raised thee up,"-"I have appointed." As
this is the word on which the doctrine and argument of the
verse turns we would further point out that in making this quotation from Exodus 9:16 the
Apostle significantly departs from the Septuagint-the version then in common
use, and from which he most frequently quotes-and substitutes a clause for the
first that is given by the Septuagint: instead of "On this account thou
hast been preserved," he gives "For this very end have I raised thee
up!"
But we must now consider in more detail the
case of Pharaoh which sums up in concrete example the great controversy between
man and his Maker. "For now I will stretch out My hand, that I may smite
thee and thy people with pestilence; and thou shalt be cut off from the
earth. And in every deed for this cause have I raised thee up,
for to show in thee My power; and that My name may be declared throughout all
the earth" (Exo. 9:15, 16). Upon these words we
offer the following comments:
First, we know from Exodus 14 and 15
that Pharaoh was "cut off," that he was cut off by
God, that he was cut off in the very midst of his wickedness, that he was cut
off not by sickness nor by the infirmities which are incident to old age, nor
by what men term an accident, but cut off by the immediate hand of God
in judgment.
Second, it is clear that God raised up
Pharaoh for this very end-to "cut him
off," which in the language of the New Testament means
"destroyed." God never does anything without a previous design. In
giving him being, in preserving him through infancy and childhood, in raising
him to the throne of Egypt, God had one end in view. That such was God's
purpose is clear from His words to Moses before he went down to Egypt to demand
of Pharaoh that Jehovah's people should be allowed to go a three days' journey
into the wilderness to worship Him-"And the Lord said unto Moses, When
thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all these wonders before
Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand: but I will harden his
heart, that he shall not let the people go" (Exo. 4:21). But
not only so, God's design and purpose was declared long before this. Four
hundred years previously God had said to Abraham, "Know of a surety that
thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve
them: and they shall afflict them four hundred years; and also that nation,
whom they shall serve, will I judge" (Gen. 15:13, 14). From these words it is
evident (a nation and its king being looked at as one in the Old Testament)
that God's purpose was formed long before He gave Pharaoh being.
Third, an examination of God's dealings with
Pharaoh makes it clear that Egypt's king was indeed a "vessel of wrath
fitted to destruction." Placed on Egypt's throne, with the reins of
government in his hands, he sat as head of the nation which occupied the first
rank among the peoples of the world. There was no other monarch on earth able
to control or dictate to Pharaoh. To such a dizzy height did God raise this
reprobate, and such a course was a natural and necessary step to prepare him
for his final fate, for it is a Divine axiom that "pride goeth before
destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall." Further-and this is
deeply important to note and highly significant-God removed from Pharaoh the
one outward restraint which was calculated to act as a check upon him. The
bestowing upon Pharoah of the unlimited powers of a king was setting him above
all legal influence and control. But besides this, God removed Moses from
his presence and kingdom. Had Moses, who not only was skilled in all the wisdom
of the Egyptians but also had been reared in Pharaoh's household, been suffered
to remain in close proximity to the throne, there can be no doubt but that his
example and influence had been a powerful check upon the king's wickedness and
tyranny. This, though not the only cause, was plainly one reason why God sent
Moses into Midian, for it was during his absence that Egypt's
inhuman king framed his most cruel edicts. God designed, by removing this
restraint, to give Pharaoh full opportunity to fill up the full measure of his
sins, and ripen himself for his fully-deserved but predestined ruin.
Fourth, God "hardened" his heart as
He declared He would (Exo. 4:21).
This is in full accord with the declarations of Holy Scripture-"The
preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from
the LORD" (Prov. 16:1);
"The king's heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water, He
turneth it withersoever He will" (Prov. 21:1).
Like all other kings, Pharaoh's heart was in the hand of the Lord; and God had
both the right and the power to turn it whithersoever He pleased. And it
pleased Him to turn it against all good. God determined to
hinder Pharaoh from granting his request through Moses to let Israel go until
He had fully prepared him for his final overthrow, and because nothing short of
this would fully fit him, God hardened his heart.
Finally, it is worthy of careful
consideration to note how the vindication of God in His
dealings with Pharaoh has been fully attested. Most remarkable it is to
discover that we have Pharaoh's own testimony in
favor of God and against himself! In Exodus 9:15 and 16 we learn how God had
told Pharaoh for what purpose He had raised him up, and in verse 27 of
the same chapter we are told that Pharaoh said, "I have sinned this time: the
LORD is righteous, and I and my people are wicked." Mark that
this was said by Pharaoh after he knew that God had raised him
up in order to "cut him off," after his severe
judgments had been sent upon him, after he had hardened his
own heart. By this time Pharaoh was fairly ripened for judgment, and fully
prepared to decide whether God had injured him, or whether he had sought to
injure God; and he fully acknowledged that he had "sinned" and that
God was "righteous." Again; we have the witness of Moses who was
fully acquainted with God's conduct toward Pharaoh. He had heard at the
beginning what was God's design in connection with Pharaoh; he had witnessed
God's dealings with him; he had observed his "long-sufferance" toward
this vessel of wrath fitted to destruction; and at last he had beheld him cut
off in Divine judgment at the Red Sea. How then was Moses impressed? Does he
raise the cry of injustice? Does he dare to charge God with unrighteousness?
Far from it. Instead, he says, "Who is like unto Thee, O LORD, among the
gods? Who is like Thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in
praises, doing wonders!" (Exo. 15: 11).
Was Moses moved by a vindictive spirit
as he saw Israel's archenemy "cut off" by the waters of the Red Sea?
Surely not. But to remove forever all doubt upon this score it remains to be
pointed out how that saints in Heaven, after they have
witnessed the sore judgments of God, join in singing "the song of Moses the
servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvelous are Thy
works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are Thy ways, Thou
King of saints" (Rev. 15:3).
Here then is the climax, and the full and final vindication of God's dealings
with Pharaoh. Saints in Heaven join in singing the Song of Moses, in which the
servant of God celebrated Jehovah's praise in overthrowing Pharaoh and his
hosts, declaring that in so acting God was not unrighteous
but just and true. We must believe, therefore, that the Judge
of all the earth did right in creating and destroying this vessel of wrath,
Pharaoh.
The case of Pharaoh establishes the
principle and illustrates the doctrine of Reprobation. If God actually
reprobated Pharaoh, we may justly conclude that He reprobates all others whom
He did not predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son. This inference
the Apostle Paul manifestly draws from the fate of Pharaoh, for in Romans 9, after
referring to God's purpose in raising up Pharaoh, he continues, "therefore." The
case of Pharaoh is introduced to prove the doctrine of Reprobation as the
counterpart of the doctrine of Election.
In conclusion, we would say that in forming
Pharaoh God displayed neither justice nor injustice, but only His bare
Sovereignty. As the potter is Sovereign in forming vessels, so God is Sovereign
in forming moral agents.
Verse 18. "Therefore hath He
mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth." The
"therefore" announces the general conclusion which the Apostle draws
from all he had said in the three preceding verses in denying that God was
unrighteous in loving Jacob and hating Esau, and specifically it applies the
principle exemplified in God's dealings with Pharaoh. It traces everything back
to the Sovereign will of the Creator. He loves one and hates another. He
exercises mercy toward some and hardens others, without reference to anything
save His own Sovereign will.
That which is most repulsive to the carnal
mind in the above verse is the reference to hardening-"Whom He
will He hardeneth"-and it is just here that so many commentators and
expositors have adulterated the truth. The most common view is that the Apostle
is speaking of nothing more than judicial hardening, i.e.,
a forsaking by God because these subjects of His
displeasure had first rejected His truth and forsaken Him. Those
who contend for this interpretation appeal to such Scriptures as Romans 1: 19-26-"God
gave them up," that is (see context) those who "knew God" yet
glorified Him not as God (v. 21). Appeal is also made to 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12. But
it is to be noted that the word "harden" does not occur in
either of these passages. But further. We submit that Romans 9:18 has
no reference whatever to judicial "hardening." The
Apostle is not there speaking of those who had already turned their back on
God's truth, but instead, he is dealing with God's Sovereignty, God's
Sovereignty as seen not only in showing mercy to whom He wills, but
also in hardening whom He pleases. The exact words are
"Whom He will"-not, "all who have rejected
His truth"-"He hardeneth," and this, coming immediately after
the mention of Pharaoh, clearly fixes their meaning. The case of Pharaoh is
plain enough, though man by his glosses has done his best to hide
the truth.
Verse 18. "Therefore hath He
mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth." This
affirmation of God's Sovereign "hardening" of sinners' hearts-in
contradistinction from judicial hardening-is not alone. Mark the language
of John 12:37-40, "But though He had done so many miracles before
them, yet they believed not on Him: that the saying of Esaias (Isaiah) the
prophet might be fulfilled, which he spake, Lord, who hath believed our report?
and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed? Therefore they
could not believe (why?), because that Esaias said again, He
hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their hearts (why? Because they
had refused to believe on Christ? This is the popular belief, but mark the
answer of Scripture) that they should not see with their eyes,
nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them."
Now, reader, it is just a question as to whether or not you will believe what
God has revealed in His Word. It is not a matter of prolonged searching or
profound study, but a childlike spirit which is needed in order to understand
this doctrine.
Verse 19. "Thou wilt say then
unto me, Why doth He yet find fault? For who hath resisted His
will?" Is not this the very objection which is urged today? The
force of the Apostle's questions here seem to be this: Since everything is
dependent on God's will, which is irreversible, and since this will of God,
according to which He can do everything as Sovereign-since He can have mercy on
whom He wills to have mercy, and can refuse mercy and inflict punishment on
whom He chooses to do so-why does He not will to have mercy on all, so as to
make them obedient, and thus put finding of fault out of court? Now it should
be particularly noted that the Apostle does not repudiate the ground on which
the objection rests. He does not say God does not find fault.
Nor does he say, Men may resist His will. Furthermore; he does
not explain away the objection by saying: You have altogether misapprehended my
meaning when I said 'Whom He will He treats kindly, and whom He wills He treats
severely.' But he says, "first, this is an objection you have no
right to make; and then, This is an objection you have no
reason to make" (vide Dr. Brown). The objection was utterly
inadmissible, for it was a replying against God. It was to
complain about, argue against, what God had done!
Verse 19. "Thou wilt say then
unto me, Why doth He yet find fault? For who hath resisted His
will?" The language which the Apostle here puts into the mouth of
the objector is so plain and pointed, that misunderstanding ought to be
impossible. Why doth He yet find fault? Now, reader, what can
these words mean? Formulate your own reply before considering
ours. Can the force of the Apostle's question be any other than this: If it is
true that God has "mercy" on whom He wills, and also
"hardens" whom He wills, then what becomes of human
responsibility? In such a case men are nothing better than puppets, and
if this be true then it would be unjust for God to "find
fault" with His helpless creatures. Mark the word "then"-Thou
wilt say then unto me-he states the (false) inference or
conclusion which the objector draws from what the Apostle had been saying. And
mark, my reader, the Apostle readily saw the doctrine he had formulated would raise this very
objection, and unless what we have written throughout this
book provokes, in some at least, (all whose carnal minds are not
subdued by Divine grace) the same objection, then it must be
either because we have not presented the doctrine which is set forth in Romans
9, or else because human nature has changed since the Apostle's day.
Consider now the remainder of the verse (19). The Apostle repeats the
same objection in a slightly different form-repeats it so that this
meaning may not be misunderstood-namely, "For who hath resisted His
will?" It is clear then that the subject under immediate discussion
relates to God's "will," i.e., His Sovereign ways, which confirms what
we have said above upon verses 17 and 18 where we contended that it is not judicial
hardening which is in view (that is, hardening because of previous rejection of
the truth), but Sovereign "hardening," that is, the
"hardening" of a fallen and sinful creature for no other reason than
that which inheres in the Sovereign will of God. And hence the question,
"Who hath resisted His will?" What then does the
Apostle say in reply to these objections?
Verse 20. "Nay but, O man, who
art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that
formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?" The Apostle, then, did
not say the objection was pointless and groundless, instead, he rebukes the
objector for his impiety. He reminds him that he is merely a
"man," a creature, and that as such it is most unseemly and
impertinent for him to "reply (argue, or reason) against
God." Furthermore, he reminds him that he is nothing more than a
"thing formed" and, therefore, it is madness and blasphemy to rise up
against the Former Himself. Ere leaving this verse it should be pointed out
that its closing words, "Why hast thou made me thus," help
us to determine, unmistakably, the precise subject under discussion. In the
light of the immediate context what can be the force of the "thus"?
What, but as in the case of Esau, why hast thou made me an object of
"hatred"? What, but as in the case of Pharaoh, Why hast thou made me
simply to "harden" me? What other meaning can, fairly, be
assigned to it?
It is highly important to keep clearly before
us that the Apostle's object throughout this passage is to treat of God's
Sovereignty in dealing with, on the one hand, those whom He loves-vessels unto honor
and vessels of mercy; and also, on the other hand, with those whom
He "hates" and "hardens"-vessels unto dishonor and vessels
of wrath.
Verses 21-23. "Hath not the
potter power over the clay, of the same lump, to make one vessel unto honor,
and another unto dishonour? What if God, willing to shew His wrath, and to make
His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to
destruction: And that He might make known the riches of His glory
on the vessels of mercy, which He had afore prepared unto glory." In
these verses the Apostle furnishes a full and final reply to the objections
raised in verse 19. First, he asks, "Hath not the potter power over the
clay?" etc. It is to be noted the word here translated "power"
is a different one in the Greek from the one rendered "power" in
verse 22 where it can only signify His might; but here in
verse 21, the "power" spoken of must refer to the Creator's rights or
Sovereign prerogatives; that this is so, appears from
the fact that the same Greek word is employed in John 1: 12-"As
many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of
God"-which, as is well known, means the right or privilege to become the
sons of God. The R. V. employs "right" both in John 1:12 and Romans 9:21.
Verse 21. "Hath not the potter
power over the clay of the same lump, to make one vessel unto honor, and
another unto dishonour?" That the "potter" here is God
Himself is certain from the previous verse, where the Apostle asks, "Who
art thou that repliest against God?" and then, speaking
in the terms of the figure he was about to use, continues, "Shall
the thing formed say to Him that formed it," etc. Some
there are who would rob these words of their force by arguing that while the
human potter makes certain vessels to be used for less honorable purposes than
others, nevertheless, they are designed to fill some useful place. But the
Apostle does not here say, Hath not the Potter power over the clay of the same
lump, to make one vessel unto an honorable use and another to a less honorable
use, but he speaks of some "vessels" being made unto "dishonour."
It is true, of course, that God's wisdom will yet be fully vindicated, inasmuch
as the destruction of the reprobate will promote His glory-in what way the next
verse tells us.
Ere passing to the next verse let us
summarize the teaching of this and the two previous ones. In verse 19 two
questions are asked, "Thou wilt say then unto me, Why
doth He yet find fault? For who hath resisted His will?" To those
questions a threefold answer is returned. First, in verse 20 the Apostle denies
the creature the right to sit in judgment upon the ways of the
Creator-"Nay but, O man who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the
thing formed say to Him that formed it, Why hast Thou made me thus?" The
Apostle insists that the rectitude of God's will must not be
questioned. Whatever He does must be right.
Second, in verse 21 the Apostle declares that the Creator has the right to
dispose of His creatures as He sees fit-"Hath not the Potter power over
the clay, of the same lump, to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto
dishonor?" It should be carefully noted that the word for
"power" here is exousia-an entirely different word from the one
translated "power" in the following verse ("to make known His
power"), where it is duaton. In the words "Hath not the Potter power
over the clay?" it must be God's power justly exercised which
is in view-the exercise of God's rights consistently with His justice-because
the mere assertion of His omnipotency would be no such answer as God would
return to the questions asked in verse 19. Third, in verses 22, 23 the Apostle
gives the reasons why God proceeds differently with one of His
creatures from another: on the one hand, it is to "shew His wrath"
and to "make His power known"; on the other hand, it is to "make
known the riches of His glory."
"Hath not the Potter power over the clay
of the same lump, to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto
dishonour?" Certainly God has the right to do this
because He is the Creator. Does He exercise this right? Yes, as
verses 13 and 17 clearly show us-"For this same purpose have
I raised thee (Pharaoh) up."
Verse 22. "What if God, willing
to shew His wrath, and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering
the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction." Here the Apostle
tells us in the second place why God acts thus, i.e.,
differently with different ones-having mercy on some and hardening others,
making one vessel "unto honor" and another "unto
dishonour." Observe that here in verse 22 the Apostle first mentions
"vessels of wrath" before he refers in verse 23 to the "vessels
of mercy." Why is this? The answer to this question is of first
importance: we reply, Because it is the "vessels of
wrath" who are the subjects in view before the objector in verse
19. Two reasons are given why God makes some "vessels unto
dishonour"; first, to "shew His wrath," and secondly "to
make His power known"-both of which were exemplified in the case of
Pharaoh.
One point in the above verse requires
separate consideration-"Vessels of wrath fitted to destruction."
The usual explanation which is given of these words is that the vessels of
wrath fit themselves to destruction, that is, fit themselves
by virtue of their wickedness; and it is argued that there is no need for God to
"fit them to destruction," because they are already fitted
by their own depravity, and that this must be the real meaning
of this expression. Now if by "destruction" we understand punishment, it
is perfectly true that the non-elect do "fit
themselves," for every one will be judged "according to his
works"; and further, we freely grant that subjectively the non-elect do fit
themselves for destruction. But the point to be decided is, Is this what
the Apostle is here referring to? And, without hesitation, we reply it is not.
Go back to verses 11-13: did Esau fit himself to be an object
of God's hatred, or was he not such before he was born? Again; did
Pharaoh fit himself for destruction, or did not God harden his
heart before the plagues were sent upon Egypt?-see Exodus 4:21!
Romans 9:22 is
clearly a continuation in thought of verse 21, and verse 21 is part of the
Apostle's reply to the question raised in verse 20: therefore, to fairly follow
out the figure, it must be God Himself who "fits"
unto destruction the vessels of wrath. Should it be asked how God
does this, the answer, necessarily, is, objectively,-He fits the
non-elect unto destruction by His fore-ordinating decrees. Should it be asked
why God does this, the answer must be, To promote His own glory, i.e., the
glory of His justice, power and wrath. "The sum of the Apostle's answer
here is, that the grand object of God, both in the election and the reprobation
of men, is that which is paramount to all things else in the creation of men,
namely, His own glory" (Robert Haldane).
Verse 23. "And that He might
make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had afore
prepared unto glory." The only point in this verse which demands
attention is the fact that the "vessels of mercy" are here said to
be "afore prepared unto glory." Many have pointed
out that the previous verse does not say the vessels of wrath were afore prepared
unto destruction, and from this omission they have concluded that we must
understand the reference there to the non-elect fitting
themselves in time, rather than God ordaining them for destruction
from all eternity. But this conclusion by no means follows. We need to look
back to verse 21 and note the figure which is there employed. "Clay"
is inanimate matter, corrupt, decomposed, and therefore
a fit substance to represent fallen humanity. As then the
Apostle is contemplating God's Sovereign dealings with humanity in view
of the Fall, He does not say the vessels of wrath were "afore"
prepared unto destruction, for the obvious and sufficient reason that it was
not until after the Fall that they became (in themselves) what
is here symbolized by the "clay." All that is necessary to refute the
erroneous conclusion referred to above is to point out that what is said of the
vessels of wrath is not that they are fit for destruction
(which is the word that would have been used if the reference had been to
them fitting themselves by their own wickedness), but fitted
to destruction; which, in the light of the whole context, must mean a Sovereign
ordination to destruction by the Creator. We quote here the pointed
words of Calvin on this passage: "There are vessels prepared for
destruction, that is, given up and appointed to destruction; they are also
vessels of wrath, that is, made and formed for this end, that
they may be examples of God's vengeance and displeasure. Though in the second
clause the Apostle asserts more expressly, that it is God who prepared the
elect for glory, as he had simply said before that the reprobate are vessels
prepared for destruction, there is yet no doubt but that the preparation of
both is connected with the secret counsel of God. Paul might have otherwise
said, that the reprobate gave up or cast themselves into destruction, but he
intimates here, that before they are born they are destined to their lot."
With this we are in hearty accord. Romans 9:22 does
not say the vessels of wrath fitted themselves, nor
does it say they are fit for destruction, instead, it declares
they are "fitted to destruction," and the context
shows plainly it is God who thus "fits" them-objectively
by His eternal decrees.
Though Romans 9 contains the fullest setting
forth of the doctrine of Reprobation, there are still other passages which
refer to it, one or two more of which we will now briefly notice:
"What then? That which Israel seeketh
for, that he obtained not, but the election obtained it, and the rest were
hardened" (Rom. 11:7 R.
V.). Here we have two distinct and clearly defined classes which are set in
sharp antithesis: the "election" and "the rest"; the one
"obtained," the other is "hardened." On this verse we quote
from the comments of John Bunyan of immortal memory: "These are solemn
words: they sever between men and men-the election and the rest, the chosen and
the left, the embraced and the refused. By 'rest' here must needs be understood
those not elect, because set the one in opposition to the other,
and if not elect, whom then but reprobate?"
Writing to the saints at Thessalonica the
Apostle declared, "For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain
salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thess. 5:9). Now
surely it is patent to any impartial mind that this statement is quite
pointless if God has not "appointed" any to wrath.
To say that God "hath not appointed us to wrath"
clearly implies that there are some whom He has "appointed to wrath,"
and were it not that the minds of so many professing Christians are so blinded
by prejudice, they could not fail to clearly see this.
"A Stone of stumbling, and a Rock of
offence, even to them who stumble at the Word, being disobedient: whereunto
also they were appointed" (1 Peter 2:8). The
"whereunto" manifestly points back to the stumbling at the Word, and
their disobedience. Here, then, God expressly affirms that there are some
who have been "appointed" (it is the same Greek word as in 1 Thess. 5:9) unto
disobedience. Our business is not to reason about it, but
to bow to Holy Scripture. Our first duty is not to understand, but
to believe what God has said.
"But these, as natural brute
beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the
things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own
corruption" (2 Peter 2:12).
Here again every effort is made to escape the plain teaching of this solemn
passage. We are told that it is the "brute beasts" who are "made
to be taken and destroyed," and not the persons here likened to them. All
that is needed to refute such sophistry is to inquire wherein lies the
point of analogy between the "these" (men) and the
"brute beasts"? What is the force of the "as"-but
"these as brute beasts'? Clearly, it is that "these"
men as brute beasts, are the ones who, like animals, are
"made to be taken and destroyed": the closing words confirming this
by reiterating the same sentiment-"and shall utterly
perish in their own corruption."
"For there are certain men crept in
unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly
men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only
Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ" (Jude 4). Attempts have been made
to escape the obvious force of this verse by substituting a different
translation. The R. V. gives: "But there are certain men crept in privily,
even they who were of old written of beforehand unto this
condemnation." But this altered rendering by no means gets rid of that
which is so distasteful to our sensibilities. The question arises, Where were
these "of old written of beforehand"? Certainly not
in the Old Testament, for nowhere is there any reference there to
wicked men creeping into Christian assemblies. If "written
of" be the best translation of "prographo," the reference
can only be to the book of the Divine decrees. So whichever
alternative be selected there can be no evading the fact that certain men are
"before of old" marked out by God "unto condemnation."
"And all that dwell on the earth shall
worship him, every one whose name hath not been written from
the foundation of the world in the Book of Life of the Lamb that hath been
slain" (Rev. 13:8, R.
V. compare Rev. 17:8).
Here, then, is a positive statement affirming that there are those
whose names were not written in the Book of Life.
Here, then, are no less than ten passages
which most plainly imply or expressly teach the fact of reprobation. They
affirm that the wicked are made for the Day of Evil; that God
fashions some vessels unto dishonor; and by His eternal decree
(objectively) fits them unto destruction; that they are like brute beasts, made
to be taken and destroyed, being of old ordained unto this condemnation.
Therefore in the face of these Scriptures we unhesitatingly affirm (after
nearly twenty years careful and prayerful study of the subject) that the Word
of God unquestionably teaches both Predestination and Reprobation, or to use
the words of Calvin, "Eternal Election is God's predestination of some to
salvation, and others to destruction."
Having thus stated the doctrine of
Reprobation, as it is presented in Holy Writ, let us now mention one or two
important considerations to guard it against abuse and prevent the reader from
making any unwarranted deductions:
First, the doctrine of Reprobation does not
mean that God purposed to take innocent creatures, make them wicked, and then
damn them. Scripture says, "God hath made man upright: but they have
sought out many inventions" (Eccl. 7:29). God
has not created sinful creatures in order to destroy them, for
God is not to be charged with the sin of His creatures. The responsibility and
criminality is man's.
God's decree of Reprobation contemplated
Adam's race as fallen, sinful, corrupt, guilty. From it God purposed to save a
few as the monuments of His Sovereign grace; the others He determined to
destroy as the exemplification of His justice and severity. In determining to
destroy these others, God did them no wrong. They had already fallen in Adam,
their legal representative; they are therefore born with a sinful nature, and
in their sins He leaves them. Nor can they complain. This is as they wish;
they have no desire for holiness; they love darkness rather
than light. Where, then, is there any injustice if God "gives them up
to their own heart's lusts" (Psa. 81:12).
Second, the doctrine of Reprobation does not
mean that God refuses to save those who earnestly seek salvation. The fact is
that the reprobate have no longing for the Saviour: they see
in Him no beauty that they should desire Him. They will not come to Christ-why
then should God force them to? He turns away none who do come-where
then is the injustice of God foredetermining their just doom? None will
be punished but for their iniquities; where then is the supposed tyrannical
cruelty of the Divine procedure? Remember that God is the Creator of the
wicked, not of their wickedness; He is the Author of their being, but not the
Infuser of their sin.
God does not (as we have been slanderously
reported to affirm) compel the wicked to sin, as the rider spurs on an
unwilling horse. God only says in effect that awful word, "Let them
alone" (Matt. 15:14). He
needs only to slacken the reins of providential restraint, and withhold the
influence of saving grace, and apostate man will only too soon and too surely,
of his own accord, fall by his iniquities. Thus the decree of reprobation
neither interferes with the bent of man's own fallen nature, nor serves to
render him the less inexcusable.
Third, the decree of Reprobation in nowise
conflicts with God's goodness. Though the non-elect are not the objects of His
goodness in the same way or to the same extent as the elect are, yet are they
not wholly excluded from a participation of it. They enjoy the good things of
Providence (temporal blessings) in common with God's own children, and very
often to a higher degree. But how do they improve them? Does the (temporal)
goodness of God lead them to repent? Nay, verily, they do but despise "His
goodness, and forbearance, and longsuffering," and "after thy
hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day
of wrath" (Rom. 2:4, 5). On what righteous
ground, then, can they murmur against not being the objects of His benevolence
in the endless ages yet to come? Moreover, if it did not clash with God's mercy
and kindness to leave the entire body of the fallen angels (2 Peter 2:4)
under the guilt of their apostasy still less can it clash with the Divine
perfections to leave some of fallen mankind in their sins and punish them for
them.
Finally, let us interpose this necessary
caution: It is utterly impossible for any of us, during the present life, to
ascertain who are among the reprobate. We must
not now so judge any man, no matter how wicked he may be. The vilest sinner,
may, for all we know, be included in the election of grace and
be one day quickened by the Spirit of grace. Our marching orders are plain, and
woe unto us if we disregard them-"Preach the Gospel to every creature."
When we have done so our skirts are clear. If men refuse to heed, their blood
is on their own heads; nevertheless "we are unto God a sweet savour of
Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish. To the one we are a
savor of death unto death; and to the other we are a savor of life unto
life" (2 Cor. 2:15, 16).
We must now consider a number of passages
which are often quoted with the purpose of showing that God has not fitted
certain vessels to destruction or ordained certain ones to condemnation. First,
we cite Ezekiel 18:31-"Why will ye die, O house of Israel?" On this
passage we cannot do better than quote from the comments of Augustus
Toplady:-"This is a passage very frequently, but very idly, insisted upon
by Arminians, as if it were a hammer which would at one stroke crush the whole
fabric to powder. But it so happens that the 'death' here alluded to is neither
spiritual nor eternal death: as is abundantly evident from the whole tenor of
the chapter. The death intended by the prophet is a political death; a
death of national prosperity, tranquillity, and security. The sense of the
question is precisely this: What is it that makes you in love with captivity,
banishment, and civil ruin. Abstinence from the worship of images might, as a
people, exempt you from these calamities, and once more render you a
respectable nation. Are the miseries of public devastation so alluring as to
attract your determined pursuit? Why will ye die? die as the house of Israel,
and considered as a political body? Thus did the prophet argue the case, at the
same time adding-'For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth saith
the Lord God, wherefore, turn yourselves, and live ye.' This imports: First,
the national captivity of the Jews added nothing to the happiness of God.
Second, if the Jews turned from idolatry, and flung away their images, they
should not die in a foreign, hostile country, but live peaceably in their own
land and enjoy their liberties as an independent people." To the above we
may add: political death must be what is in
view in Ezekiel 18:31, 32 for the simple but
sufficient reason that they were already spiritually dead!
Matthew 25:41 is often quoted to show that God has
not fitted certain vessels to destruction- "Depart from Me, ye
cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the Devil and his angels."
This is, in fact, one of the principal verses relied upon to disprove the
doctrine of Reprobation. But we submit that the emphatic word here is not "for"
but "Devil." This verse (see context) sets forth the severity of
the judgment which awaits the lost. In other words, the above Scripture
expresses the awfulness of the everlasting fire rather
than the subjects of it-if the fire be "prepared
for the Devil and his angels" then how intolerable it
will be! If the place of eternal torment into which the damned shall be cast
is the same as that in which God's arch-enemy will suffer,
how dreadful must that place be!
Again: if God has chosen only certain ones to
salvation, why are we told that God "now commandeth all men everywhere to
repent" (Acts 17:30)?
That God commandeth "all men" to repent is but the enforcing of His
righteous claims as the moral Governor of the world. How could He do less,
seeing that all men everywhere have sinned against Him? Furthermore, that God commandeth
all men everywhere to repent argues the universality of creature
responsibility. But this Scripture does not declare that it is God's pleasure
to "give repentance" (Acts 5:31)
everywhere. That the Apostle Paul did not believe God gave repentance to every
soul is clear from his words in 2 Timothy 2:25--"In
meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will
give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth."
Again, we are asked, if God has
"ordained" only certain ones unto eternal life then why do we read
that He "will have all men to be saved, and come to the
knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim. 2:4)? The
reply is, that the words "all" and "all men," like the term
"world," are often used in a general and relative sense. Let the
reader carefully examine the following passages: Mark 1:5; John 6:45; 8:2;Acts 21:28; 22:15; 2 Corinthians 3:2,
etc., and he will find full proof of our assertion. 1 Timothy 2:4 cannot teach
that God wills the salvation of all mankind or otherwise all
mankind would be saved-"What His soul desireth even
that He doeth" (Job 23:13)!
Again; we are asked, Does not Scripture
declare, again and again, that God is no "respecter of persons"? We
answer, it certainly does, and God's electing grace proves it.
The seven sons of Jesse, though older and physically superior to David, are
passed by, while the young shepherd-boy is exalted to Israel's throne. The
scribes and lawyers pass unnoticed, and ignorant fishermen are chosen to be the
Apostles of the Lamb. Divine truth is hidden from the wise and prudent and is
revealed to babes instead. The great majority of the wise and noble are
ignored, while the weak, the base, the despised, are called and saved. Harlots
and publicans are sweetly compelled to come in to the Gospel feast while
self-righteous Pharisees are suffered to perish in their immaculate morality.
Truly, God is "no respecter" of persons or He would not
have saved me.
That the Doctrine of Reprobation is a
"hard saying" to the carnal mind is readily acknowledged-yet, is it
any "harder" than that of eternal punishment? That
it is clearly taught in Scripture we have sought to
demonstrate, and it is not for us to pick and choose from the truths revealed
in God's Word. Let those who are inclined to receive those doctrines which
commend themselves to their judgment, and who reject those which
they cannot fully understand, remember those scathing words of
our Lord's, "O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that
the prophets have spoken" (Luke 24:25):
fools because slow of heart; slow of heart, not dull of head!
Once more we would avail ourselves of the
language of Calvin:
"But, as I have hitherto only recited
such things as are delivered without any obscurity or ambiguity in the
Scriptures, let persons who hesitate not to brand with ignominy those Oracles
of Heaven, beware of what kind of opposition they make. For, if they pretend
ignorance, with a desire to be commended for their modesty, what greater
instance of pride can be conceived, than to oppose one little word to the
authority of God! as, 'It appears otherwise to me,' or 'I would rather not
meddle with this subject.' But if they openly censure, what will they gain by
their puny attempts against Heaven? Their petulance, indeed, is no
novelty; for in all ages there have been impious and profane men, who
have virulently opposed this doctrine. But they shall feel the truth
of what the Spirit long ago declared by the mouth of David, that God 'is clear
when He judgest' (Psa. 51:4).
David obliquely hints at the madness of men who display such excessive
presumption amidst their insignificance, as not only to dispute against God,
but to arrogate to themselves the power of condemning Him. In the meantime, he
briefly suggests, that God is unaffected by all the blasphemies which they
discharge against Heaven, but that He dissipates the mists of calumny, and
illustriously displays His righteousness; our faith, also, being founded on the
Divine Word, and therefore, superior to all the world, from its exaltation
looks down with contempt upon those mists" (John Calvin).
In closing this chapter we propose to quote
from the writings of some of the standard theologians since the days of the
Reformation, not that we would buttress our own statements by an appeal to
human authority, however venerable or ancient, but in order to show that what
we have advanced in these pages is no novelty of the twentieth century, no
heresy of the "latter days" but, instead, a doctrine which has been definitely
formulated and commonly taught by many of the most pious and scholarly students
of Holy Writ.
"Predestination we call the decree of
God, by which He has determined in Himself, what He would have to become of
every individual of mankind. For they are not all created with a similar
destiny: but eternal life is foreordained for some, and eternal damnation for
others. Every man, therefore, being created for one or the other of these ends,
we say, he is predestinated either to life or to death"-from John Calvin's
"Institutes" (1536 A. D.) Book III, Chapter XXI entitled
"Eternal Election, or God's Predestination of Some to Salvation and of
Others to Destruction."
We ask our readers to mark well the above
language. A perusal of it should show that what the present writer has advanced
in this chapter is not "hyper-Calvinism" but real Calvinism,
pure and simple. Our purpose in making this remark is to show that those who,
not acquainted with Calvin's writings, in their ignorance condemn
as ultra-Calvinism that which is simply a reiteration of what Calvin himself
taught-a reiteration because that prince of theologians as well as his humble
debtor have both found this doctrine in the Word of God itself.
Martin Luther in his most excellent work
"De Servo Arbitrio" (Free Will a Slave), wrote: "All things
whatsoever arise from, and depend upon, the Divine appointments, whereby it was
preordained who should receive the Word of Life, and who should disbelieve it,
who should be delivered from their sins, and who should be hardened in them,
who should be justified and who should be condemned. This is the very truth
which razes the doctrine of freewill from its foundations, to wit, that God's
eternal love of some men and hatred of others is immutable and cannot be
reversed."
John Fox, whose Book of Martyrs was once the
best known work in the English language (alas that is not so today, when Roman
Catholicism is sweeping upon us like a great destructive tidal wave!), wrote:
"Predestination is the eternal decreement of God, purposed before in
Himself, what should befall all men, either to salvation, or damnation."
The "Larger Westminster Catechism"
(1688)-adopted by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church-declares,
"God, by an eternal and immutable decree, out of His mere love, for the
praise of His glorious grace, to be manifested in due time, hath elected some
angels to glory, and in Christ hath chosen some men to eternal life, and the
means thereof; and also, according to His own will (whereby He extendeth or
withholdeth favor as He pleases), hath passed by, and foredained the
rest to dishonour and wrath, to be for their sin inflicted, to the
praise of the glory of His justice."
John Bunyan, author of "The Pilgrim's
Progress," wrote a whole volume on "Reprobation." From it we
make one brief extract:
"Reprobation is before the person cometh
into the world, or hath done good or evil. This is evidenced by Romans 9:11. Here
you find twain in their mother's womb, and both receiving their destiny, not
only before they had-done good or evil, but before they were
in a capacity to do it, they being yet unborn-their destiny, I say, the
one unto, the other not unto the blessing of eternal life; the one elect, the
other reprobate; the one chosen, the other refused." In his "Sighs
from Hell," John Bunyan also wrote: "They that do continue to reject
and slight the Word of God are such, for the most part, as are ordained
to be damned."
Commenting upon Romans 9:22,
"What is God willing to shew His wrath, and to make His power known,
endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to
destruction," Jonathan Edwards (Vol. 4, p. 306 - 1743 A.D.) says,
"How awful doth the majesty of God appear in the dreadfulness of His
anger! This we may learn to be one end of the damnation of the wicked."
Augustus Toplady, author of "Rock of
Ages" and other sublime hymns, wrote: "God, from all eternity decreed
to leave some of Adam's fallen posterity in their sins, and to exclude them
from the participation of Christ and His benefits." And again, "We,
with the Scriptures, assert: That there is a predestination of some
particular persons to life, for the praise of the glory of Divine grace; and
also a predestination of other particular persons to death for
the glory of Divine justice-which death of punishment they shall inevitably
undergo, and that justly, on account of their sins."
George Whitefield, that stalwart of the
eighteenth century, used by God in blessing to so many, wrote: "'Without
doubt, the doctrine of election and reprobation must stand or fall together...
I frankly acknowledge I believe the doctrine of Reprobation, that God intends
to give saving grace, through Jesus Christ, only to a certain number; and that
the rest of mankind, after the fall of Adam, being justly left to God
to continue in sin, will at last suffer that eternal death which is
its proper wages."
"Fitted to destruction" (Rom. 9:22).
After declaring this phrase admits of two interpretations, Dr. Hodge-perhaps
the best known and most widely read commentator on Romans-says, "The other
interpretation assumes that the reference is to God and that the Greek word for
'fitted' has its full participle force; prepared (by God) for
destruction." This, says Dr. Hodge, "Is adopted not only
by the majority of Augustinians, but also by many Lutherans."
Were it necessary we are prepared to give
quotations from the writings of Wycliffe, Huss, Ridley, Hooper, Cranmer,
Ussher, John Trapp, Thomas Goodwin, Thomas Manton (Chaplain to Cromwell), John
Owen, Witsius, John Gill (predecessor of Spurgeon), and a host of others. We
mention this simply to show that many of the most eminent saints in bye-gone
days, the men most widely used of God, held and taught this doctrine which is
so bitterly hated in these last days, when men will no longer "endure
sound doctrine"; hated by men of lofty pretentions, but who,
notwithstanding their boasted orthodoxy and much advertised piety, are not
worthy to unfasten the shoes of the faithful and fearless servants of God of
other days.
"O the depth of the riches both of
wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are His judgments and His ways
past finding out! For what hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been
His counsellor? or who hath first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed
unto him again? For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to
whom be glory forever, Amen" (Rom. 11:33-36).*
* "Of Him"-His will is the origin
of all existence; "through" or "by Him"-He is the Creator
and Controller of all; "to Him"-all things promote His glory in their
final end.
CHAPTER
SIX
THE
SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD IN OPERATION
"For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to whom be the glory for ever. Amen" (Romans 11:36).
Has God foredained everything that comes to
pass? Has He decreed that what is, was to have been? In the final analysis this
is only another way of asking, Is God now governing the world
and everyone and everything in it? If God is governing the world then is He
governing it according to a definite purpose, or aimlessly and at random? If He
is governing it according to some purpose, then when was that purpose made? Is
God continually changing His purpose and making a new one every day, or was His
purpose formed from the beginning? Are God's actions, like ours, regulated by
the change of circumstances, or are they the outcome of His eternal purpose? If
God formed a purpose before man was created then is that purpose going to be
executed according to His original designs and is He now working toward that
end? What saith the Scriptures? They declare God is One "who worketh all
things after the counsel of His own will" (Eph. 1:11).
Few who read this book are likely to call
into question the statement that God knows and foreknows all things, but
perhaps many would hesitate to go further than this. Yet is it not self-evident
that if God foreknows all things, He has also foredained all
things? Is it not clear that God foreknows what will be because He has decreed
what shall be? God's foreknowledge is not the cause of events, rather
are events the effects of His eternal purpose. when God has decreed a
thing shall be He knows it will! be. In the
nature of things there cannot be anything known as what shall be unless it is certain to
be, and there is nothing certain to be unless God has ordained it
shall be. Take the Crucifixion as an illustration. On this point the teaching
of Scripture is as clear as a sunbeam. Christ as the Lamb whose blood was to be
shed was "foreordained before the foundation of the world" (1 Peter 1:20).
Having then "ordained" the slaying of the Lamb, God knew He
would be "led to the slaughter," and therefore made it known
accordingly through Isaiah the prophet. The Lord Jesus was not
"delivered" up by God foreknowing it before it took place, but by His
fixed counsel and fore-ordination (Acts 2:23). Foreknowledge
of future events then is founded upon God's decrees, hence if God foreknows
everything that is to be, it is because He has determined in Himself from all
eternity everything which will be-"Known unto God are all His works from
the beginning of the world" (Acts 15:18),
which shows that God has a plan, that God did not begin His
work at random or without a knowledge of how His plan would succeed.
God created all things. This
truth no one, who bows to the testimony of Holy Writ, will question; nor would
any such be prepared to argue that the work of creation was an accidental work.
God first formed the purpose to create, and then put forth the creative act in
fulfillment of that purpose. All real Christians will readily adopt the words
of the Psalmist and say, "O Lord, how manifold are Thy works! in
wisdom hast Thou made them all." Will any who endorse what we
have just said, deny that God purposed to govern the world which
He created? Surely the creation of the world was not the end of
God's purpose concerning it. Surely He did not determine simply to create the
world and place man in it, and then leave both to their fortunes. It must be
apparent that God has some great end or ends in view worthy of His
infinite perfections, and that He is now governing the world so as to
accomplish these ends-"The counsel of the LORD standeth for ever, the
thoughts of His heart to all generations" (Psa. 33:11).
"Remember the former things of old: for
I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like Me,
declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that
are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My
pleasure" (Isa. 46:9, 10). Many other passages
might be adduced to show that God has many counsels concerning this world and
concerning man, and that all these counsels will most surely be realized. It is
only when they are thus regarded that we can intelligently appreciate the prophecies
of Scripture. In prophecy the mighty God has condescended to take us into the
secret chamber of His eternal counsels and make known to us what He has
purposed to do in the future. The hundreds of prophecies which are found in the
Old and New Testaments are not so much predictions of what will come
to pass, as they are revelations to us of what God has purposed SHALL
come to pass.
What then was the great purpose for which
this world and the human race were created? The answer of Scripture is,
"The LORD hath made all things for Himself" (Prov. 16:4). And
again, "Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they
are and were created" (Rev. 4:11). The
great end of creation was the manifestation of God's glory. "The heavens
declare the glory of God and the firmament sheweth His handiwork" (Psa. 19:1); but
it was by man, originally made in His own image and likeness, that God
designed chiefly to manifest His glory. But how was the great Creator to be
glorified by man? Before his creation, God foresaw the fall of Adam and the
consequent ruin of his race, therefore He could not have designed that man
should glorify Him by continuing in a state of innocency. Accordingly we are
taught that Christ was "foreordained before the foundation of the
world" to be the Saviour of fallen men. The redemption of sinners by
Christ was no mere after-thought of God: it was no expediency to meet an
un-looked-for calamity. No; it was a Divine provision, and
therefore when man fell he found mercy walking hand in hand with justice.
From all eternity God designed that our world
should be the stage on which He would display His manifold grace and wisdom in
the redemption of lost sinners: "To the intent that now unto the
principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the Church the
manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which
He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Eph. 3:10-11.) For
the accomplishment of this glorious design God has governed the world from the beginning,
and will continue it to the end. It has been well said, "We can never
understand the providence of God over our world, unless we regard it as a
complicated machine having ten thousand parts, directed in all its operations
to one glorious end-the display of the manifold wisdom of God in the
salvation of the Church," i.e., the "called out"
ones. Everything else down here is subordinated to this central purpose. It was
the apprehension of this basic truth that the Apostle, moved by the Holy
Spirit, was led to write, "Therefore I endure all things for the
elect's sake, that they may also obtain the salvation
which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory" (2 Tim. 2:10).
What we would now contemplate is the operation of God's Sovereignty
in the government of this world.
In regard to the operation of God's
government over the material world little needs now be said.
In previous chapters we have shown that inanimate matter and all irrational
creatures are absolutely subject to their Creator's pleasure. While we freely
admit that the material world appears to be governed by laws that are stable
and more or less uniform in their operations, yet Scripture, history, and
observation, compel us to recognize the fact that God suspends these laws and
acts apart from them whenever it pleaseth Him to do so. In sending His
blessings or judgments upon His creatures He may cause the sun itself to stand
still, and the stars in their courses to fight for His people (Judges 5:20); He
may send or withhold "the early and the latter rains" according to
the dictates of His own infinite wisdom; He may smite with plague or bless with
health; in short, being God, being absolute Sovereign, He is bound and tied by
no laws of Nature, but governs the material world as seemeth Him best.
But what of God's government of the
human family? What does Scripture reveal in regard to the modus
operandi of the operations of His governmental administration over
mankind? To what extent and by what influence does God control the sons of men?
We shall divide our answer to this question into two parts and consider first
God's method of dealing with the righteous, His elect; and then His method of
dealing with the wicked.
GOD'S
METHOD OF DEALING WITH THE RIGHTEOUS:
1. God exerts upon His own elect a quickening influence
or power.
By nature they are spiritually dead, dead in
trespasses and sins, and their first need is spiritual life, for "Except a
man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3). In
the new birth God brings us from death unto life (John 5:24). He
imparts to us His own nature (2 Peter 1:4). He
delivers us from the power of darkness and translates us into the kingdom of His
dear Son (Col. 1:13).
Now, manifestly, we could not do this ourselves for we were "without
strength" (Rom. 5:6), hence
it is written, "we are His workmanship created in Christ
Jesus" (Eph. 2:10).
In the new birth we are made partakers of the
Divine nature: a principle, a "seed," a life, is communicated to us
which is "'born of the Spirit," and therefore "is spirit";
is born of the Holy Spirit and therefore is holy. Apart from
this Divine and holy nature which is imparted to us at the new birth it is
utterly impossible for any man to generate a spiritual impulse, form a
spiritual concept, think a spiritual thought, understand spiritual things,
still less engage in spiritual works. "Without holiness no man shall see
the Lord," but the natural man has no desire for holiness, and the provision
that God has made he does not want. Will then a man pray for, seek for, strive
after, that which he dislikes? Surely not. If then a man does "follow
after" that which by nature he cordially dislikes, if he does now love the
One he once hated, it is because a miraculous change has taken place within
him; a power outside of himself has operated upon him, a nature entirely
different from his old one has been imparted to him, and hence it is written,
"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation: old
things are passed away; behold all things are become new" (2 Cor.
5:17). Such an one as we have just described has passed from death unto life,
has been turned from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God (Acts 26:18). In
no other way can the great change be accounted for.
The new birth is very, very much more than
simply shedding a few tears due to a temporary remorse over sin. It
is far more than changing our course of life, the leaving off of bad habits and
the substituting of good ones. It is something different from the mere
cherishing and practising of noble ideals. It goes infinitely deeper than
coming forward to take some popular evangelist by the hand, signing a pledge-card,
or "joining the church." The new birth is no mere turning over a new
leaf but is the inception and reception of a new life. It is no mere
reformation but a complete transformation. In short, the new birth is a
miracle, the result of the supernatural operation of God. It is radical,
revolutionary, lasting.
Here then is the first thing, in time, which
God does in His own elect. He lays hold of those who are spiritually dead and
quickens them into newness of life. He takes up one who was shapen in iniquity
and conceived in sin, and conforms him to the image of His Son. He seizes a
captive of the Devil and makes him a member of the household of faith. He picks
up a beggar and makes him joint-heir with Christ. He comes to one who is full
of enmity against Him and gives him a new heart that is full of love for Him.
He stoops to one who by nature is a rebel and works in him both to will and to
do of His own good pleasure. By His irresistible power He transforms a sinner
into a saint, an enemy into a friend, a slave of the Devil into a child of God.
Surely then we are moved to say,
"When
all Thy mercies O my God
My
wondering soul surveys,
Transported with the view I'm lost
In wonder, love and praise."
Transported with the view I'm lost
In wonder, love and praise."
2. God exerts upon His own elect an energizing influence or power.
The Apostle prayed to God for the Ephesian
saints that the eyes of their understanding might be enlightened in order that,
among other things, they might know "what is the exceeding greatness of
His power to us-ward who believe" (Eph. 1:19), and
that they might be "strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner
man" (3:16). It is thus that the children of God are enabled to fight the
good fight of faith and battle with the adverse forces which constantly war
against them. In themselves they have no strength: they are but
"sheep," and sheep are one of the most defenseless animals there is;
but the promise is sure-"He giveth power to the faint; and to them that
have no might He increaseth strength" (Isa. 40:29).
It is this energizing power that God exerts
upon and within the righteous which enables them to serve Him acceptably. Said
the prophet of old, "But truly I am full of power by the Spirit of
the Lord" (Micah 3:8). And
said our Lord to His Apostles, "Ye shall receive power, after
that the Holy Spirit is come upon you" (Acts 1:8), and
thus it proved, for of these same men we read subsequently, "And with
great power gave the Apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus:
and great grace was upon them all" (Acts 4:33). So
it was, too, with the Apostle Paul, "and my speech and my preaching was
not with enticing word of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and
of power" (1 Cor. 2:4). But
the scope of this power is not confined to service, for we read in 2 Peter 1:3,
"According as His Divine power hath given unto us all things that
pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that
hath called us to glory and virtue." Hence it is that the various graces
of the Christian character, "love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness,
goodness, faith, meekness, temperance," are ascribed directly to God
Himself, being denominated "the fruit of the Spirit"(Gal. 5:22-23).
Compare Ephesians 5:9.
3. God exerts upon His own elect a directing influence
or power.
Of old He led His people across the
wilderness, directing their steps by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of
fire by night; and today He still directs His saints, though now from within
rather from without. "For this God is our God for ever
and ever: He will be our Guide even unto death" (Psa. 48:14), but
He "guides" us by working in us both to will and to do His good
pleasure. That He does so guide us is clear from the words of the Apostle in
Ephesians 2: 10-"For we are His workmanship, created in Christ
Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should
walk in them." Thus all ground for boasting is removed and God
gets all the glory, for with the prophet we have to say, "LORD, Thou wilt
ordain peace for us: for Thou also hast wrought all our
works in us"(Isa. 26:12). How
true then that "A man's heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth
his steps" (Prov. 16:29)!
Compare Psalm 65:4; Ezekiel 36:27.
4. God exerts upon His own elect a preserving influence
or power.
Many are the Scriptures which set forth this
blessed truth. "He preserveth the souls of His saints; He delivereth them
out of the hand of the wicked" (Psa. 97:10).
"For the LORD loveth judgment, and forsaketh not His saints; they are preserved
for ever: but the seed of the wicked shall be cut off" (Psa. 37:28).
"The LORD preserveth all them that love Him: but all the
wicked will He destroy" (Psa. 145:20). It
is needless to multiply texts or to raise an argument at this point respecting
the believer's responsibility and faithfulness-we can no more
"persevere" without God preserving us than we can
breathe when God ceases to give us breath; we are "kept by the
power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the
last time" (1 Peter 1:5).
Compare 1 Chronicles 18:6. It remains for us now to consider,
GOD'S
METHOD OF DEALING WITH THE WICKED:
In contemplating God's governmental dealings
with the non-elect we find that He exerts upon them a fourfold influence or
power. We adopt the clear-cut divisions suggested by Dr. Rice:
1. God exerts upon the wicked a restraining influence
by which they are prevented from doing what they are naturally
inclined to do.
A striking example of this is seen in
Abimelech, king of Gerar. Abraham came down to Gerar and fearful lest he might
be slain on account of his wife he instructed her to pose as his sister.
Regarding her as an unmarried woman, Abimelech sent and took Sarah unto
himself; and then we learn how God put forth His power to protect her
honor-"And God said unto him in a dream, Yea, I know that thou didst this
in the integrity of thy heart; for I also withheld thee from sinning
against Me: therefore suffered I thee not to touch her" (Gen. 20:6). Had
not God interposed, Abimelech would have grievously wronged Sarah, but the Lord
restrained him and allowed him not to carry out the intentions of his heart.
A similar instance is found in connection
with Joseph and his brethren's treatment of him. Owing to Jacob's partiality
for Joseph his brethren "hated him," and when they thought they had
him in their power "they conspired against him to slay him"
(Gen. 37:18). But
God did not allow them to carry out their evil designs. First He moved Reuben
to deliver him out of their hands, and next he caused Judah to suggest that
Joseph should be sold to the passing Ishmaelites, who carried him down into
Egypt. That it was God who thus restrained them is clear; he
made known himself to his brethren; said he, "So now it was not you that
sent me hither, but God" (Gen. 45:8)!
The restraining influence which God exerts
upon the wicked was strikingly exemplified in the person of Balaam, the prophet
hired by Balak to curse the Israelites. One cannot read the inspired narrative
without discovering that, left to himself, Balaam had readily and certainly
accepted the offer of Balak. How evidently God restrained the impulses of his
heart is seen from his own acknowledgment-"How shall I curse, whom God
hath not cursed? or how shall I defy, whom the LORD hath not defied? Behold I
have received commandment to bless: and He hath blessed; and I
cannot reverse it" (Num. 23:8, 20).
Not only does God exert a restraining
influence upon wicked individuals but He does so upon whole peoples as well. A
remarkable illustration of this is found in Exodus 34:24-"For
I will cast out the nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders: neither
shall any man desire thy land, when thou shalt go up to appear before
the LORD thy God thrice in the year." Three times every male Israelite, at
the command of God, left his home and inheritance and journeyed to Jerusalem to
keep the Feasts of the Lord; and in the above Scriptures we learn He promised
them that while they were at Jerusalem He would guard their unprotected homes
by restraining the covetous designs and desires of their
heathen neighbors.
2. God exerts upon the wicked a softening influence
disposing them contrary to their natural inclinations to do that which will
promote His cause.
Above, we referred to Joseph's history as an
illustration of God exerting a restraining influence upon the wicked, let us
note now his experiences in Egypt as exemplifying our assertion that God also
exerts a softening influence upon the unrighteous. We are told
that while he was in the house of Potiphar "The LORD was with Joseph, and
his master saw the LORD was with him," and in consequence, "Joseph
found favor in his sight and he made him overseer over his house" (Gen. 39:2, 3, 4). Later, when Joseph was
unjustly cast into prison, we are told "But the LORD was with Joseph, and
shewed him mercy, and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the
prison" (Gen. 39:21), and
in consequence the prison-keeper showed him much kindness and honor. Finally,
after his release from prison, we learn from Acts 7:10 that
the Lord "gave him favor and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh king
of Egypt; and he made him governor over Egypt and all his
house."
An equally striking evidence of God's power
to melt the hearts of his enemies, was seen in Pharaoh's daughter's treatment
of the infant Moses. The incident is well known. Pharaoh had issued an edict
commanding the destruction of every male child of the Israelites. A certain
Levite had a son born to him who for three months was kept hidden by his
mother. No longer able to conceal the infant Moses she placed him in an ark of
bulrushes and laid him by the river's brink. The ark was discovered by none
less than the king's daughter who had come down to the river to bathe, but
instead of heeding her father's wicked decree and casting the child into the
river we are told that "she had compassion on him" (Exo. 2:6)!
Accordingly, the young life was spared and later Moses became the adopted son
of this princess!
God has access to the hearts of all men and
He softens or hardens them according to His Sovereign purpose. The profane Esau
swore vengeance upon his brother for the deception which he had practiced upon
his father, yet when next he met Jacob, instead of slaying him we are told that
Esau "fell on his neck and kissed him" (Gen. 33:4)!
Ahab, the weak and wicked consort of Jezebel, was highly enraged against Elijah
the prophet, at whose word the heavens had been shut up for three years and a
half: so angry was he against the one whom he regarded as his enemy that we are
told he searched for him in every nation and kingdom and when he could not be
found "he took an oath" (1 Kings 18:10).
Yet, when they met, instead of killing the prophet, Ahab meekly obeyed Elijah's
behest and "sent unto all the children of Israel and gathered the prophets
together unto Mount Carmel" (v. 20). Again; Esther the poor Jewess is
about to enter the presence-chamber of the august Medo-Persian monarch which,
said she, "is not according to the law" (Esth. 4:16). She
went in expecting to "perish," but we are told "She
obtained favor in his sight, and the king held out to Esther the
golden sceptre" (5:2). Yet again; the boy Daniel is a captive in a foreign
court. The king "appointed" a daily provision of meat and drink for
Daniel and his fellows. But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not
defile himself with the allotted portion, and accordingly made known his purpose
to his master, the prince of the eunuchs. What happened? His master was a
heathen and "feared" the king. Did he turn then upon Daniel and
angrily demand that his orders be promptly carried out? No; for we read, "Now
God had brought Daniel into favor and tender love with the prince of the
eunuchs" (Dan. 1:9)!
"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). A
remarkable illustration of this is seen in Cyrus, the heathen king of Persia.
God's people were in captivity, but the predicted end of their captivity was
almost reached. Meanwhile the Temple at Jerusalem lay in ruins, and, as we have
said, the Jews were in bondage in a distant land. What hope was there then that
the Lord's house would be re-built? Mark now what God did, "Now in the
first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of
Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of
Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his
kingdom, and put it in writing, saying, Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, The
LORD God of Heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and He hath
charged me to build Him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah" (Ezra 1:1, 2). Cyrus, be it remembered,
was a pagan, and as secular history bears witness, a very wicked man, yet the
Lord moved him to issue this edict that His Word through Jeremiah seventy years
before might be fulfilled. A similar and further illustration is found in Ezra 7:27,
where we find Ezra returning thanks for what God had caused King Artaxerxes to
do in completing and beautifying the house which Cyrus had commanded to be
erected-"Blessed be the LORD God of our fathers which hath put
such a thing as this in the king's heart, to beautify the house of the
Lord which is in Jerusalem" (Ezra 7:27).
3. God exerts upon the wicked a directing influence
so that good is made to result from their intended evil.
Once more we revert to the history of Joseph
as a case in point. In selling Joseph to the Ishmaelites his brethren were
actuated by cruel and heartless motives. Their object was to make away with
him, and the passing of these traveling traders furnished an easy way out for
them. To them the act was nothing more than the enslaving of a noble youth for
the sake of gain. But now observe how God was secretly working and over-ruling
their wicked actions. Providence so ordered it that these Ishmaelites passed by
just in time to prevent Joseph being murdered, for his brethren had already
taken counsel together to put him to death. Further; these Ishmaelites were
journeying to Egypt, which was the very country to which God had purposed to
send Joseph, and He ordained they should purchase Joseph just
when they did. That the hand of God was in this incident, that it was something
more than a fortunate coincidence, is clear from the words of Joseph to his
brethren at a later date, "God sent me before you to
preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great
deliverance" (Gen. 45:7).
Another equally striking illustration
of God directing the wicked is found in Isaiah 10:5-7:
"O Assyrian, the rod of Mine anger, and the staff in their hand is Mine indignation. I
will send him against an hypocritical nation, and against the people
of My wrath will I give him a charge, to take the spoil, and to take the prey,
and to tread them down like the mire of the streets. 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." Assyria's king had determined to
be a world-conqueror, to "cut off nations not a few." But God directed and controlled his
military lust and ambition, and caused him to confine his attention to the
conquering of the insignificant nation of Israel. Such a task was not in the
proud king's heart-"he meant it not so"-but God gave
him this charge and he could do nothing but fulfill it. Compare also Judges 7:22.
The supreme example of the controlling,
directing influence which God exerts upon the wicked, is the Cross of
Christ with all its attending circumstances. If ever the superintending providence
of God was witnessed it was there. From all eternity God had predestined every
detail of that event of all events. Nothing was left to chance or the caprice
of man. God had decreed when and where and how His blessed Son was to die. Much
of what He had purposed concerning the Crucifixion had been made known through
the Old Testament prophets, and in the accurate and literal fulfillment of
these prophecies we have clear proof, full demonstration, of the controlling
and directing influence which God exerts upon the wicked. Not a thing occurred
except as God had ordained, and all that He had ordained took
place exactly as He purposed. Had it been decreed (and made known in Scripture)
that the Saviour should be betrayed by one of His own disciples-by His
"familiar friend"-see Psalm 41:9and
compare Matthew 26:50-then the Apostle Judas is the one who sold Him. Had it
been decreed that the betrayer should receive for his awful perfidy thirty
pieces of silver, then are the chief priests moved to offer him this very sum.
Had it been decreed that this betrayal sum should be put to a particular use,
namely, purchase of the potter's field, then the hand of God directs Judas to
return the money to the chief priests and so guided their "counsel" (Matt. 27:7) that
they did this very thing. Had it been decreed that there should be those who
bore "false witness" against our Lord (Psa. 35:11),
then accordingly such were raised up. Had it been decreed that the Lord of
Glory should be spat upon and "scourged" (Isa. 50:6),
then there were not found wanting those who were vile enough to do so. Had it
been decreed that the Saviour should be "numbered with the transgressors,"
then unknown to himself, Pilate, directed by God, gave orders for His
crucifixion along with two thieves. Had it been decreed that vinegar and gall
should be given Him to drink while He hung upon the Cross, then this decree of
God was executed to the very letter. Had it been decreed that the heartless
should gamble for His garments, then sure enough they did this very thing. Had
it been decreed that not a bone of Him should be broken (Psa. 34:20),
then the controlling hand of God which suffered the Roman soldier to break the
legs of the thieves, prevented him from doing the same with our Lord. Ah! there
were not enough soldiers in all the Roman legions, there were not sufficient
demons in all the hierarchies of Satan, to break one bone in the body of
Christ. And why? Because the Almighty Sovereign had decreed that not a
bone should be broken. Do we need to extend this paragraph any
farther? Does not the accurate and literal fulfillment of all that Scripture
had predicted in connection with the Crucifixion, demonstrate beyond all
controversy that an Almighty power was directing and superintending everything
that was done on that Day of days?
4. God also hardens the hearts of wicked men
and blinds their minds.
"God hardens men's hearts! God blinds
men's minds!" Yes, so Scripture represents Him. In developing this theme
of the Sovereignty of God in Operation we recognize that we have now reached
its most solemn aspect of all, and that here especially, we need to keep very
close indeed to the words of Holy Writ. God forbid that we should go one
fraction further than His Word goes; but may He give us grace to
go as far as His Word goes. It is true that secret things
belong unto the Lord, but it is also true that those things which are revealed
in Scripture belong unto us and to our children.
"He turned their heart
to hate His people, to deal subtly with His servants" (Psa. 105:25). The
reference here is to the sojourn of the descendants of Jacob in the land of
Egypt when, after the death of the Pharaoh who had welcomed the old patriarch
and his family, there "arose up a new king who knew not Joseph"; and
in his days the children of Israel had "increased greatly" so that
they outnumbered the Egyptians; then it was that God "turned their heart
to hate His people."
The consequence of the Egyptians'
"hatred" is well known: they brought them into cruel bondage and placed
them under merciless taskmasters until their lot became unendurable. Helpless
and wretched the Israelites cried unto Jehovah, and in response He appointed
Moses to be their deliverer. God revealed Himself unto His chosen servant, gave
him a number of miraculous signs which he was to exhibit at the Egyptian court,
and then bade him to go to Pharaoh and demand that the Israelites should be
allowed to go to a three days' journey into the wilderness, that they might
worship the Lord. But before Moses started out on his journey God warned him
concerning Pharaoh, "I will harden his heart that he
shall not let the people go" (Exo. 4:21). If
it be asked, Why did God harden Pharaoh's heart? the answer
furnished by Scripture itself is, In order that God might show forth His
power in him (Rom. 9:17); in
other words, it was so that the Lord might demonstrate that it was just as easy
for Him to overthrow this haughty and powerful monarch as it was for Him to
crush a worm. If it should be pressed further, Why did God select such
a method of displaying His power? then the answer must be that being
Sovereign God reserves to Himself the right to act as He pleases.
Not only are we told that God hardened the
heart of Pharaoh so that he would not let the Israelites go, but after God had
plagued his land so severely that he reluctantly gave a qualified permission,
and after that the first-born of all the Egyptians had been slain, and Israel
had actually left the land of bondage, God told Moses, "And I,
behold, I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians, and they
shall follow them: and I will get Me honor upon Pharaoh, and upon all his host,
upon his chariots, and upon his horsemen. And the Egyptians shall know that I
am the LORD, when I have gotten Me honor upon Pharaoh, upon his chariots, and
upon his horsemen" (Exo. 14:17, 18).
The same thing happened subsequently in
connection with Sihon, king of Heshbon, through whose territory Israel had to
pass on their way to the promised land. When reviewing their history Moses told
the people, "But Sihon king of Heshbon would not let us pass by him: for
the LORD thy God hardened his spirit, and made his heart obstinate, that
He might deliver him into thy hand" (Deut. 2:30)!
So it was also after that Israel had entered
Canaan. We read, "There was not a city that made peace with the children
of Israel, save the Hivites the inhabitants of Gibeon: all other they took in
battle. For it was of the LORD to harden their hearts, that they should come
against Israel in battle, that He might destroy them, as the Lord
commanded Moses" (Josh. 11:19, 20). From other Scriptures we
learn why God purposed to "destroy utterly" the Canaanites-it was
because of their awful wickedness and corruption.
Nor is the revelation of this solemn truth
confined to the Old Testament. In John 12:37-40 we
read, "But though He had done so many miracles before them, yet they
believed not on Him: that (in order that) the saying
of Esaias (Isaiah) the prophet might be fulfilled, which he
spake, Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord
been revealed? Therefore they could not believe, because that
Esaias said again, HE hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their
heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with
their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them." It needs to be
carefully noted here that these whose eyes God "blinded" and whose
heart He "hardened" were men who had deliberately scorned the Light
and rejected the testimony of God's own Son.
Similarly we read in 2 Thessalonians 2:11, 12, "And for this
cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should
believe a lie: that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but
had pleasure in unrighteousness." What God did unto the Jews of old He is
yet going to do unto Christendom. Just as the Jews of Christ's day despised His
testimony, and in consequence were "blinded," so a guilty Christendom
which has rejected the Truth shall yet have sent them from God a "strong
delusion" that they may believe a lie.
Is God really governing the world? Is He
exercising rule over the human family? What is the modus operandi of
His governmental administration over mankind? To what extent and by what means
does He control the sons of men? How does God exercise an influence upon
the wicked, seeing their hearts are at enmity against Him? These are some of
the questions we have sought to answer from Scripture in the previous sections
of this chapter. Upon His own elect God exerts a quickening, an energizing, a
directing, and a preserving power. Upon the wicked God exerts a restraining,
softening, directing, and hardening and blinding power, according to the
dictates of His own infinite wisdom and unto the outworking of His own eternal
purpose. God's decrees are being executed. What He has
ordained is being accomplished. Man's wickedness is bounded. The
limits of evil-doing and of evildoers has been Divinely defined and cannot be
exceeded. Though many are in ignorance of it, all men, good and bad, are under
the jurisdiction of and are absolutely subject to the administration of the
Supreme Sovereign-"Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth" (Rev. 19:6)-reigneth
over all.
CHAPTER
SEVEN
GOD'S
SOVEREIGNTY AND THE HUMAN WILL
Concerning the nature and the power of fallen
man's will, the greatest confusion prevails today, and the most erroneous views
are held, even by many of God's children. The popular idea now prevailing, and
which is taught from the great majority of pulpits, is that man has a
"free will," and that salvation comes to the sinner through his will co-operating
with the Holy Spirit. To deny the "free will" of man, i.e., his power
to choose that which is good, his native ability to accept Christ, is to bring
one into disfavor at once, even before most of those who profess to be
orthodox. And yet Scripture emphatically says, "It is not of
him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy"
(Rom. 9:16).
Which shall we believe: God, or the preachers?
But some one may reply, Did not Joshua say to
Israel, "Choose you this day whom ye will serve"? Yes, he did; but
why not complete his sentence-"whether the gods which your
fathers served which were on the other side of the flood, or the
gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell" (Josh. 24:15)! But
why attempt to pit Scripture against Scripture? The Word of God never
contradicts itself, and the Word expressly declares, "There is none
that seeketh after God" (Rom. 3:11). Did
not Christ say to the men of His day "Ye will not come to
Me, that ye might have life" (John 5:40)?
Yes, but some did "come" to Him, some did receive
Him. True and who were they? John 1:12, 13 tells us: "But
as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, to
them that believe on His name: which were born, not of blood,
nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of
God"!
But does not Scripture say, "Whosoever
will may come"? It does, but does this signify that everybody has the
will to come? What of those who won't come?
"Whosoever will may come" no more implies that fallen man has the
power (in himself) to come, than "Stretch forth thine
hand" implied that the man with the withered arm had ability (in himself)
to comply. In and of himself the natural man has power to reject Christ; but in
and of himself he has not the power to receive Christ. And why? Because he has
a mind that is "enmity against" Him (Rom. 8:7);
because he has a heart that hates Him (John 15:18). Man
chooses that which is according to his nature, and therefore before he will
ever choose or prefer that which is Divine and spiritual a new nature must be
imparted to him; in other words, he must be born again.
Should it be asked, But does not the Holy
Spirit overcome a man's enmity and hatred when He convicts the
sinner of his sins and his need of Christ; and does not the Spirit of God
produce such conviction in many that perish? Such language betrays confusion of
thought: were such a man's enmity really "overcome,"
then he would readily turn to Christ; that he does not come to
the Saviour demonstrates that his enmity is not overcome. But that many are,
through the preaching of the Word, convicted by the Holy Spirit, who
nevertheless die in unbelief, is solemnly true. Yet, it is a fact which must
not be lost sight of that the Holy Spirit does something more in
each of God's elect than He does in the non-elect: He works in them "both
to will and to do of His good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13).
In reply to what we have said above,
Arminians would answer, No; the Spirit's work of conviction is the same both in
the converted and in unconverted, that which distinguishes the one class from
the other is that the former yielded to His strivings whereas
the latter resist them. But if this were the case then the
Christian would have ground for boasting and self-glorying over his cooperation
with the Spirit; but this would flatly contradict Ephesians 2:8,
"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of
yourselves: it is the gift of God."
Let us appeal to the actual experience of the
Christian reader. Was there not a time (may the remembrance of it bow each of
us into the dust) when you were unwilling to come to Christ? There was. Since
then you have come to Him. Are you now prepared to give
Him all the glory for that (Psa. 115:1)? Do
you not acknowledge you came to Christ because the Holy Spirit brought you from
unwillingness to willingness? You do. Then is it not also a patent fact that
the Holy Spirit has not done in many others what He has in
you! Granting that many others have heard the Gospel, been shown their need of
Christ, yet, they are still unwilling to come to Him. Thus He has wrought
more in you than in them. Do you answer, Yet I remember well the time when the
Great Issue was presented to me, and my consciousness testifies that my will
acted and that I yielded to the claims of Christ upon me. Quite true. But before
you "yielded" the Holy Spirit overcame the native enmity of your
mind against God, and this "enmity" He does not overcome in all.
Should it be said, That is because they are unwilling for their enmity to be
overcome. Ah! none are thus "'willing" till He has put forth
His all-mighty power and wrought a miracle of grace in the
heart.
But let us now inquire, What is
the human Will? Is it a self-determining agent, or is it, in turn, determined
by something else? Is it Sovereign or servant? Is the will superior to every
other faculty of our being so that it governs them, or is it moved by their
impulses and subject to their pleasure? Does the will rule the mind, or does
the mind control the will? Is the will free to do as it pleases, or is it under
the necessity of rendering obedience to something outside of itself? "Does
the will stand apart from the other great faculties or powers of the soul,
a man within a man, who can reverse the man and fly
against the man and split him into segments, as a glass snake breaks in pieces?
Or, is the will connected with the other faculties, as the tail of the serpent
is with his body, and that again with his head, so that where the head goes,
the whole creature goes, and, as a man thinketh in his heart, so
is he? First thought, then heart (desire or aversion), and then act. Is it this
way, the dog wags the tail? Or, is it the will, the tail, wags the dog? Is the
will the first and chief thing in man, or is it the last thing-to be kept
subordinate, and in its place beneath the other faculties? and, is the true
philosophy of moral action and its process that of Genesis 3:6: 'And
when the woman saw that the tree was good for food' (sense-perception,
intelligence), 'and a tree to be desired' (affections), 'she took and ate
thereof' (the will)." (George S. Bishop). These are questions of more than
academical interest. They are of practical importance. We believe that we do
not go too far when we affirm that the answer returned to these questions is a
fundamental test of doctrinal soundness. *
1. THE NATURE OF THE HUMAN WILL.
What is the Will? We answer, the will is the
faculty of choice, the immediate cause of all action. Choice necessarily
implies the refusal of one thing and the acceptance of another. The positive
and the negative must both be present to the mind before there can be any
choice. In every act of the will there is a preference-the desiring one thing
rather than another. Where there is no preference, but complete indifference,
there is no volition. To will is to choose, and to choose is to decide between
two or more alternatives. But there is something which influences the
choice; something which determines the decision. Hence the will
cannot be Sovereign because it is the servant of that something. The will
cannot be both Sovereign and servant. It cannot be both cause and effect. The
will is not causative, because, as we have said, something
causes it to choose, therefore that something must be the
causative agent. Choice itself is affected by certain considerations, is
determined by various influences brought to bear upon the individual
himself, hence, volition is the effect of these considerations and
influences, and if the effect, it must be their servant; and
if the will is their servant then it is not Sovereign, and if the will is not Sovereign,
we certainly cannot predicate absolute "freedom" of it. Acts of the
will cannot come to pass of themselves-
*Since writing the above we have read an
article by the late J. N. Darby entitled, "Man's So-Called Freewill,"
that opens with these words: "This re-appearance of the doctrine of
freewill serves to support that of the pretensions of the natural man to be not
irremediably fallen, for this is what such doctrine tends to. All who have
never been deeply convicted of sin, all persons in whom this conviction is
based on gross external sins, believe more or less in freewill."
to say they can, is to postulate an uncaused effect.
Ex nihilo nihil fit-nothing cannot produce something.
In all ages, however, there have been those
who contended for the absolute freedom or Sovereignty of the human will. Men
will argue that the will possesses a self-determining power.
They say, for example, I can turn my eyes up or down, the mind is quite
indifferent which I do, the will must decide. But this is a contradiction in
terms. This case supposes that I choose one thing in preference to another
while I am in a state of complete indifference. Manifestly, both cannot be
true. But it may be replied, The mind was quite indifferent until it came to
have a preference. Exactly; and at that time the will was quiescent too! But
the moment indifference vanished, choice was made, and the fact that
indifference gave place to preference, overthrows the argument that the will is
capable of choosing between two equal things. As we have said, choice implies
the acceptance of one alternative and the rejection of the other or others.
That which determines the will is that which
causes it to choose. If the will is determined then there must be a
determiner. What is it that determines the will? We reply, The
strongest motive power which is brought to bear upon it. What this motive power
is varies in different cases. With one it may be the logic of reason, with
another the voice of conscience, with another the impulse of the emotions, with
another the whisper of the Tempter, with another the power of the Holy Spirit;
whichever of these presents the strongest motive power and
exerts the greatest influence upon the individual himself is
that which impels the will to act. In other words, the action of the will is
determined by that condition of mind (which in turn is influenced by the world,
the flesh, and the Devil, as well as by God) which has the greatest
degree of tendency to excite volition. To illustrate what we have just said let
us analyze a simple example-On a certain Lord's day afternoon a friend of ours
was suffering from a severe headache. He was anxious to visit the sick but
feared that if he did so his own condition would grow worse, and as a
consequence, be unable to attend the preaching of the Gospel that evening. Two
alternatives confronted him: to visit the sick that afternoon and risk being
sick himself, or, to take a rest that afternoon (and visit the sick the next
day) and probably arise refreshed and fit for the evening service. Now what was
it that decided our friend in choosing between these two alternatives? The will? Not
at all. True, that in the end, the will made a choice, but the will itself
was moved to make the choice. In the above case certain
considerations presented strong motives for selecting either alternative; these
motives were balanced the one against the other by the individual
himself, i.e., his heart and mind, and the one alternative being
supported by stronger motives than the other, decision was formed
accordingly, and then the will acted. On the one side, our
friend felt impelled by a sense of duty to visit the sick; he was moved with
compassion to do so, and thus a strong motive was presented to his mind. On the
other hand, his judgment reminded him that he was feeling far from well
himself, that he badly needed a rest, that if he visited the sick his own
condition would probably be made worse, and in such case he would be prevented
from attending the preaching of the Gospel that night; furthermore, he knew
that on the morrow, the Lord willing, he could visit the sick, and this being
so, he concluded he ought to rest that afternoon. Here then were two sets of
alternatives presented to our Christian brother: on the one side was a sense of
duty plus his own sympathy, on the other side was a sense of his own need plus
a real concern for God's glory, for he felt that he ought to
attend the preaching of the Gospel that night. The latter prevailed. Spiritual
considerations outweighed his sense of duty. Having formed his decision the
will acted accordingly and he retired to rest. An analysis of the above case
shows that the mind or reasoning faculty was directed by spiritual
considerations, and the mind regulated and controlled the will. Hence we say
that, if the will is controlled, it is neither Sovereign nor
free, but is the servant of the mind.
It is only as we see the real nature of
freedom and mark that the will is subject to the motives brought to bear upon
it that we are able to discern there is no conflict between two statements of
Holy Writ which concern our blessed Lord. In Matthew 4:1 we
read, "Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the
wilderness to be tempted of the Devil"; but in Mark 1:12, 13 we are told,
"And immediately the Spirit drift Him into the
wilderness. And He was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of
Satan." It is utterly impossible to harmonize these two statements by the
Armenian conception of the will. But really there is no difficulty. That Christ
was "driven" implies it was by a forcible motive or powerful impulse,
such as was not to be resisted or refused; that He was "led" denotes
His freedom in going. Putting the two together we learn that He was driven,
with a voluntary condescension thereto. So, there is the liberty of
man's will and the victorious efficacy of God's grace united together: a sinner
may be "drawn" and yet "come" to Christ-the "drawing"
presenting to him the irresistible motive, the "coming" signifying
the response of his will-as Christ was "driven" and "led"
by the Spirit into the wilderness.
Human philosophy insists that it is the will
which governs the man, but the Word of God teaches that it is the heart which
is the dominating center of our being. Many Scriptures might be quoted in
substantiation of this. "Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out
of it are the issues of life" (Prov. 4:23).
"For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil
thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders," etc. (Mark 7:21).
Here our Lord traces these sinful acts back to their source and declares that
their fountain is the "heart" and not the will! Again: "This
people draweth nigh unto Me with their mouth, but their heart is
far from Me" (Matt. 15:8). If
further proof were required we might call attention to the fact that the word
"heart" is found in the Bible more than three times oftener than is
the word "will," even though nearly half of the references to the
latter refer to God's will!
When we affirm that it is the heart and
not the will which governs the man, we are not merely striving about words, but
insisting on a distinction that is of vital importance. Here is an individual
before whom two alternatives are placed; which will he choose? We answer, the
one which is most agreeable to himself, i.e., his "heart"-the
innermost core of his being? Before the sinner is set a life of virtue and
piety, and a life of sinful indulgence; which will he follow? The latter. Why?
Because that is his choice. But does that prove the will is Sovereign? Not at
all. Go back from effect to cause. Why does the sinner choose a
life of sinful indulgence? Because he prefers it-and he
does prefer it, all arguments to the contrary notwithstanding,
though of course he does not enjoy the effects of such a
course. And why does he prefer it? Because his heart is
sinful. The same alternatives, in like manner, confront the Christian, and he
chooses and strives after a life of piety and virtue. Why? Because God has
given him a new heart or nature. Hence we say it is not the
will which makes the sinner impervious to all appeals to "forsake
his way," but his corrupt and evil heart. He will not come to
Christ because he does not want to, and he does not want to because
his heart hates Him and loves sin: see Jeremiah 17:9!
In defining the will we have said above, that
"the will is the faculty of choice, the immediate cause of all
action." We say the immediate cause, for the will is not
"the primary cause of any action." We say the immediate cause,
for the will is not the primary cause of any action any more than the hand is.
Just as the hand is controlled by the muscles and nerves of the arm, and the
arm by the brain; so the will is the servant of the mind, and the mind, in
turn, is affected by various influences and motives which are brought to bear
upon it. But, it may be asked, Does not Scripture make its appeal to
man's will? Is it not written, "And whosoever will, let
him take the water of life freely" (Rev. 22:17)? And
did not our Lord say, "ye will not come to Me that ye
might have life" (John 5:40)? We
answer; the appeal of Scripture is not always made to man's "will";
other of his faculties are also addressed. For example: "He that hath ears to
hear, let him hear." "Hear and your soul shall
live." "Look unto Me and be ye saved." "Believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." "Come now and let
us reason together," "with the heart man
believeth unto righteousness," etc., etc.
2. THE BONDAGE OF THE HUMAN WILL.
In any treatise that proposes to deal with
the human will, its nature and functions, respect should be had to the will in
three different men, namely, unfallen Adam, the sinner, and the Lord Jesus
Christ. In unfallen Adam the will was free, free in both directions,
free toward good and free toward evil. Adam was created in a state of innocency but
not in a state of holiness, as is so often assumed and asserted. Adam's will
was therefore in a condition of moral equipoise: that is to say, in Adam there
was no constraining bias in him toward good or evil, and as
such Adam differed radically from all his descendants, as well as from
"the Man Christ Jesus." But with the sinner it is far otherwise. The
sinner is born with a will that is not in a condition of moral
equipoise, because in him there is a heart that is "deceitful above all
things and desperately wicked," and this gives him a bias toward
evil. So, too, with the Lord Jesus it was far otherwise: He also
differed radically from unfallen Adam. The Lord Jesus Christ could not
sin because He was the "Holy One of God." Before He was born
into this world it was said to Mary, "The Holy Spirit shall come upon
thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that
Holy Thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of
God" (Luke 1:35).
Speaking reverently then we say, that the will of the Son of Man was not
in a condition of moral equipoise, that is, capable of turning toward
either good or evil. The will of the Lord Jesus was biased toward that which
is good because, side by side with His sinless, holy, perfect
humanity, was His eternal Deity. Now in contradistinction from the will of the
Lord Jesus which was biased toward good, and Adam's will which, before his
fall, was in a condition of moral equipoise-capable of turning toward either
good or evil-the sinner's will is biased toward
evil, and therefore is free in one direction only, namely, in the
direction of evil. The sinner's will is enslaved because it
is in bondage to and is the servant of a depraved heart.
In what does the sinner's freedom consist?
This question is naturally suggested by what we have just said above. The
sinner is "free" in the sense of being unforced from
without. God never forces the sinner to sin. But the
sinner is not free to do either good or evil because an evil
heart within is ever inclining him toward sin. Let us illustrate what we have
in mind. I hold in my hand a book. I release it; what happens? It falls. In
which direction? Downwards; always downwards. Why? Because, answering the law
of gravity, its own weight sinks it. Suppose I desire that book to occupy a
position three feet higher; then what? I must lift it; a power outside of that
book must raise it. Such is the relationship which fallen man sustains toward
God. Whilst Divine power up-holds him he is preserved from plunging still
deeper into sin; let that power be withdrawn and he falls-his own weight (of
sin) drags him down. God does not push him down anymore than I did that book.
Let all Divine restraint be removed and every man is capable of becoming, would
become, a Cain, a Pharaoh, a Judas. How then is the sinner to move heavenward?
By an act of his own will? Not so. A power outside of himself must grasp hold
of him and lift him every inch of the way. The sinner is free, but free
in one direction only-free to fall, free to sin. As the Word expresses it:
"For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness"
(Rom. 6:20). The
sinner is free to do as he pleases, always as he pleases (except as he is
restrained by God), but his pleasure is to sin.
In the opening paragraph of this chapter we
insisted that a proper conception of the nature and function of the will is of
practical importance, nay, that it constitutes a fundamental test of
theological orthodoxy or doctrinal soundness. We wish to amplify this statement
and attempt to demonstrate its accuracy. The freedom or bondage of the will was
the dividing line between Augustinianism and Pelagianism, and in more recent
times between Calvinism and Arminianism. Reduced to simple terms this means
that the difference involved was the affirmation or denial of the total
depravity of man. In taking the affirmative we shall now consider,
3. THE IMPOTENCY OF THE HUMAN WILL.
Does it lie within the province of man's will
to accept or reject the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour? Granted that the Gospel
is preached to the sinner, that the Holy Spirit convicts him of his lost
condition, does it, in the final analysis, He within the power of his own will
to resist or to yield himself up to God? The answer to this question defines
our conception of human depravity. That man is a fallen creature all professing
Christians will allow, but what many of them mean by "fallen" is
often difficult to determine. The general impression seems to be that man is
now mortal, that he is no longer in the condition in which he left the hands of
his Creator, that he is liable to disease, that he inherits evil tendencies;
but, that if he employs his powers to the best of his ability somehow he will
be happy at last. O, how far short of the sad truth! Infirmities, sickness, even
corporeal death, are but trifles in comparison with the moral and spiritual
effects of the Fall! It is only by consulting the Holy Scriptures that we are
able to obtain some conception of the extent of that terrible calamity.
When we say that man is totally depraved we
mean that the entrance of sin into the human constitution has affected every
part and faculty of man's being. Total depravity means that man is, in spirit
and soul and body, the slave of sin and the captive of the Devil-walking
"according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now
worketh in the children of disobedience" (Eph. 2:2).
This statement ought not to need arguing: it is a common fact of human experience.
Man is unable to realize his own aspirations and materialize
his own ideals. He cannot do the things that he would. There
is a moral inability which paralyzes him. This is proof positive that he is no
free man, but instead, the slave of sin and Satan. "Ye are of your father
the Devil, and the lusts (desires) of your father ye will do" (John 8:44). Sin
is more than an act or a series of acts; it is a state or condition. It
is that which lies behind and produces the acts. Sin has penetrated and
permeated the whole of man's make-up. It has blinded the understanding,
corrupted the heart, and alienated the mind from God. And the will has
not escaped. The will is under the dominion of sin and Satan.
Therefore, the will is not free. In short, the affections love as
they do and the will chooses as it does because of the state of the
heart, and because the heart is deceitful above all things and
desperately wicked "There is none that seeketh after
God" (Rom. 3:11).
We repeat our question: Does it lie within
the power of the sinner's will to yield himself up to God? Let us attempt an
answer by asking several others: Can water (of itself) rise above its own
level? Can a clean thing come out of an unclean? Can the will reverse the whole
tendency and strain of human nature? Can that which is under the dominion of
sin originate that which is pure and holy? Manifestly not. If ever the will of
a fallen and depraved creature is to move Godward a Divine power must be
brought to bear upon it which will overcome the influences of sin that pull in
a counter direction. This is only another way of saying, "No man can come
to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me, draw him (John 6:44). In
other words, God's people must be made willing in the day of
His power (Psa. 110:3). As
said Mr. Darby, "If Christ came to save that which is lost, free
will has no place. Not that God prevents men from receiving Christ-far from it.
But even when God uses all possible inducements, all that is capable of
exerting influence in the heart of man, it only serves to show that man will
have none of it, that so corrupt is his heart, and so decided his will not to
submit to God (however much it may be the devil who encourages him to sin) that
nothing can induce him to receive the Lord, and to give up sin. If by the
words, 'freedom of man,' they mean that no one forces him to reject the Lord,
this liberty fully exists. But if it is said that, on account of the dominion
of sin, of which he is the slave, and that voluntarily, he cannot escape from
his condition, and make choice of the good-even while acknowledging it to be
good, and approving of it-then he has no liberty
whatever (italics ours). He is not subject to the law, neither indeed
can be; hence, they that are in the flesh cannot please God."
The will is not Sovereign; it is a servant
because influenced and controlled by the other faculties of man's being. The
sinner is not a free agent because he is a slave of sin-this was clearly
implied in our Lord's words, "If the Son shall therefore make you
free, ye shall be free indeed" (John 8:36). Man
is a rational being and as such responsible and accountable to God, but to
affirm that he is a free moral agent is to deny that he is totally
depraved-i.e., depraved in will as in everything else. Because man's
will is governed by his mind and heart, and because these have been vitiated
and corrupted by sin, then it follows that if ever man is to turn or move in a
Godward direction God Himself must work in him "both to will and
to do of His good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13).
Man's boasted freedom is in truth "the bondage of corruption";
he "serves divers lusts and pleasures." Said a
deeply taught servant of God, "Man is impotent as to his will. He has no
will favorable to God. I believe in free will; but then it is a will
only free to act according to nature (italics ours). A dove has no will to
eat carrion; a raven no will to eat the clean food of the dove. Put the nature
of the dove into the raven and it will eat the food of the dove. Satan could
have no will for holiness. We speak it with reverence, God could have no will
for evil. The sinner in his sinful nature could never have a will according to
God. For this he must be born again" (J. Denham Smith). This is just what
we have contended for throughout this chapter-the will is regulated by the
nature.
Among the "decrees" of the Council
of Trent (1563), which is the avowed standard of Popery, we find the following:
"If any one shall affirm, that man's
free-will, moved and excited by God, does not, by consenting, cooperate with
God, the mover and exciter, so as to prepare and dispose itself
for the attainment of justification; if moreover, anyone shall
say that the human will cannot refuse complying, if it pleases; but
that it is unactive, and merely passive; let such an one be accursed"!
"If any one shall affirm, that since the
fall of Adam, man's freewill is lost and extinguished; or,
that it is a thing titular, yea a name, without a thing, and a fiction
introduced by Satan into the Church; let such an one be accursed"!
Thus, those who today insist on the free-will
of the natural man believe precisely what Rome teaches on the subject! That
Roman Catholics and Arminians walk hand in hand may be seen from others of the
decrees issued by the Council of Trent: "If any one shall affirm that a
regenerate and justified man is bound to believe that he is certainly in the
number of the elect (which 1 Thess. 1:4, 5plainly teaches.--A.W.P.)
let such an one be accursed"! "If any one shall affirm with positive
and absolute certainty, that he shall surely have the gift of perseverance to
the end (which John 10:28-30assuredly
guarantees, A. W. P.); let him be accursed"!
In order for any sinner to be saved three
things were indispensable: God the Father had to purpose his
salvation, God the Son had to purchase it, God the Spirit has
to apply it. God does more than "propose" to us:
were He only to "invite," every last one of us would
be lost. This is strikingly illustrated in the Old Testament. In Ezra 1:1-3 we
read, "Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the
LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the
spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his
kingdom, and put it also in writing saying, Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia,
the LORD God of Heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and He hath
charged me to build Him an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there
among you of all His people? his God be with him, and let him go up to
Jerusalem which is in Judah, and build the house of the LORD God of
Israel." Here was an "offer" made, made to a
people in captivity, affording them opportunity to leave and return to
Jerusalem-God's dwelling-place. Did all Israel eagerly respond
to this offer? No indeed. The vast majority were content to remain in the
enemy's land. Only an insignificant "remnant" availed themselves of
this overture of mercy! And why did they? Hear
the answer of Scripture: "Then rose up the chief of the fathers of Judah
and Benjamin, and the priests, and the Levites, with all whose spirit God
had stirred up, to go up to build the house of the LORD which is in
Jerusalem" (Ezra 1:5)! In
like manner, God "stirs up" the spirits of His elect
when the effectual call comes to them, and not till then do they have any willingness to
respond to the Divine proclamation.
The superficial work of many of the
professional evangelists of the last fifty years is largely responsible for the
erroneous views now current upon the bondage of the natural
man, encouraged by the laziness of those in the pew in their failure to "prove all
things" (1 Thess. 5:21). The average evangelical pulpit conveys the impression
that it lies wholly in the power of the sinner whether or not he shall be
saved. It is said that "God has done His part, now man must do his."
Alas, what can a lifeless man do, and man by nature is "dead in
trespasses and sins" (Eph. 2:1)! If
this were really believed there would be more dependence upon the Holy Spirit
to come in with His miracle-working power and less confidence in our attempts
to "win men for Christ."
When addressing the unsaved, preachers often
draw an analogy between God's sending of the Gospel to the sinner, and a sick
man in bed with some healing medicine on a table by his side: all he needs to
do is reach forth his hand and take it. But in order for this illustration to
be in any wise true to the picture which Scripture gives us of the fallen and
depraved sinner, the sick man in bed must be described as one who is blind (Eph. 4:18) so
that he cannot see the medicine, his hand paralyzed (Rom. 5:6) so
that he is unable to reach forth for it, and his heart not only devoid of all
confidence in the medicine but filled with hatred against the physician himself
(John 15:18). O
what superficial views of man's desperate plight are now entertained! Christ
came here not to help those who were willing to help themselves, but to do for
His people what they were incapable of doing for themselves: "To open the
blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in
darkness out of the prison house" (Isa. 42:7).
Now in conclusion let us anticipate and
dispose of the usual and inevitable objection-Why preach the
Gospel if man is powerless to respond? why did the sinner come to
Christ if sin has so enslaved him that he has no power in himself to come?
Reply: We do not preach the Gospel because we believe that men
are free moral agents and therefore capable of receiving Christ, but we preach
it because we are commanded to do so (Mark 16:15); and
though to them that perish it is foolishness yet, "unto
us which are saved it is the power of God" (1 Cor. 1:18).
"The foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is
stronger than men" (1 Cor. 1:25). The
sinner is dead in trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1), and
a dead man is utterly incapable of willing anything, hence it is that
"they that are in the flesh (the unregenerate) cannot please God" (Rom. 8:8).
To fleshly wisdom it appears the height of
folly to preach the Gospel to those that are dead, and
therefore beyond the reach of doing anything themselves. Yes,
but God's ways are different from ours. It pleases God "by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe" (1 Cor. 1:21). Man
may deem it folly to prophesy to "dead bones" and to
say unto them, "O ye dry bones, hear the Word of the Lord" (Ezek. 37:4). Ah!
but then it is the Word of the Lord, and the words He speaks
"they are spirit, and they are life" (John 6:63).
Wise men standing by the grave of Lazarus might pronounce it an evidence of
insanity when the Lord addressed a dead man with the words,
"Lazarus, Come forth." Ah! but He who thus spake was and is Himself
the Resurrection and the Life, and at His word even the dead
live! We go forth to preach the Gospel, then, not because we believe that
sinners have within themselves the power to receive the Saviour it proclaims
but because the Gospel itself is the power of God unto salvation
to everyone that believeth, and because we know that "as many as were
ordained to eternal life" (Acts 13:48) shall believe
(John 6:37; 10:16-note the
"shall's"!) in God's appointed time, for it is written "Thy
people shall be willing in the day of Thy power" (Psa. 110:3)!
What we have set forth in this chapter is not
a product of "modern thought"; no indeed, it is at direct variance
with it. It is those of the past few generations who have departed so
far from the teachings of their scripturally-instructed fathers. In the
thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England we read, "The condition of
man after the fall of Adam is such, that he cannot turn and prepare himself by
his own natural strength and good works to faith, and calling upon God:
Wherefore we have no power to do good works, pleasant and
acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ preventing us (being
before-hand with us), that we may have a good will, and working with us, when
we have that good will" (Article 10). In the Westminster Catechism of
Faith (adopted by the Presbyterians) we read, "The sinfulness of that
state whereinto man fell, consisteth in the guilt of Adam's first sin, the wont
of that righteousness wherein he was created, and the corruption of his nature,
whereby he is utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite
unto all that is spiritually good, and wholly inclined to all
evil, and that continually" (Answer to question 25). So in the Baptists'
Philadelphian Confession of Faith, 1742, we read, "Man, by his fall into a
state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual
good accompanying salvation; so as a natural man, being altogether averse from
good, and dead in sin, is not able by his own strength to convert himself, or
to prepare himself thereunto" (Chapter 9).
CHAPTER
EIGHT
SOVEREIGNTY
AND HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY
In our last chapter we considered at some
length the much debated and difficult question of the human will. We have shown
that the will of the natural man is neither Sovereign nor free but, instead, a
servant and slave. We have argued that a right conception of the sinner's
will-its servitude-is essential to a just estimate of
his depravity and ruin. The utter corruption and degradation of human nature is
something which man hates to acknowledge, and which he will hotly and
insistently deny until he is "taught of God." Much, very much, of the
unsound doctrine which we now hear on every hand is the direct and logical
outcome of man's repudiation of God's expressed estimate of human depravity.
Men are claiming that they are "increased with goods, and have need of
nothing," and know not that they are "wretched and miserable, and poor,
and blind, and naked" (Rev. 3:17).
They prate about the 'Ascent of Man,' and deny his Fall. They put darkness for
light and light for darkness. They boast of the 'free moral agency' of man
when, in fact, he is in bondage to sin and enslaved by Satan-"taken
captive by him at his will" (2 Tim. 2:26). But
if the natural man is not a 'free moral agent,' does it also follow
that he is not accountable?
'Free moral agency' is an expression of human
invention and, as we have said before, to talk of the freedom of the natural
man is flatly to repudiate his spiritual ruin. Nowhere does Scripture speak of
the freedom or moral ability of the sinner, on the contrary, it insists on his
moral and spiritual inability.
This is, admittedly, the most difficult
branch of our subject. Those who have ever devoted much study to this theme
have uniformly recognized that the harmonizing of God's Sovereignty with Man's
Responsibility is the gordian knot of theology.
The main difficulty encountered is to
define the relationship between God's Sovereignty and man's
responsibility. Many have summarily disposed of the difficulty by denying its
existence. A certain class of theologians, in their anxiety to maintain man's
responsibility, have magnified it beyond all due proportions until God's
Sovereignty has been lost sight of, and in not a few instances flatly denied.
Others have acknowledged that the Scriptures present both the
Sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man but affirm that in our present
finite condition and with our limited knowledge it is impossible to
reconcile the two truths, though it is the bounden duty of the believer to
receive both. The present writer believes that it has been too readily assumed
that the Scriptures themselves do not reveal the several points which show the
conciliation of God's Sovereignty and man's responsibility. While perhaps the
Word of God does not clear up all the mystery (and this is said with reserve),
it does throw much light upon the problem, and it seems to
us more honoring to God and His Word to prayerfully search the
Scriptures for the completer solution of the difficulty, and even though others
have thus far searched in vain that ought only to drive us more
and more to our knees. God has been pleased to reveal many things out of His
Word during the last century which were hidden from earlier students. Who then
dare affirm that there is not much to be learned yet respecting our inquiry!
As we have said above, our chief difficulty
is to determine the meeting-point of God's Sovereignty and
man's responsibility. To many it has seemed that for God to assert His
Sovereignty, for Him to put forth His power and exert a direct
influence upon man, for Him to do anything more than warn or invite, would be
to interfere with man's freedom, destroy his responsibility, and reduce him to
a machine. It is sad indeed to find one like the late Dr. Pierson-whose
writings are generally so scriptural and helpful-saying, "It is a
tremendous thought that even God Himself cannot control my moral frame, or
constrain my moral choice. He cannot prevent me defying and denying Him, and
would not exercise His power in such directions if He could, and could not if
He would" ("A Spiritual Clinique"). It is sadder still to
discover that many other respected and loved brethren are giving expression to
the same sentiments. Sad, because directly at variance with the Holy Scriptures.
It is our desire to face honestly the
difficulties involved, and to examine them carefully in what light God has been
pleased to grant us. The chief difficulties might be expressed thus: first, How
is it possible for God to so bring His power to bear upon men that they
are prevented from doing what they desire to do, and impelled to
do other things they do not desire to do, and yet to preserve their
responsibility? Second, How can the sinner be held responsible for the
doing of what he is unable to do? And how can he be justly
condemned for not doing what he could not do?
Third, How is it possible for God to decree that men shall commit
certain sins, hold them responsible in the committal of them,
and adjudge them guilty because they committed them? Fourth,
How can the sinner be held responsible to receive Christ, and be damned for
rejecting Him, when God had foreordained him to condemnation? We shall now deal
with these several problems in the above order. May the Holy Spirit Himself be
our Teacher so that in His light we may see light.
1. How is it possible for God to so
bring His power to bear upon men that they are PREVENTED from doing what they
desire to do, and IMPELLED to do other things they do not desire to do, and yet
to preserve their responsibility?
It would seem that if God put forth His power
and exerted a direct influence upon men their freedom would be interfered with.
It would appear that if God did anything more than warn and
invite men their responsibility would be infringed upon. We are told that God
must not coerce man, still less compel him, or otherwise he would be reduced to
a machine. This sounds very plausible; it appears to be good philosophy and
based upon sound reasoning; it has been almost universally accepted as an axiom
in ethics; nevertheless, it is refuted by Scripture!
Let us turn first to Genesis 20:6:
"And God said unto him in a dream, Yea, I know that thou didst this in the
integrity of thy heart; for I also withheld thee from sinning
against Me: therefore suffered I thee not to touch her." It is argued,
almost universally, that God must not interfere with man's
liberty, that he must not coerce or compel him, lest he be
reduced to a machine. But the above Scripture proves, unmistakably proves, that
it is not impossible for God to exert His power upon man
without destroying his responsibility. Here is a case where God did exert
His power, restrict man's freedom, and prevent him from doing
that which he otherwise would have done.
Ere turning from this Scripture let us note
how it throws light upon the case of the first man. Would-be philosophers who
sought to be wise above that which was written have argued that God could
not have prevented Adam's fall without reducing him to a mere
automaton. They tell us, constantly, that God must not coerce or compel His
creatures otherwise He would destroy their accountability. But the answer to
all such philosophizing’s is, that Scripture records a number of instances
where we are expressly told God did prevent certain of His
creatures from sinning both against Himself and against His people, in view of
which all men's reasonings are utterly worthless. If God could
"withhold" Abimelech from sinning against Him then why was He unable to
do the same with Adam? Should someone ask, Then why did not God
do so? we might return the question by asking, Why did not God
"withhold" Satan from falling? or, Why did not God
"withhold" the Kaiser from starting the War? The usual reply is, as
we have said, God could not without interfering with man's
"freedom" and reducing him to a machine. But the case of Abimelech
proves conclusively that such a reply is untenable and erroneous-we might
add wicked and blasphemous, for who are we to
limit the Most High! How dare any finite creature take it upon him to
say what the Almighty can and cannot do? Should we be pressed
further as to why God refused to exercise His power and prevent Adam's
fall, we should say, Because Adam's fall better served His own wise and blessed
purpose-among other things, it provided an opportunity to demonstrate that
where sin had abounded grace could much more abound. But we might ask further:
Why did God place in the garden the tree of the knowledge of good and evil when
He foresaw that man would disobey His prohibition and eat of
it; for mark, it was God and not Satan who made that tree.
Should someone respond, Then is God the Author of Sin? We would have to ask, in
turn, What is meant by "Author"? Plainly it was God's will that
sin should enter this world otherwise it would not have
entered, for nothing happens save as God has eternally decreed. Moreover, there
was more than a bare permission for God only permits that
which He has purposed. But we leave now the origin of sin, insisting once more,
however, that God could have "withheld" Adam from
sinning without destroying his responsibility.
The case of Abimelech does not stand alone.
Another illustration of the same principle is seen in the history of Balaam,
already noticed in the last chapter, but concerning which a further word is
in place. Balak the Moabite sent for this heathen prophet to "curse"
Israel. A handsome reward was offered for his services, and a careful reading
of Numbers 22-24 will show that Balaam was willing, yea, anxious, to
accept Balak's offer and thus sin against God and His people. But Divine power
"withheld" him. Mark his own admission, "And Balaam said unto
Balak, Lo, I am come unto thee: have I now any power at all to say
anything? the word that God putteth in my mouth, that
shall I speak" (Num. 22:38).
Again, after Balak had remonstrated with Balaam, we read "He answered and
said, Must I not take heed to speak that which the LORD hath put in my
mouth?...Behold, I have received commandment to bless: and He hath
blessed; and I cannot reverse it" (23:12, 20). Surely
these verses show us God's power, and Balaam's powerlessness: man's will frustrated
and God's will performed. But was Balaam's "freedom" or
responsibility destroyed? Certainly not, as we shall yet seek to show.
One more illustration: "And the fear of
the LORD fell upon all the kingdoms of the lands that were round about Judah, so
that they made no war against Jehoshaphat" (2 Chron. 17:10). The
implication here is clear. Had not the "fear of the LORD" fallen
upon these kingdoms they would have made war upon Judah. God's
restraining power alone prevented them. Had their own will been allowed
to act "war" would have been the consequence. Thus we see, that
Scripture teaches that God "withholds" nations as well as
individuals, and that when it pleaseth Him to do so He interposes and prevents
war. Compare further Genesis 35:5.
The question which now demands our
consideration is, How is it possible for God to "withhold" men from
sinning and yet not to interfere with their liberty and responsibility-a
question which so many say is incapable of solution in our present finite
condition. This question causes us to ask, In what does moral
"freedom," real moral freedom, consist? We
answer, it is the being delivered from the BONDAGE of sin. The
more any soul is emancipated from the thralldom of sin the more does he enter
into a state of freedom-"If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye
shall be free indeed" (John 8:36). In
the above instances God "withheld" Abimelech, Balaam, and the heathen
kingdoms from sinning, and therefore we affirm that He did not in
any wise interfere with their real freedom. The nearer a soul
approximates to sinlessness the nearer does he approach to God's holiness.
Scripture tells us that God "cannot lie," and that
He "cannot be tempted," but is He any the less free
because He cannot do that which is evil? Surely not. Then is it not evident
that the more man is raised up to God, and the more he be "withheld"
from sinning, the greater is his real freedom!
A pertinent example setting forth the meeting-place of
God's Sovereignty and man's responsibility, as it relates to the question of
moral freedom, is found in connection with the giving to us of the Holy
Scriptures. In the communication of His Word God was pleased to employ human
instruments, and in the using of them He did not reduce them to mere mechanical
amanuenses: "Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of
any private interpretation (Greek: of its own origination). For the prophecy
came not at any time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were
moved by the Holy Spirit" (2 Peter 1:20, 21).
Here we have man's responsibility and God's Sovereignty placed in
juxtaposition. These holy men were "moved" (Greek: "borne
along") by the Holy Spirit, yet was not their moral responsibility
disturbed nor their "freedom" impaired. God enlightened their minds,
enkindled their hearts, revealed to them His truth, and so controlled them
that error on their part was, by Him, made impossible, as they communicated His
mind and will to men. But what was it that might have, would have,
caused error, had not God controlled as He did the instruments which He
employed? The answer is SIN, the sin which was in them. But as we have seen,
the holding in check of sin, the preventing of the exercise of the carnal mind
in these "holy men" was not a destroying of their
"freedom," rather was it the inducting of them into real freedom.
A final word should be added here concerning
the nature of true liberty. There are three chief things
concerning which men in general greatly err: misery and happiness, folly and
wisdom, bondage and liberty. The world counts none miserable but the afflicted,
and none happy but the prosperous, because they judge by the
present ease of the flesh. Again; the world is pleased with a false show of
wisdom (which is "foolishness" with God), neglecting that which makes
wise unto salvation. As to liberty, men would be at their own disposal and live
as they please. They suppose the only true liberty is to be at the command and
under the control of none above themselves, and live according to their heart's
desire. But this is a thralldom and bondage of the worst kind. True liberty is
not the power to live as we please, but to live as we ought! Hence,
the only One Who has ever trod this earth since Adam's fall that has enjoyed
perfect freedom was the Man Christ Jesus, the Holy Servant of God, Whose meat
it ever was to do the will of the Father.
We now turn to consider the question.
2. How can the sinner be held
responsible FOR the doing of what he is UNABLE to do? And how can he be justly
condemned for NOT DOING what he COULD NOT do?
As a creature the natural
man is responsible to love, obey, and serve God; as a sinner he
is responsible to repent and believe the Gospel. But at the outset we are
confronted with the fact that natural man is unable to love
and serve God, and that the sinner, of himself, cannot repent
and believe. First, let us prove what we have just said. We begin by quoting
and considering John 6:44, "No
man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw
him." The heart of the natural man (every man) is so "desperately
wicked" that if he is left to himself he will never 'come to Christ.' This
statement would not be questioned if the full force of the words "coming
to Christ" were properly apprehended. We shall therefore digress a little
at this point to define and consider what is implied and involved in the words
"No man can come to Me"-cf. John 5:40,
"Ye will not come to Me, that ye might have
life."
For the sinner to come to Christ that he
might have life is for him to realize the awful danger of his situation; is for
him to see that the sword of Divine justice is suspended over his head; is to
awaken to the fact that there is but a step betwixt him and death, and that
after death is the "judgment"; and in consequence of this discovery,
is for him to be in real earnest to escape, and in such
earnestness that he shall flee from the wrath to
come, cry unto God for mercy, and agonize to
enter in at the "strait gate."
To come to Christ for life, is for the sinner
to feel and acknowledge that he is utterly destitute of any claim upon God's
favor; is to see himself as "without strength," lost and undone; is
to admit that he is deserving of nothing but eternal death, thus taking side
with God against himself; it is for him to cast himself into the dust before
God, and humbly sue for Divine mercy.
To come to Christ for life is for the sinner
to abandon his own righteousness and be ready to be made the righteousness of
God in Christ; it is to disown his own wisdom and be guided by His; it is to
repudiate his own will and be ruled by His; it is to unreservedly receive the
Lord Jesus as his Lord and Saviour, as his All in all.
Such, in part and in brief, is what is implied
and involved in "coming to Christ." But is the sinner
willing to take such an attitude before God? No; for in the first
place he does not realize the danger of his situation, and in
consequence is not in real earnest after his escape; instead, men are for the
most part at ease, and apart from the operations of the Holy
Spirit whenever they are disturbed by the alarms of conscience
or the dispensations of providence they flee to any other refuge but Christ. In
the second place, they will not acknowledge that all their righteousnesses are
as filthy rags but, like the Pharisee, will thank God they are not as the
Publican. And in the third place, they are not ready to receive Christ as their
Lord and Saviour for they are unwilling to part with
their idols; they had rather hazard their soul's
eternal welfare than give them up. Hence we say that, left to himself, the
natural man is so depraved at heart that he cannot come to
Christ.
The words of our Lord quoted above by no means
stand alone. Quite a number of Scriptures set forth the moral and spiritual inability of
the natural man. In Joshua 24:19 we
read, "And Joshua said unto the people, Ye cannot serve the Lord:
for He is an holy God." To the Pharisees Christ said, "Why do ye
not understand My speech? even because ye cannot hear My
word" (John 8:43). And
again: "The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to
the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are
in the flesh cannot please God" (Rom. 8:7, 8).
But now the question returns, How can God
hold the sinner responsible for failing to do what he is unable to
do? This necessitates a careful definition of terms. Just what is meant by
"unable" and "cannot"?
Now let it be clearly understood that when we
speak of the sinner's inability, we do not mean that if men desired to
come to Christ they lack the necessary power to carry out their desire. No; the
fact is that the sinner's inability or absence of power is itself due to lack
of willingness to come to Christ, and this lack of willingness is the
fruit of a depraved heart. It is of first importance that we distinguish
between natural inability and moral and spiritual inability.
For example, we read, "But Ahijah could not see; for
his eyes were set by reason of his age" (1 Kings 14:4); and
again, "The men rowed hard to bring it to the land; but they could
not: for the sea wrought, and was tempestuous against
them" (Jonah 1:13). In
both of these passages the words "could not" refer to natural
inability. But when we read, "And when his brethren saw that
their father loved him (Joseph) more than all his brethren, they hated
him, and could not speak peaceably unto him" (Gen. 37:4), it
is clearly moral inability that is in view. They did not lack
the natural ability to "speak peaceably unto him" for they
were not dumb. Why then was it that they "could not speak
peaceably unto him"? The answer is given in the same verse: it was because
"they hated him." Again; in 2 Peter 2:14 we
read of a certain class of wicked men "having eyes full of adultery, and
that cannot cease from sin." Here again it is moral
inability that is in view. Why is it that these men "cannot cease
from sin"? The answer is, Because their eyes were full of adultery. So
of Romans 8:8-"They
that are in the flesh cannot please God": here is spiritual
inability. Why is it that the natural man "cannot please
God"? Because he is "alienated from the life of
God" (Eph. 4:18). No
man can choose that from which his heart is averse-"O
generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good
things?" (Matt. 12:34).
"No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent
Me draw him" (John 6:44).
Here again it is moral and spiritual inability which is before us.
Why is it the sinner cannot come to Christ unless he is "drawn"? The
answer is, Because his wicked heart loves sin and hates
Christ.
We trust we have made it clear that the
Scriptures distinguish sharply between natural ability and moral and spiritual
inability. Surely all can see the difference between the blindness of
Bartimaeus, who was ardently desirous of receiving his sight, and the
Pharisees, whose eyes were closed "lest at any time they should see with
their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart,
and should be converted" (Matt. 13:15). But
should it be said, "The natural man could come to Christ
if he wished to do so," we answer, Ah! but in that IF
lies the hinge of the whole matter. The inability of the sinner consists of
the want of moral power to wish and will so
as to actually perform.
What we have contended for above is of first importance.
Upon the distinction between the sinner's natural Ability, and his moral and
spiritual Inability rests his Responsibility. The depravity of
the human heart does not destroy man's accountability to God; so far from this
being the case the very moral inability of the sinner only serves to increase
his guilt. This is easily proven by a reference to the Scriptures cited
above. We read that Joseph's brethren "could not speak peaceably unto
him," and why? It was because they "hated" him. But was this moral
inability of theirs any excuse? Surely not: in this very moral inability
consisted the greatness of their sin. So of those concerning whom it is said,
"They cannot cease from sin" (2 Peter 2:14), and
why? Because "their eyes were full of adultery," but that only made
their case worse. It was a real fact that they could not cease from sin, yet
this did not excuse them-it only made their sin the greater.
Should some sinner here object, I cannot help
being born into this world with a depraved heart and therefore I am not
responsible for my moral and spiritual inability which accrue from it, the
reply would be, Responsibility and Culpability He in the indulgence of
the depraved propensities, the free indulgence, for God does
not force any to sin. Men might pity me but they certainly
would not excuse me if I gave vent to a fiery temper and then sought to
extenuate myself on the ground of having inherited that temper
from my parents. Their own common sense is sufficient to guide their judgment
in such a case as this. They would argue I was responsible to restrain my
temper. Why then cavil against this same principle in the case supposed above?
"Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee thou wicked
servant" surely applies here! What would the reader say to a man who had
robbed him and who later argued in defense, "I cannot help being a thief,
that is my nature"? Surely the reply would be, Then the penitentiary is
the proper place for that man. What then shall be said to the one who argues
that he cannot help following the bent of his sinful heart? Surely, that the
Lake of Fire is where such an one must go. Did ever a murderer
plead that he hated his victim so much that he could not go near him
without slaying him. Would not that only magnify the enormity of his crime!
Then what of the one who loves sin so much that he is at "enmity
against God"!
The fact of man's
responsibility is almost universally acknowledged. It is inherent in man's moral
nature. It is not only taught in Scripture but witnessed to by the natural
conscience. The basis or ground of human responsibility is
human ability. What is implied by this general term
"ability" must now be defined. Perhaps a concrete example will be more
easily grasped by the average reader than an abstract argument.
Suppose a man owed me $100 and could find
plenty of money for his own pleasures but none for me, yet pleaded that he
was unable to pay me. What would I say? I would say that the
only ability that was lacking was an honest heart. But would
it not be an unfair construction of my words if a friend of my dishonest debtor
should say I had stated that an honest heart was that which constituted the
ability to pay the debt? No; I would reply: the ability of my debtor
lies in the power of his hand to write me a check, and this he
has, but what is lacking is an honest principle. It
is his power to write me a check which makes him responsible to do so, and the
fact that he lacks an honest heart does not destroy his accountability.*
Now, in like manner, the sinner while
altogether lacking in moral and spiritual ability does, nevertheless,
possess natural ability, and this it is which renders him accountable
unto God. Men have the same natural faculties to love God with
as they have to hate Him with, the same hearts to believe with as to
disbelieve, and it is their failure to love and believe which
constitutes their guilt. An idiot or an infant is not personally responsible to
God, because lacking in natural ability. But
the normal man who is endowed with rationality, who is gifted with a conscience
*The terms of this example are suggested by
an illustration used by the late Andrew Fuller.
that is capable of distinguishing between
right and wrong, who is able to weigh eternal
issues IS a responsible being, and it is because he does possess these
very faculties that he will yet have to "give an account of himself to
God" (Rom. 14:12).
We say again that the above distinction
between the natural ability and the moral and spiritual inability of the sinner
is of prime importance. By nature he possesses natural ability but lacks moral
and spiritual ability. The fact that he does not possess the
latter does not destroy his responsibility, because his
responsibility rests upon the fact that he does possess the former. Let
me illustrate again. Here are two men guilty of theft: the first is an idiot,
the second perfectly sane but the offspring of criminal parents. No just judge
would sentence the former; but every right-minded judge would the latter. Even
though the second of these thieves possessed a vitiated moral nature inherited
from criminal parents that would not excuse him, providing he
was a normal rational being. Here then is the ground
of human accountability-the possession of rationality plus the
gift of conscience. It is because the sinner is endowed with these natural
faculties that he is a responsible creature; because he does
not use his natural powers for God's glory, constitutes his guilt.
How can it remain consistent with His mercy
that God should require the debt of obedience from him that is not able to pay?
In addition to what has been said above it should be pointed out that God has
not lost His right, even though man has lost his power. The
creature's impotence does not cancel his obligation. A drunken servant is a
servant still, and it is contrary to all sound reasoning to argue that his
master loses his rights through his servant's default. Moreover, it is of first
importance that we should ever bear in mind that God contracted with us in
Adam, who was our federal head and representative, and in him God gave us a
power which we lost through our first parent's fall; but though our power is
gone, nevertheless, God may justly demand His due of obedience and of service.
We turn now to ponder,
3. How is it possible for God to
DECREE that men SHOULD commit certain sins, hold them RESPONSIBLE in the
committal of them, and adjudge them GUILTY because they committed them?
Let us now consider the extreme case of
Judas. We hold that it is clear from Scripture that God decreed from
all eternity that Judas should betray the Lord Jesus. If anyone should
challenge this statement we refer him to the prophecy of Zechariah through whom
God declared that His Son should be sold for "thirty pieces of
silver" (Zech. 11:12). As
we have said in earlier pages, in prophecy God makes known what will
be, and in making known what will be He is but revealing to us what He
has ordained shall be. That Judas was the one through whom the
prophecy of Zechariah was fulfilled needs not to be argued. But now the
question we have to face is, Was Judas a responsible agent in
fulfilling this decree of God? We reply that he was. Responsibility attaches
mainly to the motive and intention of the one committing the
act. This is recognized on every hand. Human law distinguishes between a blow
inflicted by accident (without evil design) and a blow delivered with 'malice
aforethought.' Apply then this same principle to the case of Judas.
What was the design of his heart when he bargained with the
priests? Manifestly he had no conscious desire to fulfill any decree
of God, though unknown to himself he was actually doing so. On the
contrary, his intention was evil only, and therefore, though God
had decreed and directed his act, nevertheless his own evil intention rendered
him justly guilty as he afterwards acknowledged
himself-"I have betrayed innocent blood." It was the
same with the Crucifixion of Christ. Scripture plainly declares that He was
"delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge
of God" (Acts 2:23), and
that though "the kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered
together against the Lord, and against His Christ" yet, notwithstanding it
was but "for to do whatsoever Thy hand and Thy counsel determined
before to be done" (Acts 4:26, 28); which verses teach very
much more than a bare permission by God, declaring, as they do,
that the Crucifixion and all its details had been decreed by God. Yet,
nevertheless, it was by "wicked hands," not merely
"human hands" that our Lord was "crucified and slain" (Acts 2:23). "Wicked"
because the intention of His crucifiers was only evil.
But it might be objected that if God decreed
that Judas should betray Christ, and that the Jews and
Gentiles should crucify Him they could not do otherwise, and therefore,
they were not responsible for their intentions. The answer is, God had decreed
that they should perform the acts they did, but in the actual
perpetration of these deeds they were justly guilty
because their own purposes in the doing of them was evil only.
Let it be emphatically said that God does not produce the sinful
dispositions of any of His creatures, though He does restrain and direct them
to the accomplishing of His own purposes. Hence He is neither the Author nor
the Approver of sin. This distinction was expressed thus by Augustine:
"That men sin proceeds from themselves; that in sinning they perform this
or that action, is from the power of God who divideth the darkness according to
His pleasure." Thus it is written, "A man's heart deviseth his way:
but the Lord directeth his steps" (Prov. 16:9).
What we would here insist upon is, that God's decrees are not the necessitating
cause of the sins of men but the fore-determined and prescribed boundings
and directings of men's sinful acts. In connection with the betrayal
of Christ God did not decree that He should be sold by one of His creatures and
then take up a good man, instill an evil desire into his heart and thus force him
to perform the terrible deed in order to execute His decree.
No; not so do the Scriptures represent it. Instead, God decreed the act and
selected the one who was to perform the act, but He did not make him
evil in order that he should perform the deed; on the
contrary, the betrayer was a "devil" at the time the Lord Jesus chose
him as one of the twelve (John 6:70), and
in the exercise and manifestation of
his own deviltry God simply directed his actions,
actions which were perfectly agreeable to his own vile
heart, and performed with the most wicked intentions. Thus it
was with the Crucifixion.
4. How can the sinner be held
responsible to receive Christ, and be damned for rejecting Him, when God
FOREORDAINED him TO condemnation?
Really, this question has been covered in
what has been said under the other queries, but for the benefit of those who
are exercised upon this point we give it a separate, though brief, examination.
In considering the above difficulty the following points should be carefully
weighed:
In the first place, no sinner, while he is in
this world, knows for certain, nor can he know, that he is a
"vessel of wrath fitted to destruction." This belongs to the hidden
counsels of God to which he has not access. God's secret will
is no business of his; God's revealed will (in the Word) is
the standard of human responsibility. * And God's revealed will
is plain. Each sinner is among those whom God now "commandeth to
repent" (Acts 17:30).
Each sinner who hears the Gospel is "commanded" to believe (1 John 3:23). And
all who do truly repent and believe are saved. Therefore, is
every sinner responsible to repent and believe.
In the second place, it is the duty of
every sinner to search the Scriptures which "are able to make thee wise
unto salvation" (2 Tim. 3:15). It
is the sinner's "duty" because the Son of God has commanded him
to search the Scriptures (John 5:39). If
he searches them with a heart that is seeking after God then does he put
himself in the way where God is accustomed to meet with sinners. Upon this
point the Puritan Manton has written very helpfully.
"I cannot say to every one that ploweth,
infallibly, that he shall have a good crop; but this I can say to him, It is
God's use to bless the diligent and provident. I cannot say to every one that
desireth posterity, Marry, and you shall have children; I cannot say infallibly
to him that goeth forth to battle for his country's good that he shall have
victory and success; but I can say, as Joab (1 Chron. 19:13) 'Be of
good courage, and let us behave ourselves valiantly for our people and the
cities of our God: and let the LORD do that which is good in His sight.' I
cannot say infallibly you shall have grace; but I can say to every one, Let
him use the means, and leave the success of his labor and his own salvation to
the will and good pleasure of God. I cannot say this infallibly, for
there is no obligation upon God. And still this work is made the fruit of God's
will and mere arbitrary dispensation-'Of His own will begat He us by the Word
of Truth' (James 1:18). Let
us do what God hath commanded, and let God do what He will. And I need not say
so; for the whole world in all their actings are and should be guided by this
principle. Let us do our duty, and refer the success to God, Whose ordinary
practice is to meet with the creature that seeketh after Him; yea, He is with
us already; this earnest importunity in the use of means proceeding from the
earnest impression of His grace. And therefore, since He is beforehand with us,
and hath not showed any backwardness to our good, we have no reason to despair
of His goodness and mercy, but rather to hope for the best" (Vol. XXI,
page 312).
God has been pleased to give to men the Holy
Scriptures which "testify" of the Saviour, and make known the way of
salvation. Every sinner has the same natural faculties for the
reading of the Bible as he has for the reading of the newspaper; and if he is
illiterate or blind so that he is unable to read he has the same mouth with
which to ask a friend to read the Bible to him, as he has to enquire concerning
other matters. If, then, God has given to men His Word, and in that Word has
made known the way of salvation, and if men are commanded to search those
Scriptures which are able to make them wise unto salvation, and they refuse to
do so, then it is plain that they are justly censureable, that their
blood lies on their own heads, and that God can
righteously cast them into the Lake of Fire.
In the third place, should it be objected,
Admitting all you have said above, Is it not still a fact that each of the
non-elect is unable to repent and believe? The reply is, Yes.
Of every sinner it is a fact that, of himself, he cannot come
to Christ. And from God's side the "cannot" is absolute. But we are
now dealing with the responsibility of the sinner (the sinner
foreordained to condemnation, though he knows it not), and from
the human side the inability of the sinner is a moral one,
as previously pointed out. Moreover, it needs to be borne in mind that in
addition to the moral inability of the sinner there is a voluntary inability,
too. The sinner must be regarded not only as impotent to do good but as delighting
in evil. From the human side, then, the "cannot" is a will
not; it is a voluntary impotence. Man's impotence
lies in his obstinacy. Hence, is everyone left "without excuse," and
hence, is God "clear" when He judgeth (Psa. 51:4), and
righteous in damning all who "love darkness rather than
light."
That God does require what
is beyond our own power to render is clear from many Scriptures. God gave the
Law to Israel at Sinai and demanded a full compliance with it, and
solemnly pointed out what would be the consequences of their disobedience
(see Deut. 28). But
will any readers be so foolish as to affirm that Israel were capable
of fully obeying the Law! If they do, we would refer them to Romans 8:3 where
we are expressly told, "For what the law could not do, in
that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of
sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh."
Come now to the New Testament. Take such
passages as Matthew 5:48, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father
which is in Heaven is perfect." 1 Corinthians 15:34.
"Awake to righteousness, and sin not." 1 John 2:1,
"My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not."
Will any reader say he is capable in himself of complying with
these demands of God? If so, it is useless for us to argue with
him.
But now the question arises, Why has God
demanded of man that which he is incapable of performing? The
first answer is, Because God refuses to lower His standard to the level of our
sinful infirmities. Being perfect, God must set a perfect standard before us.
Still we must ask, If man is incapable of measuring up to God's standard, wherein lies
his responsibility? Difficult as it seems the problem is
nevertheless capable of simple and satisfactory solution.
Man is responsible to (first) acknowledge before
God his inability, and (second) to cry unto Him for enabling
grace. Surely this will be admitted by every Christian reader. It is my bounden
duty to own before God my ignorance, my weakness, my sinfulness, my impotence
to comply with His holy and just requirements. It is also my bounden duty, as
well as blessed privilege, to earnestly beseech God to give me the wisdom,
strength, grace, which will enable me to do that which is
pleasing in His sight; to ask Him to work in me "both to
will and to do of His good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13).
In like manner, the sinner, every sinner,
is responsible to call upon the Lord. Of
himself he can neither repent nor believe. He can neither come to Christ nor
turn from his sins. God tells him so; and his first duty is to
"set to his seal that God is true." His second duty is to cry unto
God for His enabling power; to ask God in mercy to overcome
his enmity and "draw" him to Christ; to bestow upon him the gifts of
repentance and faith. If he will do so, sincerely from the
heart, then most surely God will respond to his appeal, for it
is written, "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be
saved" (Rom. 10:13).
Suppose I had slipped on the icy pavement
late at night, and had broken my hip. I am unable to arise; if
I remain on the ground I must freeze to death. What, then, ought I to do? If I
am determined to perish I shall He there silent; but I shall be to blame for
such a course. If I am anxious to be rescued I shall lift up my voice and cry
for help. So the sinner, though unable of himself to rise and
take the first step toward Christ, is responsible to
cry to God, and if he does (from the heart) there is a Deliverer to
hand. God is "not far from every one of us" (Acts 17:27);
yea, He is "a very present help in trouble" (Psa. 46:1). But
if the sinner refuses to cry unto the Lord, if he is
determined to perish, then his blood is on his own head, and his
"damnation is just" (Rom. 3:8).
A brief word now concerning the extent of
human responsibility.
It is obvious that the measure of human
responsibility varies in different cases, and is greater or
less with particular individuals. The standard of measurement was given in the
Saviour's words, "For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be
required" (Luke 12:48).
Surely God did not require as much from those living in Old Testament times as
He does from those who have been born during the Christian dispensation. Surely
God will not require as much from those who lived during the 'dark ages,' when
the Scriptures were accessible to but a few, as He will from those of this
generation when practically every family in the land owns a copy of His Word
for themselves. In the same way, God will not demand from the heathen what He
will from those in Christendom. The heathen will not perish because they have
not believed in Christ, but because they failed to live up to the light which
they did have-the testimony of God in nature and conscience.
To sum up. The fact of man's
responsibility rests upon his natural ability, is witnessed to by conscience,
and is insisted on throughout the Scriptures. The ground of
man's responsibility is that he is a rational creature capable of weighing eternal
issues, and that he possesses a written Revelation from God in which his
relationship with and duty toward his Creator is plainly defined. The measure of
responsibility varies in different individuals, being determined by the degree
of light each has enjoyed from God. The problem of human
responsibility receives at least a partial solution in the Holy Scriptures, and
it is our solemn obligation as well as privilege to search them prayerfully and
carefully for further light, looking to the Holy Spirit to guide us
"into all truth." It is written, "The meek will
He guide in judgment: and the meek will He teach His way" (Psa. 25:9).
In conclusion it remains to point out that it
is the responsibility of every man to use the means which God has placed to his
hand. An attitude of fatalistic inertia, because I know that God has
irrevocably decreed whatsoever comes to pass, is to make a sinful and hurtful
use of what God has revealed for the comfort of my heart. The same God who has
decreed that a certain end shall be accomplished has also decreed that that end
shall be attained through and as the result of His own appointed means. God
does not disdain the use of means, nor must I. For example: God has decreed
that "while the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest... shall not
cease" (Gen. 8:22); but
that does not mean man's ploughing of the ground and sowing of the seed are needless.
No; God moves men to do those very things, blesses their
labours, and so fulfills His own ordination. In like manner, God has, from the
beginning, chosen a people unto salvation; but that does not mean there is no
need for evangelists to preach the Gospel, or for sinners to believe it; it is
by such means that His eternal counsels are effectuated.
To argue that because God has irrevocably
determined the eternal destiny of every man, relieves us of all responsibility
for any concern about our souls, or any diligent use of the means to salvation,
would be on a par with refusing to perform my temporal duties
because God has fixed my earthly lot. And that He has is clear
from Acts 17:26; Job 7:1; 14:15, etc. If then the
foreordination of God may consist with the respective activities of man in
present concerns, why not in the future? What God has joined together we must
not cut asunder. Whether we can or cannot see the link which unites the one to
the other our duty is plain: "The secret things belong unto the LORD our
God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children
forever, that we may do all the words of this law" (Deut. 29:29).
In Acts 27:22 God
made known that He had ordained the temporal preservation of all who
accompanied Paul in the ship; yet the Apostle did not hesitate to say,
"Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved" (v. 31). God
appointed that means for the execution of what He had decreed. From 2 Kings
20 we learn that God was absolutely resolved to add fifteen years to
Hezekiah's life, yet he must take a lump of figs and lay it on his
boil! Paul knew that he was eternally secure in the hand of Christ (John 10:28), yet
he "kept under his body" (1 Cor. 9:27). The
Apostle John assured those to whom he wrote, "Ye shall abide
in Him," yet in the very next verse he exhorted them, "And now,
little children, abide in Him" (1 John 2:27, 28).
It is only by taking heed to this vital principle, that we are responsible to
use the means of God's appointing, that we shall be enabled to
preserve the balance of Truth and be saved from a paralyzing
fatalism.
CHAPTER
NINE
GOD'S
SOVEREIGNTY AND PRAYER
Throughout this book it has been our chief
aim to exalt the Creator and abase the creature. The well-nigh universal
tendency now, is to magnify man and dishonor and degrade God. On every hand it
will be found that, when spiritual things are under discussion, the human side
and element is pressed and stressed, and the Divine side, if not altogether
ignored, is relegated to the background. This holds true of very much of the
modern teaching about prayer. In the great majority of the books written and in
the sermons preached upon prayer the human element fills the scene almost
entirely: it is the conditions which we must meet, the
promises we must "claim," the things we must
do in order to get our requests granted; and God's claims, God's rights, God's glory
are disregarded.
As a fair example of what is being given out
today we subjoin a brief editorial which appeared recently in one of the
leading religious weeklies entitled "Prayer, or Fate?"
"God in His Sovereignty has ordained
that human destinies may be changed and molded by the will of man. This is at
the heart of the truth that prayer changes things, meaning that God changes
things when men pray. Someone has strikingly expressed it this way: 'There are
certain things that will happen in a man's life whether he prays or not. There
are other things that will happen if he prays; and will not happen if he does
not pray.' A Christian worker was impressed by these sentences as he entered a
business office and he prayed that the Lord would open the way to speak to some
one about Christ, reflecting that things would be changed because he prayed.
Then his mind turned to other things and the prayer was forgotten. The
opportunity came to speak to the business man upon whom he was calling, but he
did not grasp it, and was on his way out when he remembered his prayer of a
half hour before, and God's answer. He promptly returned and had a talk with
the business man, who, though a church-member, had never in his life been asked
whether he was saved. Let us give ourselves to prayer, and open the way for God
to change things. Let us beware lest we become virtual fatalists by failing to
exercise our God-given wills in praying."
The above illustrates what is being taught on
the subject of prayer, and the deplorable thing is that scarcely a voice is
lifted in protest. To say that "human destinies may be
changed and molded by the will of man" is rank
infidelity-that is the only proper term for it. Should any one challenge this
classification, we would ask them whether they can find an infidel anywhere who
would dissent from such a statement, and we are confident that such an one
could not be found. To say that "God has ordained that
human destinies may be changed and molded by the will of man" is
absolutely untrue. "Human destiny" is settled not by
the will of man, but by the will of God. That which determines human destiny is
whether or not a man has been born again, for it is written, "Except a man
be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." And as to whose will,
whether God's or man's, is responsible for the new birth is settled,
unequivocally, by John 1:13-"Which
were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will
of man, but OF GOD." To say that "human destiny" may
be changed by the will of man is to make the creature's
will supreme, and that is, virtually, to dethrone God.
But what saith the Scriptures? Let the Book answer: "The LORD killeth, and
maketh alive: He bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up. The
Lord maketh poor, and maketh rich: He bringeth low, and lifteth
up. He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the
beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes, and to make them inherit
the throne of glory" (1 Sam. 2:6-8).
Turning back to the Editorial here under
review, we are next told, "This is at the heart of the truth that prayer
changes things, meaning that God changes things when men pray." Almost
everywhere we go today one comes across a motto-card bearing the inscription
"Prayer Changes Things." As to what these words are designed to
signify is evident from the current literature on prayer-we are to
persuade God to change His purpose. Concerning this we shall
have more to say below.
Again, the Editor tells us, "Some one
has strikingly expressed it this way: 'There are certain things that will
happen in a man's life whether he prays or not. There are other things that
will happen if he prays, and will not happen if he does not pray.'" That
things happen whether a man prays or not is exemplified daily in the lives of
the unregenerate, most of whom never pray at all. That 'other things will
happen if he prays' is in need of qualification. If a believer prays in faith
and asks for those things which are according to God's will he will most
certainly obtain that for which he has asked. Again, that other things will
happen if he prays is also true in respect to the subjective benefits derived
from prayer: God will become more real to him and His promises more precious.
That other things 'will not happen if he does not pray' is true so far as his
own life is concerned-a prayerless life means a life lived out of communion
with God and all that is involved by this. But to affirm that God will not and
cannot bring to pass His eternal purpose unless we pray is utterly erroneous,
for the same God who has decreed the end has also decreed that His end shall be
reached through His appointed means, and One of these is prayer. The God who
has determined to grant a blessing also gives a spirit of supplication which
first seeks the blessing.
The example cited in the above Editorial of
the Christian worker and the business man is a very unhappy one to say the
least, for according to the terms of the illustration the Christian worker's
prayer was not answered by God at all, inasmuch as, apparently, the way was not
opened to speak to the business man about his soul. But on leaving the office
and recalling his prayer the Christian worker (perhaps in the energy of the
flesh) determined to answer the prayer for himself, and instead of
leaving the Lord to "open the way" for him, took
matters into his own hand.
We quote next from one of the latest books
issued on Prayer. In it the author says, "The possibilities and necessity
of prayer, its power and results, are manifested in arresting and changing
the purposes of God and in relieving the stroke of His power."
Such an assertion as this is a horrible reflection upon the character of the
Most High God, who "doeth according to His will in the army of Heaven, and
among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay His hand, or
say unto Him, What doest Thou?" (Dan. 4: 35).
There is no need whatever for God to change
His designs or alter His purpose for the all-sufficient reason that these were
framed under the influence of perfect goodness and unerring wisdom. Men may
have occasion to alter their purposes, for in their
short-sightedness they are frequently unable to anticipate what may arise after their
plans are formed. But not so with God, for He knows the end from the beginning.
To affirm God changes His purpose is either to impugn His
goodness or to deny His eternal wisdom.
In the same book we are told, "The
prayers of God's saints are the capital stock in Heaven by which Christ carries
on His great work upon earth. The great throes and mighty convulsions on earth
are the results of these prayers. Earth is changed, revolutionized, angels move
on more powerful, more rapid wing, and God's policy is shaped as
the prayers are more numerous, more efficient." If possible, this is even
worse, and we have no hesitation in denominating it as blasphemy. In the first
place, it flatly denies Ephesians 3:11 which
speaks of God's having an "eternal purpose." If
God's purpose is an eternal one then His "policy" is not being
"shaped" today. In the second place, it contradicts Ephesians 1:11 which
expressly declares that God "worketh all things after the
counsel of His own will," therefore it follows
that, "God's policy" is not being "shaped"
by man's prayers. In the third place, such a statement as the above makes the
will of the creature supreme, for if our prayers shape God's policy
then is the Most High subordinate to worms of the earth. Well might the Holy
Spirit ask through the Apostle, "For who hath known the mind of the
Lord? or who hath been His counsellor?" (Rom. 11:34).
Such thoughts on prayer as we have been
citing are due to low and inadequate conceptions of God Himself. It ought to be
apparent that there could be little or no comfort in praying to a God that was
like the chameleon, which changes its color every day. What encouragement is
there to lift up our hearts to One who is in one mind yesterday and another
today? What would be the use of petitioning an earthly monarch if we knew he was
so mutable as to grant a petition one day and deny it another? Is it not the
very unchangeableness of God which is our greatest
encouragement to pray? It is because He is "without variableness
or shadow of turning" we are assured that if we ask anything according to
His will we are most certain of being heard. Well did Luther remark,
"Prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance, but laying hold of His
willingness."
And this leads us to offer a few remarks
concerning the design of prayer. Why has God
appointed that we should pray? The vast majority of people would reply, In
order that we may obtain from God the things which we need. While this is one
of the purposes of prayer it is by no means the chief one. Moreover, it
considers prayer only from the human side, and prayer sadly needs to be
viewed from the Divine side. Let us look, then, at some of the
reasons why God has bidden us to pray.
First and foremost, prayer has been appointed
that the Lord God Himself should be honored. God requires we
should recognize that He is, indeed, "the high and lofty One
that inhabiteth eternity" (Isa. 57:15). God
requires that we shall own His universal dominion: in
petitioning God for rain Elijah did but confess His control over the elements;
in praying to God to deliver a poor sinner from the wrath to come we
acknowledge that "salvation is of the LORD" (Jonah 2:9); in
supplicating His blessing on the Gospel unto the uttermost parts of the earth
we declare His rulership over the whole world.
Again; God requires that we shall worship Him,
and prayer, real prayer, is an act of worship. Prayer is an act of worship
inasmuch as it is the prostrating of the soul before Him; inasmuch as it is a
calling upon His great and holy name; inasmuch as it is the owning of His
goodness, His power, His immutability, His grace, and inasmuch as it is the
recognition of His Sovereignty, owned by a submission to His will. It is highly
significant to notice in this connection that the Temple wasn't termed by
Christ the House of Sacrifice, but instead, the House of Prayer.
Again; prayer redounds to God's
glory, for in prayer we do but acknowledge dependency upon Him. When
we humbly supplicate the Divine Being we cast ourselves upon His power and
mercy. In seeking blessings from God we own that He is the Author and Fountain
of every good and perfect gift. That prayer brings glory to God is further seen
from the fact that prayer calls faith into exercise, and nothing from us is so
honoring and pleasing to Him as the confidence of our hearts.
In the second place, prayer is appointed by
God for our spiritual blessing, as a means for our
growth in grace. When seeking to learn the design of
prayer, this should ever occupy us before we regard prayer as
a means for obtaining the supply of our need. Prayer is designed by God for
our humbling. Prayer, real prayer, is a coming into the
Presence of God, and a sense of His awful majesty produces a realization of our
nothingness and unworthiness. Again; prayer is designed by God for the
exercise of our faith. Faith is begotten in the Word (Rom. 10:8), but
it is exercised in prayer; hence, we read of "the prayer of faith."
Again; prayer calls love into action. Concerning the hypocrite
the question is asked, "Will he delight himself in the Almighty? Will he
always call upon God?" (Job 27:10). But
they that love the Lord cannot be long away from Him, for they delight in
unburdening themselves to Him. Not only does prayer call love into action but
through the direct answers vouchsafed to our prayers our love to God is
increased-"I love the LORD, because He hath heard my voice and
my supplications" (Psa. 116:1).
Again; prayer is designed by God to teach us the value of the blessings
we have sought from Him, and it causes us to rejoice the more when He has bestowed
upon us that for which we supplicate Him.
Third, prayer is appointed by God for our
seeking from Him the things which we are in need of. But here a difficulty may
present itself to those who have read carefully the previous chapters of this
book. If God has foreordained, before the foundation of the world, everything
which happens in time, what is the use of prayer? If it is true that "of
Him and through Him and to Him are all things"(Rom. 11:30),
then why pray? Ere replying directly to these queries it should be pointed out
how that there is just as much reason to ask, What is the use of me coming to
God and telling Him what He already knows? Wherein is the use of me spreading
before Him my need, seeing He is already acquainted with it? as there is to
object, What is the use of praying for anything when everything has been
ordained beforehand by God? Prayer is not for the purpose of informing God, as
if He were ignorant (the Saviour expressly declared "for your Father
knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask Him"-Matt. 6:8), but
it is to acknowledge He does know what we are in need of.
Prayer is not appointed for the furnishing of God with the knowledge of what we
need, but is designed as a confession to Him of our sense of
need. In this, as in everything, God's thoughts are not as ours. God requires
that His gifts should be sought for. He designs to be honored by
our asking, just as He is to be thanked by us after He has
bestowed His blessing.
However, the question still returns on us, If
God be the Predestinator of everything that comes to pass, and the Regulator of
all events, then is not prayer a profitless exercise? A sufficient answer to
these questions is that God bids us to pray, "Pray without
ceasing" (1 Thess. 5:17). And
again, "men ought always to pray" (Luke 18:1). And
further: Scripture declares that "the prayer of faith shall save the
sick," and "the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth
much" (James 5:15, 16); while the Lord Jesus
Christ, our perfect Example in all things, was preeminently a Man of Prayer.
Thus, it is evident, that prayer is neither meaningless nor valueless. But
still this does not remove the difficulty nor answer the
question with which we started out. What then is the relationship between God's
Sovereignty and Christian prayer?
First of all, we would say with emphasis,
that prayer is not intended to change God's
purpose, nor is it to move Him to form fresh purposes. God has decreed that
certain events shall come to pass through the means He has
appointed for their accomplishment. God has elected certain ones to be saved,
but He has also decreed that these shall be saved through the preaching
the Gospel. The Gospel, then, is one of the appointed means for the working out
of the eternal counsel of the Lord; and prayer is another. God has decreed the
means as well as the end, and among the means is prayer. Even the prayers of
His people are included in His eternal decrees. Therefore, instead of prayers
being in vain they are among the means through which God exercises His decrees.
"If indeed all things happen by a blind chance, or a fatal necessity
prayers in that case could be of no moral efficacy, and of no use; but since
they are regulated by the direction of Divine wisdom, prayers have a place in
the order of events" (Haldane).
That prayers for the execution of the very
things decreed by God are not meaningless is
clearly taught in the Scriptures. Elijah knew that God was about
to give rain, but that did not prevent him from at once betaking himself to
prayer (James 5:17, 18). Daniel "understood"
by the writings of the prophets that the captivity was to last but seventy
years, yet when these seventy years were almost ended we are told that he set
his face "unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and
supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes" (Dan. 9:2, 3). God told the prophet
Jeremiah "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD,
thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end"; but
instead of adding, there is, therefore, no need for you to supplicate Me for
these things, He said, "Then shall ye call upon Me, and ye
shall go and pray unto Me, and I will hearken unto you" (Jer. 29:11, 12).
Here then is the design of
prayer: not that God's will may be altered, but that it may be accomplished in
His own good time and way. It is because God has promised
certain things that we can ask for them with the full assurance of faith. It is
God's purpose that His will shall be brought about by His own appointed
means, and that He may do His people good upon His own terms,
and that is, by the 'means' and 'terms' of entreaty and supplication. Did not
the Son of God know for certain that after His death and resurrection
He would be exalted by the Father. Assuredly He did. Yet we find
Him asking for this very thing: "O Father, glorify Thou Me
with Thine Own Self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world
was" (John 17:5)! Did
not He know that none of His people could perish? yet He besought the Father to
"keep" them (John 17:11)!
Finally, it should be said that God's will is
immutable, and cannot be altered by our cryings. When the mind of God is not
toward a people to do them good, it cannot be turned to them by the most
fervent and importunate prayer of those who have the greatest interest in Him:
"Then said the LORD unto me, Though Moses and Samuel stood before Me, yet
My mind could not be toward this people: cast them out of My sight,
and let them go forth" (Jer. 15:1). The
prayers of Moses to enter the promised land is a parallel case.
Our views respecting prayer need to be
revised and brought into harmony with the teaching of Scripture on the subject.
The prevailing idea seems to be that I come to God and ask Him
for something that I want, and that I expect Him to give me
that which I have asked. But this is a most dishonoring and degrading
conception. The popular belief reduces God to a servant, our servant:
doing our bidding, performing our pleasure, granting our desires. No; prayer is
a coming to God, telling Him my need, committing my way unto
the Lord, and leaving Him to deal with it as seemeth Him best.
This makes my will subject to His, instead of, as in the former
case, seeking to bring His will into subjection to mine. No prayer is pleasing
to God unless the spirit actuating it is "not my will,
but Thine be done." "When God bestows blessings on a praying people,
it is not for the sake of their prayers, as if He was inclined and turned by
them; but it is for His own sake, and of His own Sovereign will and pleasure.
Should it be said, to what purpose then is prayer? it is answered, This is the
way and means God has appointed for the communication of the blessing of His
goodness to His people. For though He has purposed, provided, and promised
them, yet He will be sought unto, to give them, and it is a duty and privilege
to ask. When they are blessed with a spirit of prayer it forebodes well, and
looks as if God intended to bestow the good things asked, which should be asked
always with submission to the will of God, saying, Not my will but
Thine be done" (John Gill).
The distinction just noted above is of great
practical importance for our peace of heart. Perhaps the one thing that
exercises Christians as much as anything else is that of unanswered prayers.
They have asked God for something: so far as they are able to judge they have
asked in faith believing they would receive that for which they had supplicated
the Lord: and they have asked earnestly and repeatedly, but the
answer has not come. The result is that, in many cases, faith in the efficacy
of prayer becomes weakened, until hope gives way to despair and the closet is
altogether neglected. Is it not so?
Now will it surprise our readers when we say
that every real prayer of faith that has ever been offered to
God has been answered? Yet we unhesitatingly affirm it. But in saying
this we must refer back to our definition of prayer. Let us repeat it. Prayer
is a coming to God, telling Him my need (or the need of
others), committing my way unto the Lord, and then leaving Him to deal with the
case as seemeth Him best. This leaves God to answer the prayer in whatever way
He sees fit, and often, His answer may be the very opposite of what would be most
acceptable to the flesh; yet, if we have really LEFT our need
in His hands it will be His answer, nevertheless. Let us look
at two examples.
In John 11 we read of the sickness of
Lazarus. The Lord "loved" him, but He was absent from Bethany. The
sisters sent a messenger unto the Lord acquainting Him of their brother's
condition. And note particularly how their appeal was
worded-"Lord, behold, he whom Thou lovest is sick." That was all.
They did not ask Him to heal Lazarus. They did not request Him to hasten at
once to Bethany. They simply spread their need before Him, committed the case
into His hands, and left Him to act as He deemed best! And
what was our Lord's reply? Did He respond to their appeal and answer their mute
request? Certainly He did, though not, perhaps, in the way they had hoped. He
answered by abiding "two days still in the same place where He was" (John 11:6), and
allowing Lazarus to die! But in this instance that was not all. Later, He
journeyed to Bethany and raised Lazarus from the dead. Our purpose in referring
here to this case is to illustrate the proper attitude for the believer to take
before God in the hour of need. The next example will emphasize rather, God's
method of responding to His needy child.
Turn to 2 Corinthians 12. The Apostle Paul
had been accorded an unheard-of privilege. He had been transported into
Paradise. His ears had listened to and his eyes had gazed upon that which no
other mortal had heard or seen this side of death. The wondrous revelation was
more than the Apostle could endure. He was in danger of becoming "puffed
up" by his extraordinary experience. Therefore, a thorn in the flesh, the
messenger of Satan, was sent to buffet him lest he be exalted above measure.
And the Apostle spreads his need before the Lord; he thrice beseeches Him that
this thorn in the flesh should be removed. Was his prayer
answered? Assuredly, though not in the manner he had desired. The
"thorn" was not removed but grace was given to bear it. The burden
was not lifted but strength was vouchsafed to carry it.
Does someone object that it is our privilege
to do more than spread our need before God? Are we reminded that God has, as it
were, given us a blank check and invited us to fill it in? Is it said that the
promises of God are all-inclusive, and that we may ask God for what we
will? If so, we must call attention to the fact that it is necessary
to compare Scripture with Scripture if we are to learn the full mind of God on
any subject, and that as this is done we discover God has qualified the
promises given to praying souls by saying "If ye ask anything according
to His will He heareth us" (1 John 5:14).
Real prayer is communion with God so that there will be common
thoughts between His mind and ours. What is needed is for Him to fill our
hearts with His thoughts and then His desires will become our desires
flowing back to Him. Here then is the meeting-place between God's Sovereignty
and Christian prayer: If we ask anything according to His will He
heareth us, and if we do not so ask He does not hear
us; as saith the Apostle James, "Ye ask, and receive not, because
ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts"
or desires (4:3).
But did not the Lord Jesus tell His
disciples, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye
shall ask the Father in My name, He will give it you" (John 16:23)? He
did; but this promise does not give praying souls carte blanche. These
words of our Lord are in perfect accord with those of the Apostle John:
"If ye ask anything according to His will He heareth us." What is it
to ask "in the name of Christ"? Surely it is very much more than a
prayer formula, the mere concluding of our supplications with the words "in
the name of Christ." To apply to God for anything in the
name of Christ, it must needs be in keeping with what Christ is! To ask God in
the name of Christ is as though Christ Himself were the suppliant. We
can only ask God for what Christ would ask. To ask in the name of
Christ is therefore to set aside our own wills, accepting God's!
Let us now amplify our definition of prayer.
What is prayer? Prayer is not so much an act as it is an attitude-an
attitude of dependency, dependency upon God. Prayer is a
confession of creature weakness, yea, of helplessness. Prayer is the
acknowledgment of our need and the spreading of it before God. We do not say
that this is all there is in prayer, it is not: but it is the
essential, the primary element in prayer. We freely admit that we are quite
unable to give a complete definition of prayer within the
compass of a brief sentence, or in any number of words. Prayer is both an
attitude and an act, an human act, and yet
there is the Divine element in it too, and it is this which
makes an exhaustive analysis impossible as well as impious to attempt. But
admitting this, we do insist again that prayer is fundamentally an attitude of
dependency upon God. Therefore, prayer is the very opposite of dictating to
God. Because prayer is an attitude of dependency, the one who really prays
is submissive, submissive to the Divine will; and submission
to the Divine will means that we are content for the Lord to supply our need
according to the dictates of His own Sovereign pleasure. And hence it is that
we say every prayer that is offered to God in this spirit
is sure of meeting with an answer or response from Him.
Here then is the reply to our opening
question, and the scriptural solution to the seeming difficulty. Prayer is not
the requesting of God to alter His purpose or for Him to form a new one. Prayer
is the taking of an attitude of dependency upon God, the spreading of our need
before Him, the asking for those things which are in accordance with His will,
and therefore there is nothing whatever inconsistent between Divine
Sovereignty and Christian prayer.
In closing this chapter we would utter a word
of caution to safeguard the reader against drawing a false conclusion from what
has been said. We have not here sought to epitomize the whole
teaching of Scripture on the subject of prayer, nor have we even attempted to
discuss in general the problem of prayer; instead, we have
confined ourselves, more or less, to a consideration of the relationship
between God's Sovereignty and Christian prayer. What we have written is
intended chiefly as a protest against much of the modern
teaching, which so stresses the human element in prayer that
the Divine side is almost entirely lost sight of.
In Jeremiah 10:23 we
are told "It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps"
(cf. Prov. 16:9); and
yet in many of his prayers man impulse presumes to direct the Lord as to His way,
and as to what He ought to do: even implying that if
only he had the direction of the affairs of the world and of
the church he would soon have things very different from what
they are. This cannot be denied: for anyone with any spiritual discernment at
all could not fail to detect this spirit in many of our modern prayer-meetings
where the flesh holds sway. How slow we all are to learn the lesson that the
haughty creature needs to be brought down to his knees and humbled into the
dust. And this is where the very act of prayer is intended to put
us. But man (in his usual perversity) turns the footstool into a
throne from whence he would fain direct the Almighty as to what He ought to
do! giving the onlooker the impression that if God had half the compassion that
those who pray (?) have, all would quickly be right! Such is the arrogance of
the old nature even in a child of God.
Our main purpose in this chapter has been to
emphasize the need for submitting, in prayer, our wills to God's. But
it must also be added that prayer is much more than a pious exercise, and far
otherwise than a mechanical performance. Prayer is, indeed, a Divinely
appointed means whereby we may obtain from God the things we ask, providing we
ask for those things which are in accord with His will. These pages will have
been penned in vain unless they lead both writer and reader to cry with a
deeper earnestness than heretofore, "Lord, teach us to
pray" (Luke 11:1).
CHAPTER
TEN
OUR
ATTITUDE TOWARD HIS SOVEREIGNTY
In the present chapter we shall consider,
somewhat briefly, the practical application to ourselves of the great truth
which we have pondered in its various ramifications in earlier pages. In
chapter twelve we shall deal more in detail with the value of
this doctrine but here we would confine ourselves to a definition of what ought
to be our attitude toward the Sovereignty of God.
Every truth that is revealed to us in God's
Word is there not only for our information but also for our inspiration. The
Bible has been given to us not to gratify an idle curiosity but to edify the
souls of its readers. The Sovereignty of God is something more than an abstract
principle which explains the rationale of the Divine
government: it is designed as a motive for godly fear, it is made known to us
for the promotion of righteous living, it is revealed in order to bring into
subjection our rebellious hearts. A true recognition of God's
Sovereignty humbles as nothing else does or can humble, and brings the heart
into lowly submission before God, causing us to relinquish our own self-will
and making us delight in the perception and performance of the Divine will.
When we speak of the Sovereignty of God we
mean very much more than the exercise of God's governmental
power, though, of course, that is included in the expression. As we have
remarked in an earlier chapter, the Sovereignty of God means the Godhood of
God. In its fullest and deepest meaning the title of this book signifies the Character
and Being of the One whose pleasure is performed and whose will
is executed. To truly recognize the Sovereignty of God is,
therefore, to gaze upon the Sovereign Himself. It is to come into the presence
of the august "Majesty on high." It is to have a sight of the thrice
holy God in His excellent glory. The effects of such a sight
may be learned from those Scriptures which describe the experience of different
ones who obtained a view of the Lord God.
Mark the experience of Job-the one of whom
the Lord Himself said "There is none like him in the earth, a perfect and
an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil" (Job 1:8). At
the close of the book which bears his name we are shown Job in the Divine
presence, and how does he carry himself when brought face to face with Jehovah?
Hear what he says: "I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; but
now mine eye seeth Thee: Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in
dust and ashes" (Job 42:5, 6). Thus, a sight of God,
God revealed in awesome majesty, caused Job to abhor himself, and not only so,
but to abase himself before the Almighty.
Take note of Isaiah. In the sixth chapter of
his prophecy a scene is brought before us which has few equals even in
Scripture. The prophet beholds the Lord upon the Throne, a Throne "high
and lifted up." Above this Throne stood the seraphims with veiled faces,
crying, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts." What is the effect of
this sight upon the prophet? We read "Then said I, Woe is
me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips:... for mine eyes have
seen the King, the LORD of hosts" (Isa. 6:5). A
sight of the Divine King humbled Isaiah into the dust, bringing
him, as it did, to a realization of his own nothingness.
One more. Look at the prophet Daniel. Toward
the close of his life this man of God beheld the Lord in theophanic
manifestation. He appeared to His servant in human form "clothed in
linen" and with loins "girded with fine gold," symbolic of
holiness and Divine glory. We read that "His body also was like the beryl,
and His face as the appearance of lightning, and His eyes as lamps of fire, and
His arms and His feet like in color to polished brass, and the voice of His
words like the voice of a multitude." Daniel then tells the effect this
vision had upon him and those who were with him: "And I Daniel alone saw
the vision: for the men that were with me saw not the vision; but a great
quaking fell upon them, so that they fled to hide themselves. Therefore I was
left alone, and saw this great vision, and there remained no strength
in me: for my comeliness was turned in me into corruption, and
I retained no strength. Yet heard I the voice of His words: and when I heard
the voice of His words, then was I in a deep sleep on my face, and
my face toward the ground" (Dan. 10:6-9).
Once more, then, we are shown that to obtain a sight of the Sovereign God is
for creature strength to wither up, and results in man being humbled into the
dust before his Maker. What then ought to be our attitude
toward the Supreme Sovereign? We reply,
1. ONE OF GODLY FEAR.
Why is it that, today, the masses are so utterly
unconcerned about spiritual and eternal things, and that they are lovers of
pleasure more than lovers of God? Why is it that even on the battlefields
multitudes were so indifferent to their soul's welfare? Why is it that defiance
of Heaven is becoming more open, more blatant, more daring? The answer is,
Because "There is no fear of God before their eyes" (Rom. 3:18).
Again; why is it that the authority of the Scriptures has been lowered so sadly
of late? Why is it that even among those who profess to be the Lord's people
there is so little real subjection to His Word, and that its precepts are so
lightly esteemed and so readily set aside? Ah! what needs to be stressed today
is that God is a God to be feared.
"The fear of the LORD is
the beginning of knowledge" (Prov. 1:7).
Happy the soul that has been awed by a view of God's majesty, that has had a
vision of God's awful greatness, His ineffable holiness, His perfect
righteousness, His irresistible power, His Sovereign grace. Does someone say,
"But it is only the unsaved, those outside of Christ, who
need to fear God"? Then the sufficient answer is that the saved, those who
are in Christ, are admonished to work out their own salvation
with "fear and trembling." Time was when it was the general custom to
speak of a believer as a "God-fearing man"-that such an appellation
has become nearly extinct only serves to show whither we have drifted.
Nevertheless, it still stands written "Like as a father pitieth his
children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear Him" (Psa. 103:13)!
When we speak of godly fear, of course, we do
not mean a servile fear, such as prevails among the heathen in connection with
their gods. No; we mean that spirit which Jehovah is pledged to bless, that
spirit to which the prophet referred when he said "To this man will I (the
Lord) look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and
trembleth at My Word" (Isa. 66:2). It
was this the Apostle had in view when he wrote, "Honor all men. Love the
brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king" (1 Peter
2:17). And nothing will foster this godly fear like a recognition of the
Sovereign Majesty of God.
What ought to be our attitude toward the
Sovereignty of God? We answer again,
2. ONE OF IMPLICIT OBEDIENCE.
A sight of God leads to a realization of our
littleness and nothingness and issues in a sense of dependency and of casting
ourselves upon God. Or, again; a view of the Divine Majesty promotes the spirit
of godly fear and this, in turn, begets an obedient walk. Here then is the
Divine antidote for the native evil of our hearts. Naturally, man is filled
with a sense of his own importance, with his greatness and self-sufficiency; in
a word, with pride and rebellion. But, as we remarked, the great corrective is
to behold the Mighty God, for this alone will really humble him. Man will glory
either in himself or in God. Man will live either to serve and please himself,
or he will seek to serve and please the Lord. None can serve two masters.
Irreverence begets disobedience. Said the
haughty monarch of Egypt "Who is the LORD that I should obey His voice to
let Israel go? I know not the LORD; neither will I let
Israel go" (Exo. 5:2). To
Pharaoh, the God of the Hebrews was merely a god, one among many, a
powerless entity who needed not to be feared or served. How sadly mistaken he
was, and how bitterly he had to pay for his mistake he soon discovered; but
what we are here seeking to emphasize is that Pharaoh's defiant spirit was the
fruit of irreverence, and this irreverence was the consequence of his
ignorance of the majesty and authority of the Divine Being.
Now if irreverence begets disobedience, true
reverence will produce and promote obedience. To realize that the Holy
Scriptures are a revelation from the Most High, communicating to us His mind
and defining for us His will, is the first step toward practical godliness. To
recognize that the Bible is God's Word, and that its precepts are the precepts of
the Almighty, will lead us to see what an awful thing it is to despise and
ignore them. To receive the Bible as addressed to our own souls, given to us by
the Creator Himself, will cause us to cry with the Psalmist, "Incline
my heart unto Thy testimonies...Order my steps in Thy Word" (Psa. 119: 36, 133). Once the Sovereignty of
the Author of the Word is apprehended it will not longer be a matter of picking
and choosing from the precepts and statutes of that Word, selecting those which
meet with our approval; but it will be seen that nothing less than an
unqualified and whole-hearted submission becomes the creature.
What ought to be our attitude toward the
Sovereignty of God?
3. ONE OF ENTIRE RESIGNATION.
A true recognition of God's Sovereignty will
exclude all murmuring. This is self-evident, yet the thought
deserves to be dwelt upon. It is natural to murmur against afflictions and
losses. It is natural to complain when we are deprived of those thing upon
which we had set our hearts. We are apt to regard our possessions as ours
unconditionally. We feel that when we have prosecuted our plans with prudence
and diligence that we are entitled to success; that when by
dint of hard work we have accumulated a 'competence' we deserve to
keep and enjoy it; that when we are surrounded by a happy family no power may
lawfully enter the charmed circle and strike down a loved one; and if in any of
these cases disappointment, bankruptcy, death, actually comes, the perverted
instinct of the human heart is to cry out against God. But in the one who, by
grace, has recognized God's Sovereignty, such murmuring is silenced, and instead,
there is a bowing to the Divine will and an acknowledgment that He has not
afflicted us as sorely as we deserve.
A true recognition of God's Sovereignty will
avow God's perfect right to do with us as He wills. The one who bows to the
pleasure of the Almighty will acknowledge His absolute right to do with us as
seemeth Him good. If He chooses to send poverty, sickness, domestic
bereavements, even while the heart is bleeding at every pore, it will say,
Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right! Often there will be a struggle,
for the carnal mind remains in the believer to the end of his earthly
pilgrimage. But though there may be a conflict within his breast, nevertheless,
to the one who has really yielded himself to this blessed truth there will presently
be heard that Voice saying, as of old it said to the turbulent Gennesareth,
"Peace be still"; and the tempestuous flood within will be quieted
and the subdued soul will lift a tearful but confident eye to Heaven and say,
"Thy will be done."
A striking illustration of a soul bowing to
the Sovereign will of God is furnished by the history of Eli the high priest of
Israel. In 1 Samuel 3 we learn how God revealed to the young child
Samuel that He was about to slay Eli's two sons for their wickedness, and on
the morrow Samuel communicates this message to the aged priest. It is difficult
to conceive of more appalling intelligence for the heart of a pious parent. The
announcement that his child is going to be stricken down by sudden death is,
under any circumstances, a great trial to any father, but to learn that his two
sons-in the prime of their manhood, and utterly unprepared to
die-were to be cut off by a Divine judgment must have been overwhelming. Yet,
what was the effect upon Eli when he learned from Samuel the tragic tidings?
What reply did he make when he heard the awful news? "And he said, It is
the LORD: let Him do what seemeth Him good" (1 Sam. 3:18). And
not another word escaped him. Wonderful submission! Sublime resignation! Lovely
exemplification of the power of Divine grace to control the strongest
affections of the human heart and subdue the rebellious will, bringing it into
unrepining acquiescence to the Sovereign pleasure of Jehovah.
Another example, equally striking, is seen in
the life of Job. As is well known, Job was one that feared God and eschewed
evil. If ever there was one who might reasonably expect Divine providence to
smile upon him-we speak as a man-it was Job. Yet, how fared it with him? For a
time the lines fell unto him in pleasant places. The Lord filled his quiver by
giving him seven sons and three daughters. He prospered him in his temporal
affairs until he owned great possessions. But of a sudden the sun of life was
hidden behind dark clouds. In a single day Job lost not only his flocks and
herds but his sons and daughters as well. News arrived that his cattle had been
carried off by robbers, and his children slain by a cyclone. And how did he
receive this intelligence? Hearken to his sublime words: "The
LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away." He bowed to
the Sovereign will of Jehovah. He traced his afflictions back to their First
Cause. He looked behind the Sabeans who had stolen his cattle, and beyond the
winds that had destroyed his children, and saw the hand of God. But
not only did Job recognize God's Sovereignty, he rejoiced in
it, too. To the words, "The LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away,"
he added, "blessed be the name of the LORD" (Job 1:21).
Again we say, Sweet submission! Sublime resignation!
A true recognition of God's Sovereignty
causes us to hold our every plan in abeyance to God's will. The writer well
recalls an incident which occurred in England over twenty years ago. Queen
Victoria was dead, and the date for the coronation of her eldest son, Edward,
had been set for April 1902. In all the announcements which were sent out, two
little letters were omitted, D. V.-Deo Volente: God willing. Plans were made
and all arrangements completed for the most imposing celebrations that England
had ever witnessed. Kings and emperors from all parts of the earth had received
invitations to attend the royal ceremony. The Prince's proclamations were
printed and displayed, but, so far as the writer is aware, the letters D. V.
were not found on a single one of them. A most imposing program had been
arranged, and the late Queen's eldest son was to be crowned Edward the Seventh
at Westminster Abbey at a certain hour on a fixed day. And then God
intervened and all man's plans were frustrated. A still small voice
was heard to say, "You have reckoned without Me," and Prince
Edward was stricken down with appendicitis, and his coronation postponed for
months!
As remarked, a true recognition of God's
Sovereignty causes us to hold our plan in abeyance to God's
will. It makes us recognize that the Divine Potter has absolute power over the
clay and molds it according to his own imperial pleasure. It causes us to heed
that admonition-now, alas! so generally disregarded-"Go to now, ye that
say, Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city, and
continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: Whereas ye know not what
shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor, that
appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that
ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall
live, and do this, or that" (James 4:13-15).
Yes, it is to the Lord's will we must bow. It is for Him to
say where I shall live, whether in America or Africa. It is for Him to
determine under what circumstances I shall live, whether amid wealth or
poverty, whether in health or sickness. It is for Him to say how
long I shall live, whether I shall be cut down in youth like the flower of the
field, or whether I shall continue for three score and ten years. To really learn
this lesson is, by grace, to attain unto a high form in the school of God, and
even when we think we have learned it we discover, again and again, that we
have to relearn it.
What ought to be our attitude toward the
Sovereignty of God?
4. ONE OF DEEP THANKFULNESS AND JOY.
The heart's apprehension of
this most blessed truth of the Sovereignty of God produces something far
different than a sullen bowing to the inevitable. The philosophy of this
perishing world knows nothing better than to "make the best of a bad
job." But with the Christian it should be far otherwise. Not only should
the recognition of God's supremacy beget within us godly fear, implicit
obedience, and entire resignation, but it should cause us to say with the
Psalmist, "Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless His
holy name." Does not the Apostle say, "Giving thanks always for
all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Eph. 5:20)? Ah!
it is at this point the state of our souls is so often put to
the test. Alas, there is so much self-will in each of us. When things go
as we wish them we appear to be very grateful to God; but what
of those occasions when things go contrary to our plans and desires?
We take it for granted when the real Christian
takes a train-journey that, upon reaching his destination, he devoutly returns
thanks unto God-which, of course, argues that He controls
everything; otherwise, we ought to thank the engine-driver, the stoker, the
signalmen, etc. Or, if in business, at the close of a good week, gratitude is
expressed unto the Giver of every good (temporal) and every perfect (spiritual)
gift-which again, argues that He directs all customers to your
shop. So far, so good. Such examples occasion no difficulty. But imagine the
opposites. Suppose my train was delayed for hours, did I fret and fume; suppose
another train ran into it and I am injured! Or, suppose I have had a poor week
in business, or that lightning struck my shop and set it on fire, or that
burglars broke in and rifled it, then what: do I see the hand of God in these things?
Take the case of Job once more. When loss
after loss came his way what did he do? Bemoan his "bad luck"? Curse
the robbers? Murmur against God? No; he bowed before Him in worship. Ah! dear
reader, there is no real rest for your poor heart until you learn to see the
hand of God in everything. But for that, faith must be in
constant exercise. And what is faith? A blind credulity? A fatalistic
acquiescence? No, far from it. Faith is a resting on the sure Word of the
living God, and therefore says "We know that all things
work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called
according to His purpose" (Rom. 8:28); and
therefore faith will give thanks "always for all things." Operative
faith will "Rejoice in the Lord alway" (Phil. 4:4).
We turn now to mark how this recognition of
God's Sovereignty which is expressed in godly fear, implicit obedience, entire
resignation, and deep thankfulness and joy was supremely and perfectly
exemplified by the Lord Jesus Christ.
In all things the Lord Jesus has left us an
example that we should follow His steps. But is this true in connection with
the first point made above? Are the words "godly fear" ever linked
with His peerless name? Remembering that "godly fear"
signifies not a servile terror, but rather a filial subjection and reverence,
and remembering too that "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of
wisdom," would it not rather be strange if no mention at all were made of
"godly fear" in connection with the One who was wisdom incarnate!
What a wonderful and precious word is that of Hebrews 5:7-"Who
in the days of His flesh, having offered up prayers and supplications with
strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save Him from death, and
having been heard for His godly fear" (R. V.). What was
it but "godly fear" which caused the Lord Jesus to be
"subject" unto Mary and Joseph in the days of His childhood? Was it
"godly fear"-a filial subjection to and reverence for God-that we see
displayed when we read "And He came to Nazareth where He had been brought
up: and, as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the
Sabbath day" (Luke 4:16)? Was
it not "godly fear" which caused the incarnate Son to say, when
tempted by Satan to fall down and worship him, "It is written, Thou shalt
worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve"?
Was it not "godly fear" which moved Him to say to the cleansed leper,
"Go thy way, show thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded"
(Matt. 8:4)? But
why multiply illustrations?
How perfect was the obedience that the Lord
Jesus offered to God the Father! And in reflecting upon this let us not lose
sight of that wondrous grace which caused Him, who was in the very form of God,
to stoop so low as to take upon Him the form of a Servant and
thus be brought into the place where obedience was becoming. As the perfect
Servant He yielded complete obedience to His Father. How absolute and entire
that obedience was we may learn from the words He "became obedient
unto death, even the
*Note how Old Testament prophecy also
declared that "the Spirit of the Lord" should "rest upon Him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the
spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord" (Isa. 11:2).
death of the Cross" (Phil. 2:8).
That this was a conscious and intelligent obedience is clear from His own
language: "Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down My life,
that I might take it again. No man taketh if from Me, but I lay it down of
Myself. I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again. This
commandment have I received from My Father" (John 10:17, 18).
And what shall we say of the absolute resignation of
the Son to the Father's will? what, but, between Them there was entire oneness
of accord. Said He, "For I came down from Heaven, not to do Mine own will,
but the will of Him that sent Me" (John 6:38), and
how fully He substantiated that claim all know who have attentively followed
His path as marked out in the Scriptures. Behold Him in Gethsemane! The bitter
'cup,' held in the Father's hand, is presented to His view. Mark well His
attitude. Learn of Him who was meek and lowly in heart.
Remember that there in the Garden we see the Word become flesh, a perfect Man.
His body is quivering at every nerve in contemplation of the physical
sufferings which await Him; His holy and sensitive nature is shrinking from the
horrible indignities which shall be heaped upon Him; His heart is breaking at
the awful "reproach" which is before Him; His spirit is greatly
troubled as He foresees the terrible conflict with the Power of Darkness; and
above all, and supremely, His soul is filled with horror at the thought of
being separated from God Himself-thus and there He pours out His soul to the
Father, and with strong crying and tears He sheds, as it were, great drops of
blood. And now observe and listen. Still the beating of thy heart and hearken
to the words which fall from His blessed lips-"Father, if Thou be
willing, remove this cup from Me: nevertheless, not My will,
but Thine be done" (Luke 22:42).
Here is submission personified. Here is resignation to the pleasure of a
Sovereign God superlatively exemplified. And He has left us an example that we
should follow His steps. He who was God became man, and was tempted in all
points like as we are, sin apart, to show us how to wear our creature
nature!
Above we asked, What shall we say of Christ's
absolute resignation to the Father's will? We answer further, This, that here,
as everywhere, He was unique, peerless. In all things He has the preeminence.
In the Lord Jesus there was no rebellious will to be broken. In His heart there
was nothing to be subdued. Was not this one reason why, in the language of
prophecy, He said, "I am a worm, and no man" (Psa. 22:6)-a worm
has no power of resistance! It was because in Him there was no
resistance that He could say, "My meat is to do the will
of Him that sent Me" (John 4:34).
Yea, it was because He was in perfect accord with the Father in all things that
He said, "I delight to do Thy will, O God; yea, Thy law is
within My heart" (Psa. 40:8).
Note the last clause here and behold His matchless excellency.
God has to put His laws into our minds, and
write them in our hearts (see Heb. 8:10), but
His law was already in Christ's heart!
What a beautiful and striking illustration of
Christ's thankfulness and joy is found in Matthew 11. There we behold, first,
the failure of the faith of His forerunner (vv. 22, 23). Next, we learn of the
discontent of the people: satisfied neither with Christ's joyous message, nor
with John's solemn one (vv. 16-20). Third, we have the non-repentance of those
favoured cities in which our Lord's mightiest works were done (vv. 21-24). And
then we read, "At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank Thee,
O Father, Lord of Heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid
these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes"
(v. 25)! Note the parallel passage in Luke 10:21 opens
by saying, "In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and
said, I thank Thee," etc. Ah! here was submission in its purest form. Here
was One by whom the worlds were made, yet, in the days of His humiliation and
in the face of His rejection, thankfully and joyously bowing to the will of the
"Lord of Heaven and earth."
What ought to be our attitude toward God's
Sovereignty? Finally,
5. ONE OF ADORING WORSHIP.
It has been well said that "true worship
is based upon recognized GREATNESS, and greatness is
superlatively seen in Sovereignty, and at no other footstool will men really worship"
(J. B. Moody). In the presence of the Divine King upon His throne even the
seraphims 'veil their faces.'
Divine Sovereignty is not the Sovereignty of
a tyrannical Despot, but the exercised pleasure of One who is infinitely wise
and good! Because God is infinitely wise He cannot err, and
because He is infinitely righteous He will not do wrong. Here
then is the preciousness of this truth. The mere fact itself
that God's will is irresistible and irreversible fills me with fear, but once I
realize that God wills only that which is good my heart is made to rejoice.
Here then is the final answer to the question
of this chapter, What ought to be our attitude toward the Sovereignty of God?
The becoming attitude for us to take is that of godly fear, implicit obedience,
and unreserved resignation and submission. But not only so: the recognition of
the Sovereignty of God, and the realization that the Sovereign Himself is
my Father, ought to overwhelm the heart and cause me to bow
before Him in adoring worship. At all times I must say "Even so, Father,
for so it seemeth good in Thy sight." We conclude with an
example which well illustrates our meaning.
Some two hundred years ago the saintly Madam
Cuyon, after ten years spent in a dungeon lying far below the surface of the
ground, lit only by a candle at meal-times, wrote these words:
"A
little bird I am,
Shut from the fields of air;
Yet in my cage I sit and sing
To Him who placed me there;
Well pleased a prisoner to be,
Because, my God, it pleases Thee.
Nought have I else to do
I sing the whole day long;
And He whom most I love to please,
Doth listen to my song;
He caught and bound my wandering wing
But still He bends to hear me sing.
My cage confines me round;
Abroad I cannot fly;
But though my wing is closely bound,
My heart's at liberty,
My prison walls cannot control
The flight, the freedom of the soul.
Ah! it is good to soar
These bolts and bar above,
To Him whose purpose I adore,
Whose Providence I love;
And in Thy mighty will to find
The joy, the freedom of the mind."
Yet in my cage I sit and sing
To Him who placed me there;
Well pleased a prisoner to be,
Because, my God, it pleases Thee.
Nought have I else to do
I sing the whole day long;
And He whom most I love to please,
Doth listen to my song;
He caught and bound my wandering wing
But still He bends to hear me sing.
My cage confines me round;
Abroad I cannot fly;
But though my wing is closely bound,
My heart's at liberty,
My prison walls cannot control
The flight, the freedom of the soul.
Ah! it is good to soar
These bolts and bar above,
To Him whose purpose I adore,
Whose Providence I love;
And in Thy mighty will to find
The joy, the freedom of the mind."
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
DIFFICULTIES
AND OBJECTIONS
"Yet ye say, The way of the Lord is not equal. Hear now, O house of Israel; Is not My way equal? are not your ways unequal?" (Ezek. 18:25).
A convenient point has been reached when we
may now examine, more definitely, some of the difficulties encountered and the
objections which might be advanced against what we have written in previous
pages. The author deemed it better to reserve these for a separate
consideration rather than deal with them as he went along, requiring as that
would have done the breaking of the course of thought and destroying the strict
unity of each chapter, or else cumbering our pages with numerous and lengthy
footnotes.
That there are difficulties
involved in an attempt to set forth the truth of God's Sovereignty is readily
acknowledged. The hardest thing of all, perhaps, is to maintain the balance of
truth. It is largely a matter of perspective. That God is
Sovereign is explicitly declared in Scripture: that man is a responsible creature
is also expressly affirmed in Holy Writ. To define the relationship of these
two truths, to fix the dividing line betwixt them, to show exactly where they
meet, to exhibit the perfect consistency of the one with the other, is the
weightiest task of all. Many have openly declared that it is impossible for
the finite mind to harmonize them. Others tell us it is not necessary or even
wise to attempt it. But, as we have remarked in an earlier chapter, it seems to
us more honoring to God to seek in His Word the solution to every problem. What
is impossible to man is possible with God, and while we grant that the finite
mind is limited in its reach, yet, we remember that the Scriptures are given to
us that the man of God may be "thoroughly furnished,"
and if we approach their study in the spirit of humility and of expectancy,
then, according unto our faith will it be unto us.
As remarked above, the hardest task in this
connection is to preserve the balance of truth while insisting on both the
Sovereignty of God and the responsibility of the creature. To some of our
readers it may appear that in pressing the Sovereignty of God to the lengths we
have man is reduced to a mere puppet. Hence, to guard against this, they would modify their
definitions and statements relating to God's Sovereignty, and thus seek to
blunt the keen edge of what is so offensive to the carnal mind. Others, while
refusing to weigh the evidence that we have adduced in support of our
assertions, may raise objections which to their minds are sufficient to dispose
of the whole subject. We would not waste time in the effort to refute
objections made in a carping and contentious spirit but we are desirous
of meeting fairly the difficulties experienced by those who
are anxious to obtain a fuller knowledge of the truth. Not that we deem
ourselves able to give a satisfactory and final answer to every question that
might be asked. Like the reader, the writer knows but in part and sees through
a glass "darkly." All that we can do is to examine these difficulties
in the light we now have, in dependence upon the Spirit of God that we may
follow on to know the Lord better.
We propose now to retrace our steps and
pursue the same order of thought as that followed up to this point. As a part
of our "definition" of God's Sovereignty we
affirmed: "To say that God is Sovereign is to declare that He is the
Almighty, the Possessor of all power in Heaven and earth, so that none can
defeat His counsels, thwart His purpose, or resist His will... The Sovereignty
of the God of Scripture is absolute, irresistible, infinite." To put it
now in its strongest form, we insist that God does as He
pleases, only as He pleases, always as He
pleases; that whatever takes place in time is but the outworking of that which
He decreed in eternity. In proof of this assertion we appeal to the following
Scripture: "But our God is in the heavens: He hath done whatsoever He
hath pleased" (Psa. 115:3).
"For the LORD of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul
it? and His hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?" (Isa. 14:27).
"And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and He doeth
according to His will in the army of Heaven, and among the inhabitants of the
earth: and none can stay His hand or say unto Him, What doest
thou?" (Dan. 4:35).
"For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to
whom be glory for ever. Amen" (Rom. 11:36).
The above declarations are so plain and
positive that any comments of ours upon them would simply be darkening counsel
by words without knowledge. Such express statements as those just quoted are so
sweeping and so dogmatic that all controversy concerning the subject of which
they treat ought for ever to be at an end. Yet, rather than receive them at
their face value, every device of carnal ingenuity is resorted to so as to
neutralize their force. For example, it has been asked, If what we see in the
world today is but the outworking of God's eternal purpose, if God's
counsel is NOW being accomplished, then why did our Lord teach His
disciples to pray, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in
Heaven"? Is it not a clear implication from these words that God's will
is not now being done on earth? The answer is very simple. The
emphatic word in the above clause is "as." God's will is being
done on earth today, if it is not, then our earth is not subject to God's rule,
and if it is not subject to His rule then He is not, as Scripture proclaims Him
to be, "The Lord of all the earth" (Josh. 3:13). But
God's will is not being done on earth as it is in
Heaven. How is God's will "done in
Heaven"?-consciously and joyfully. How is it "done on earth"?
for the most part, unconsciously and sullenly. In Heaven the angels perform the
bidding of their Creator intelligently and gladly, but on earth the unsaved
among men accomplish His will blindly and in ignorance. As we have said in
earlier pages, when Judas betrayed the Lord Jesus and when Pilate sentenced Him
to be crucified they had no conscious intentions of fulfilling God's decrees
yet, nevertheless, unknown to themselves they did do so!
But again. It has been objected: If
everything that happens on earth is the fulfilling of the Almighty's pleasure,
if God has foreordained-before the foundation of the world-everything which
comes to pass in human history, then why do we read in Genesis 6:6 "It repented the
LORD that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at
His heart"? Does not this language intimate that the antediluvians had
followed a course which their Maker had not marked out for them, and that in
view of the fact they had "corrupted" their way upon the earth the
Lord regretted that He had ever brought such a creature into
existence? Ere drawing such a conclusion let us note what is involved in
such an inference. If the words "It repented the Lord that He had made
man" are regarded in an absolute sense, then God's omniscience would
be denied, for in such a case the course followed by man must have been
un-foreseen by God in the day that He created him. Therefore it must be evident
to every reverent soul that this language bears some other meaning. We submit
that the words "It repented the Lord" is an accommodation to
our finite intelligence, and in saying this we are not seeking to escape a
difficulty or cut a knot, but are advancing an interpretation
which we shall seek to show is in perfect accord with the general trend of
Scripture.
The Word of God is addressed to men, and
therefore it speaks the language of men. Because we cannot rise to God's level
He, in grace, comes down to ours and converses with us in our own speech. The
Apostle Paul tells us of how he was "caught up into Paradise and heard
unspeakable words which it is not possible (margin) to utter" (2 Cor. 12:4).
Those on earth could not understand the vernacular of Heaven. The finite cannot
comprehend the Infinite, hence the Almighty deigns to couch His revelation in
terms we may understand. It is for this reason the Bible contains many
anthropomorphisms-i.e, representations of God in the form of man. God is
Spirit, yet the Scriptures speak of Him as having eyes, ears, nostrils, breath,
hands, etc., which is surely an accommodation of terms brought down to the
level of human comprehension.
Again; we read in Genesis 18:20, 21 "And the LORD
said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is
very grievous, I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether
according to the cry of it, which is come up unto Me; and if not, I will
know." Now, manifestly, this is an anthropologism-God speaking in human
language. God knew the conditions which prevailed in Sodom,
and His eyes had witnessed its fearful sins, yet He is pleased to use terms
here that are taken from our own vocabulary.
Again; in Genesis 22:12 we
read "And He (God) said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou
anything unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God,
seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from Me." Here
again, God is speaking in the language of men for He "knew" before He
tested Abram exactly how the patriarch would act. So too the expression of
God so often in Jeremiah (7:13 etc.) of Him "rising up
early" is manifestly an accommodation of terms.
Once more: in the parable of the vineyard
Christ Himself represents its Owner as saying, "Then said the Lord of the
vineyard, What shall I do? I will send My beloved Son: it may be they
will reverence Him when they see Him" (Luke 20:13); and
yet, it is certain that God knew perfectly well that the "husbandman"
of the vineyard (the Jews) would not "reverence His Son" but,
instead, would "despise and reject" Him as His own Word had declared!
In the same way we understand the words
of Genesis 6:6-"It repented the
LORD that He had made man on the earth"-as an accommodation of terms to
human comprehension. This verse does not teach that God was confronted with an
unforeseen contingency and therefore regretted that He had
made man, but it expresses the abhorrence of a holy God at the
awful wickedness and corruption into which man had fallen. Should there be any
doubt remaining in the minds of our readers as to the legitimacy and soundness
of our interpretation, a direct appeal to Scripture should instantly and
entirely remove it-"The Strength of Israel (a Divine title) will not He
nor repent: for He is not a man, that He should
repent" (1 Sam. 15:29)!
"Every good and perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the
Father of lights, with Whom is no variableness,
neither shadow of turning" (James 1:17)!
Careful attention to what we have said above
will throw light on numerous other passages which, if we ignore their figurative character
and fail to note that God applies to Himself human modes of
expression, will be obscure and perplexing. Having commented at such length
upon Genesis 6:6 there
will be no need to give such a detailed exposition of other passages which
belong to the same class, yet, for the benefit of those of our readers who may
be anxious for us to examine several other Scriptures, we turn to one or two
more.
One Scripture which we often find cited in
order to overthrow the teaching advanced in this book is our Lord's lament over
Jerusalem: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and
stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have
gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her
wings, and ye would not!" (Matt. 23:37). The
question is asked, Do not these words show that the Saviour acknowledged
the defeat of His mission, that as a people the Jews resisted all His
gracious overtures toward them? In replying to this question, it should first
be pointed out that our Lord is here referring not so much to His own mission
as He is upbraiding the Jews for having in all ages rejected
His grace-this is clear from His reference to the "prophets." The Old
Testament bears full witness of how graciously and patiently Jehovah dealt with
His people, and with what extreme obstinancy, from first to last, they refused
to be "gathered" unto Him, and how in the end He abandoned them to
follow their own devices, yet, as the same Scriptures declare, the counsel of
God was not frustrated by their wickedness, for it
had been foretold (and therefore, decreed) by Him: see, for example, 1 Kings 8:33.
Matthew 23:37 may well be compared with Isaiah 65:2 where
the Lord says, "I have spread out My hands all the day unto a rebellious
people, which walketh in a way that was not good, after their own
thoughts." But, it may be asked, Did God seek to do that which was in
opposition to His own eternal purpose? In words borrowed from Calvin we reply,
"Though to our apprehension the will of God is manifold and various, yet
He does not in Himself will things at variance with each other, but astonishes
our faculties with His various and 'manifold' wisdom,
according to the expression of Paul, till we shall be enabled to understand
that He mysteriously wills what now seems contrary to His will." As a
further illustration of the same principle we would refer the reader to Isaiah 5:1-4:
"Now will I sing to my wellBeloved a song of my Beloved touching His
vineyard. My wellBeloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill: And He fenced
it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine
and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein:
and He looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it
brought forth wild grapes. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of
Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt Me and My vineyard. What could have
been done more to My vineyard, that I have not done in it? wherefore,
when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, it brought forth wild
grapes?" Is it not plain from this language that God reckoned Himself to
have done enough for Israel to warrant an expectation-speaking after the manner
of men-of better returns? Yet, is it not equally evident when Jehovah says here
"He looked that it should bring forth grapes" that He is
accommodating Himself to a form of finite expression? And, so also when He says
"What could have been done more to My vineyard, that I have not done in
it?" we need to take note that in the previous enumeration of what
He had done-the "fencing" etc.-He refers only to
external privileges, means, and opportunities, which had been
bestowed upon Israel, for, of course, He could even then have
taken away from them their stony heart and given them a new heart, even a heart
of flesh, had He so pleased.
Perhaps we should link up with Christ's
lament over Jerusalem in Matthew 23:37, His
tears over the City, recorded in Luke 19:41:
"He beheld the city, and wept over it." In the verses which
immediately follow we learn what it was that occasioned His
tears: "Saying, if thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day,
the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.
For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about
thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side." It was the
prospect of the fearful judgment which Christ knew was impending. But did those
tears make manifest a disappointed God? Nay, verily. Instead, they displayed a perfect
Man. The Man Christ Jesus was no emotionless stoic, but One "filled with
compassion." Those tears expressed the sinless sympathies of His real and
pure humanity. Had He not "wept" He had been less
than human. Those "tears" were one of many proofs that "in all
things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren" (Heb. 2:17).
In Chapter One we have affirmed that God is
Sovereign in the exercise of His love, and in saying this we are fully aware
that many will strongly resent the statement and that, furthermore, what we
have now to say will probably meet with more criticism than anything else
advanced in this book. Nevertheless, we must be true to our convictions of what
we believe to be the teaching of Holy Scripture, and we can only ask our readers
to examine diligently in the light of God's Word what we here submit to their
attention.
One of the most popular beliefs of the day is
that God loves everybody, and the very fact that it is so popular with
all classes ought to be enough to arouse the suspicions of those who are
subject to the Word of Truth. God's Love toward all His creatures is the
fundamental and favorite tenet of Universalists, Unitarians, Theosophists,
Christian Scientists, Spiritualists, Russellites, etc. No matter how a man may
live-in open defiance of Heaven, with no concern whatever for his soul's
eternal interests, still less for God's glory, dying, perhaps with an oath on
his lips-notwithstanding, God loves him, we are told. So widely has this dogma
been proclaimed, and so comforting is it to the heart which is
at enmity with God we have little hope of convincing many of their error. That
God loves everybody, is, we may say, quite a modern belief.
The writings of the church fathers, the Reformers or the Puritans will (we
believe) be searched in vain for any such concept. Perhaps the late D. L.
Moody-captivated by Drummond's "The Greatest Thing in the World"-did
more than anyone else in the last century to popularize this concept.
It has been customary to say God loves the
sinner though He hates his sin.* But that is a meaningless distinction. What is
there in a sinner but sin? Is it not true that his "whole head
is sick" and his "whole heart faint," and that
"from the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no
soundness" in him? (Isa. 1:5, 6). Is it true that God
loves the one who is despising and rejecting His blessed Son?
God is Light as well as Love, and therefore His love must be a holy love.
To tell the Christ-rejecter that God loves him is to cauterize his conscience
as well as to afford him a sense of security in his sins. The fact is, the love
of God is a truth for the saints only, and to present it to the enemies of God
is to take the children's bread and cast it to the dogs. With the exception
of John 3:16, not
once in the four Gospels do we read of the Lord Jesus, the perfect Teacher,
telling sinners that God loved them! In the book of Acts,
which records the evangelistic labors and messages of the Apostles, God's love
is never referred to at all! But when we come to the Epistles, which are
addressed to the saints, we have a full presentation of this
precious truth-God's love for His own. Let us seek to rightly divide
the Word of God and then we shall not be found taking truths which are
addressed to believers and mis-applying them to unbelievers. That which sinners
need to have brought before them is the ineffable holiness, the exacting
righteousness, the inflexible justice and the terrible wrath of God. Risking
the danger of being misunderstood let us say-and we wish we could say it to
every evangelist and preacher in the country-there is far too much presenting
of Christ to sinners today (by those sound in the faith), and far too little
showing sinners their need of Christ, i.e., their absolutely ruined and
lost condition, their imminent and awful danger of suffering the wrath to come,
the fearful guilt resting upon them in the sight of God: to present Christ to
those who have never been shown their need of Him, seems to us to
be guilty of casting pearls before swine.*
*Concerning the rich young ruler of whom it
is said Christ "loved him" (Mark 10:21), we
fully believe that he was one of God's elect, and was "saved"
sometime after his interview with our Lord. Should it be said this is an
arbitrary assumption and assertion which lacks anything in the Gospel record to
substantiate it, we reply, It is written, "Him that cometh to Me I will in
no wise cast out," and this man certainly did "come" to Him.
Compare the case of Nicodemus. He, too, came to Christ, yet there is nothing in
John 3 which intimates he was a saved man when the interview closed;
nevertheless, we know from his later life that he was not
"cast out."
If it be true that God loves every member of
the human family then why did our Lord tell His disciples "He that hath My
commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me: and he that loveth Me
shall be loved of My Father... If a man love Me, he will keep My words: and My
Father will love him" (John 14:21, 23)? Why say "he that
loveth Me shall be loved of My Father" if the Father loves everybody? The
same limitation is found in Proverbs 8:17:
"I love them that love Me." Again; we read, "Thou hatest
all workers of iniquity"-not merely the works of
iniquity. Here then is a flat repudiation of present teaching that, God hates
sin but loves the sinner; Scripture says, "Thou hatest all
workers of iniquity" (Psa. 5:5)!
"God is angry with the wicked every day" (Psa. 7:11).
"He that believeth not on the Son shall not see life,
but the wrath of God abideth on him"-not "shall abide,"
but even now-"abideth on him" (John 3:36). Can
God "love" the one on whom His "wrath" abides? Again; is it
not evident that the words "The love of God which is in Christ
Jesus" (Rom. 8:39)
marks a limitation, both in the sphere and objects of His love? Again; is it
not plain from the words "Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I
hated" (Rom. 9:13) that
God does not love everybody? Again; it is written,
"For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and
scourgeth every son whom He receiveth" (Heb. 12:6).
Does not this verse teach that God's love is restricted to the
members of His own family? If He loves all men without exception then the
distinction and limitation here mentioned is quite meaningless. Finally, we
would ask, Is it conceivable that God will love the damned in the Lake of Fire?
Yet, if He loves them now He will do so then, seeing that His love knows no
change-He is "without variableness or shadow of turning"!
Turning now to John 3:16, it
should be evident from the passages just quoted that this verse will not bear
the construction usually put upon it. "God so loved the
world." Many suppose that this means, The entire human race. But
"the entire human race" includes all mankind from Adam till the close
of earth's history: it reaches backward as well as forward! Consider, then, the
history of mankind before Christ was born. Unnumbered millions
lived and died before the Saviour came to the earth, lived here "having no
hope and without God in the world," and therefore passed out into an
eternity of woe. If God "loved" them, where is the
slightest proof thereof? Scripture declares "Who (God) in times past (from
the tower of Babel till after Pentecost) suffered all nations
to walk in their own ways" (Acts 14:16).
Scripture declares that "And even as they did not like to retain God in
their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do
those things which are not convenient" (Rom. 1:28). To
Israel God said, "You only have I known of all the
families of the earth" (Amos 3:2). In
view of these plain passages who will be so foolish as to insist that God in
the past loved all mankind! The same applies with equal force to the future.
Read through the book of Revelation, noting especially chapters 8 to 19, where
we have described the judgments which will be poured out from Heaven on this
earth. Read of the fearful woes, the frightful plagues, the vials of God's
wrath, which shall be emptied on the wicked. Finally, read the twentieth
chapter of the Revelation, the great white throne judgment, and see if you can
discover there the slightest trace of love.
But the objector comes back to John 3:16 and
says, "World means world." True, but we have shown
that "the world" does not mean the whole human family. The fact is
that "the world" is used in a general way. When the
brethren of Christ said "Show Thyself to the world" (John 7:4), did
they mean "shew Thyself to all mankind"? When the
Pharisees said "Behold, the world is gone after Him"
(John 12:19) did
they mean that "all the human family" were flocking
after Him? When the Apostle wrote "Your faith is spoken of
throughout the whole world" (Rom. 1:8), did
he mean that the faith of the saints at Rome was the subject of conversation by
every man, woman, and child on earth? When Revelation 13:3 informs
us that "all the world wondered after the beast,"
are we to understand that there will be no exceptions? These, and other
passages which might be quoted, show that the term "the world" often
has a relative rather than an absolute force.
Now the first thing to note in connection
with John 3:16 is
that our Lord was there speaking to Nicodemus, a man who believed that God's
mercies were confined to his own nation. Christ there
announced that God's love in giving His Son had a larger object in
view, that it flowed beyond the boundary of Palestine, reaching out to
"regions beyond." In other words, this was Christ's announcement that
God had a purpose of grace toward Gentiles as well as Jews. "God so loved the
world," then, signifies, God's love is international in
its scope. But does this mean that God loves every individual among the
Gentiles? Not necessarily, for as we have seen, the term "world" is
general rather than specific, relative rather than absolute. The term "world"
in itself is not conclusive. To ascertain who are the objects
of God's love other passages where His love is mentioned must
be consulted.
In 2 Peter 2:5 we
read of "the world of the ungodly." If then, there
is a world of the ungodly there must also be a world of
the godly. It is the latter who are in view in the passages we
shall now briefly consider. "For the bread of God is He which cometh down
from Heaven, and giveth life unto the world" (John 6:33). Now
mark it well, Christ did not say, "offereth life unto the
world," but "giveth." What is the difference between the two
terms? This: a thing which is "offered" may be refused, but
a thing "given," necessarily implies its acceptance. If it
is not accepted it is not "given,"
it is simply proffered. Here, then, is a Scripture that positively states
Christ giveth life (spiritual, eternal life) "unto the world."
Now He does not give eternal life to the "world of the
ungodly" for they will not have it, they do not want it. Hence, we
are obliged to understand the reference in John 6:33 as
being to "the world of the godly," i.e., God's own people.
One more: in 2 Corinthians 5:19 we
read "To wit that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto
Himself." What is meant by this is clearly defined in the words
immediately following, "not imputing their trespasses unto
them." Here again "the world" cannot mean
"the world of the ungodly," for their "trespasses are imputed"
to them, as the judgment of the Great White Throne will yet show. But 2 Corinthians
5:19 plainly teaches there is a "world" which are
"reconciled," reconciled unto God because their trespasses
are not reckoned to their account, having been borne by their
Substitute. Who then are they? Only one answer is fairly possible-the world of
God's people!
In like manner, the "world"
in John 3:16 must,
in the final analysis, refer to the world of God's people. Must we
say, for there is no other alternative solution. It cannot
mean the whole human race, for one half of the race was already in hell when
Christ came to earth. It is unfair to insist that it means every human being
now living, for every other passage in the New Testament where God's love is
mentioned limits it to His own people-search and see!
The objects of God's love in John 3:16 are
precisely the same as the objects of Christ's love in John 13:1:
"Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour was
come, that He should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved
His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the
end." We may admit that our interpretation of John 3:16 is
no novel one invented by us, but one almost uniformly given by the Reformers
and Puritans, and many others since then.
Coming now to Chapter Three, The Sovereignty
of God in Salvation, innumerable are the questions which might be raised here.
It is strange, yet it is true, that many who acknowledge the Sovereign rule of
God over material things will cavil and quibble when we insist that God is also
Sovereign in the spiritual realm. But their quarrel is with God and not with
us. We have given Scripture in support of everything advanced in these pages,
and if that will not satisfy our readers it is idle for us to seek to convince
them. What we write now is designed for those who do bow to the authority of
Holy Writ, and for their benefit we propose to examine several other Scriptures
which have purposely been held for this chapter.
Perhaps the one passage which has presented
the greatest difficulty to those who have seen that passage after passage in
Holy Writ plainly teaches the election of a limited number unto salvation
is 2 Peter 3:9:
"not willing that any should perish, but that all should come
to repentance."
The first thing to be said upon the above
passage is that, like all other Scripture, it must be understood and
interpreted in the light of its context. What we have quoted in the preceding
paragraph is only part of the verse, and the last part if it at that! Surely it
must be allowed by all that the first half of the verse needs to be taken into
consideration. In order to establish what these words are supposed by many to
mean, viz., that the words "any" and "all" are to be
received without any qualification, it must be shown that
the context is referring to the whole human race!
If this cannot be shown, if there is no premise to justify
this, then the conclusion also must be unwarranted. Let us then
ponder the first part of the verse.
"The Lord is not slack concerning His
promise." Note "promise" in the singular number, not "promises." What promise
is in view? The promise of salvation? Where, in all Scripture,
has God ever promised to save the whole human race! Where indeed? No, the
"promise" here referred to is not about salvation. What
then is it? The context tells us.
"Knowing this first, that there shall
come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying,
Where is the promise of His coming?" (vv. 3, 4). The context then refers
to God's promise to send back His beloved Son. But many long
centuries have passed and this promise has not yet been fulfilled. True, but
long as the delay may seem to us, the interval is short in the reckoning
of God. As the proof of this we are reminded "But, beloved, be
not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand
years, and a thousand years as one day" (v. 8). In God's reckoning of time
less than two days have yet passed since He promised to send back Christ.
But more, the delay in the Father sending
back His beloved Son is not only due to no "slackness" on His part,
but it is also occasioned by His "longsuffering." His longsuffering
to whom? The verse we are now considering tells us: "but His longsuffering
to us-ward." And whom are the "us-ward"?-the human
race, or God's own people? In the light of the context this is not an
open question upon which each of us is free to form an opinion. The Holy Spirit
has defined it. The opening verse of the chapter says, "This second
Epistle, beloved, I now write unto you." And again, the
verse immediately preceding declares, "But, beloved, be
not ignorant of this one thing etc.," (v. 8). The "us-ward" then
are the "beloved" of God. They to whom this Epistle is addressed are
"them that have obtained (not "exercised," but
"obtained" as God's Sovereign gift) like
precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus
Christ" (2 Peter 1:1).
Therefore we say there is no room for a doubt, a quibble or an argument-the
"us-ward" are the elect of God.
Let us now quote the verse as a whole:
"The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count
slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish,
but that all should come to repentance." Could anything be clearer? The
"any" that God is not willing should perish are the
"us-ward" to whom God is "longsuffering," the
"beloved" of the previous verses. 2 Peter 3:9 means,
then, that God will not send back His Son until "the fullness of the
Gentiles be come in" (Rom. 11:25). God
will not send hack Christ till that "people" whom He is now
"taking out of the Gentiles" (Acts 15:14) are
gathered in. God will not send back His Son till the Body of Christ is
complete, and that will not be till the ones whom He has elected to be saved in
this dispensation shall have been brought to Him. Thank God for His
"longsuffering to us-ward." Had Christ come back twenty years ago the
writer had been left behind to perish in His sins. But that could not
be so God graciously delayed the Second Coming. For the same reason He
is still delaying His Advent. His decreed purpose is that all His
elect will come to repentance, and repent they shall. The
present interval of grace will not end until the last of the "other
sheep" of John 10:16 are
safely folded-then will Christ return.
In expounding the Sovereignty of God
the Spirit in Salvation we have shown that His power is irresistible, that,
by His gracious operations upon and within them He "compels" God's
elect to come to Christ. The Sovereignty of the Holy Spirit is set forth not
only in John 3:8 where
we are told "The wind bloweth where it pleaseth... so is every one that is
born of the Spirit," but is affirmed in other passages as well. In 1 Corinthians 12:11 we
read "But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to
every man severally as He will." And again; we read
in Acts 16:6, 7 "Now when they
had gone throughout Phrygia and the region of Galatia, and were forbidden
of the Holy Spirit to preach the Word in Asia. After they were come to
Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia: but the Spirit suffered them
not." Thus we see how the Holy Spirit interposed His
imperial will in opposition to the determination of the Apostles.
But, it is objected against the assertion
that the will and power of the Holy Spirit are irresistible that
here are two passages, one in the Old Testament and the other in the New, which
appear to militate against such a conclusion. God said of old "My Spirit
shall not always strive with man" (Gen. 6:3), and
to the Jews Stephen declared "Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart
and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Spirit: as your
fathers did, so do ye. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted?"
(Acts 7:51, 52). If then the Jews
"resisted" the Holy Spirit how can we say His power is irresistible? The
answer is found in Nehemiah 9:30 "Many
years didst Thou forbear them, and testifiedest against them by Thy
Spirit in Thy prophets: yet would they not
give ear." It was the external operations of the Spirit which
Israel "resisted." It was the Spirit speaking by and through the
prophets to which they "would not give ear." It was not
anything which the Holy Spirit wrough tin them that they
"resisted" but the motives presented to them by the
inspired messages of the prophets. Perhaps it will help the reader to catch our
thought better if we compare Matthew 11:20-24"Then
began He to upbraid the cities wherein most of His mighty works were
done, because they repented not. Woe unto thee Chorazin," etc. Our Lord
here pronounces woe upon these cities for their failure to repent because of
the "mighty works" (miracles) which He had done in their sight,
and not because of any internal operations of
His grace! The same is true of Genesis 6:3. By
comparing 1 Peter 3:18-20 it
will be seen that it was by and through Noah that God's Spirit
"strove" with the antediluvians. The distinction noted above was ably
summarized by Andrew Fuller (another writer long deceased from whom our moderns
might learn much) thus: "There are two kinds of
influences by which God works on the minds of men. First, That which is common,
and which is effected by the ordinary use of motives presented to the mind for
consideration: Secondly, That which is special and supernatural. The one
contains nothing mysterious, anymore than the influence of our words and
actions on each other; the other is such a mystery that we know nothing of it
but by its effects-The former ought to be effectual; the
latter is so." The work of the Holy Spirit upon or
towards men is always "resisted" by them; His work within is
always successful. What saith the Scriptures? This: "He which hath begun a
good work IN you," will finish it (Phil. 1:6).
The next question to be considered is: Why
preach the Gospel to every creature? If God the Father has predestined
only a limited number to be saved, if God the Son died to effect the salvation
of only those given to Him by the Father, and if God the Spirit is seeking to
quicken none save God's elect, then what is the use of giving the Gospel to the
world at large, and where is the propriety of telling sinners that "Whosoever believeth
in Christ shall not perish but have everlasting life"?
First; it is of great importance that we
should be clear upon the nature of the Gospel itself. The
Gospel is God's good news concerning Christ and not concerning sinners:
"Paul a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an Apostle, separated unto
the Gospel of God... concerning His Son, Jesus Christ our
Lord" (Rom. 1:1, 3).
God would have proclaimed far and wide the
amazing fact that His own blessed Son "became obedient unto death, even
the death of the cross" (Phil. 2:8). A
universal testimony must be borne to the matchless worth of the Person and work
of Christ. Note the word witness in Matthew 24:14. The
Gospel is God's "witness" unto the perfections of His Son. Mark the
words of the Apostle: "For we are unto God a sweet savor of
Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish" (2 Cor. 2:15)!
Concerning the character and contents of the
Gospel the utmost confusion prevails today. The Gospel is not an
"offer" to be bandied around by evangelical peddlers. The Gospel is
no mere invitation but a proclamation, a
proclamation concerning Christ; true whether men believe it or
not. No man is asked to believe that Christ died for him in particular. The
Gospel, in brief, is this: Christ died for sinners, you are a sinner,
believe in Christ, and you shall be saved. In the Gospel God
simply announces the terms upon which men may be saved (namely, repentance and
faith) and, indiscriminately, all are commanded to fulfill them.
Second, repentance and remission of sins are
to be preached in the name of the Lord Jesus "among all the nations"
(Luke 24:47),
because God's elect are "scattered abroad" (John 11:52) among all
nations, and it is by the preaching and hearing of the Gospel that they are
called out of the world. The Gospel is the means which God uses in the saving
of His own chosen ones. By nature God's elect are children of wrath "even
as others"; they are lost sinners needing a Saviour, and apart from Christ
there is no salvation for them. Hence, the Gospel must be believed by them before
they can rejoice in the knowledge of sins forgiven. The Gospel is God's
winnowing fan: it separates the chaff from the wheat, and gathers the latter
into His garner.
Third; it is to be noted that God has other
purposes in the preaching of the Gospel than the salvation of His own elect.
The world exists for the elect's sake yet others have the benefit of it. So the
Word is preached for the elect's sake yet others have the benefit of an
external call. The sun shines though blind men see it not. The rain falls upon
rocky mountains and waste deserts as well as on the fruitful valleys; so also,
God suffers the Gospel to fall on the ears of the non-elect. The power of the
Gospel is one of God's agencies for holding in check the wickedness of the
world. Many who are never saved by it are reformed, their
lusts are bridled, and they are restrained from becoming worse. Moreover, the
preaching of the Gospel to the non-elect is made an admirable test of
their characters. It exhibits the inveteracy of their sin: it demonstrates that
their hearts are at enmity against God: it justifies the
declaration of Christ that "men loved darkness rather than light, because
their deeds were evil" (John 3:19).
Finally; it is sufficient for us to know that
we are bidden to preach the Gospel to every creature. It is
not for us to reason about the consistency between this and
the fact that "few are chosen." It is for us to obey. It is a simple
matter to ask questions relating to the ways of God which no finite mind can fully
fathom. We, too, might turn and remind the objector that our Lord declared
"Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men,
and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme. But he that shall
blaspheme against the Holy Spirit hath never forgiveness" (Mark 3:28, 29), and there can be no
doubt whatever but that certain of the Jews were guilty of
this very sin (see Matt. 12:24,
etc.) and hence their destruction was inevitable. Yet, notwithstanding,
scarcely two months later, He commanded His disciples to preach the Gospel
to every creature. When the objector can show us the
consistency of these two things-the fact that certain of the Jews had committed
the sin for which there is never forgiveness, and the fact that to them the
Gospel was to be preached-we will undertake to furnish a more satisfactory
solution than the one given above to the harmony between an universal proclamation
of the Gospel and a limitation of its saving power to those
only that God has predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son.
Once more, we say, it is not for us to reason
about the Gospel; it is our business to preach it.
When God ordered Abraham to offer up his son as a burnt-offering he might have
objected that this command was inconsistent with His promise
"In Isaac shall thy seed be called." But instead of
arguing he obeyed, and left God to harmonize His promise and His precept.
Jeremiah might have argued that God had bade him to do that which was
altogether unreasonable when He said "Therefore thou shalt speak all these
words unto them; but they will not hearken to thee; thou
shalt also call unto them; but they will not answer thee" (Jer. 7:27), but
instead, the prophet obeyed. Ezekiel, too, might have complained that the Lord
was asking of him a hard thing when He said "Son of man, go, get thee unto
the house of Israel, and speak with My words unto them. For thou art not sent
to a people of a strange speech and of an hard language, but to the house of
Israel; Not to many people of a strange speech and of a hard language, whose
words thou canst not understand. Surely, had I sent thee to them, they would
have hearkened unto thee. But the house of Israel will not hearken unto
thee; for they will not hearken unto Me; for all the house of
Israel are impudent and hard hearted" (Ezek. 3:4-7).
"But,
O my soul, if truth so bright
Should
dazzle and confound thy sight,
Yet still His written Word obey,
And wait the great decisive day."-Watts.
Yet still His written Word obey,
And wait the great decisive day."-Watts.
It has been well said, "The Gospel has
lost none of its ancient power. It is, as much today as when it was first
preached, 'the power of God unto salvation.' It needs no pity, no help, and no
handmaid. It can overcome all obstacles, and break down all barriers. No human
device need be tried to prepare the sinner to receive it, for if God has sent
it no power can hinder it; and if He has not sent it, no power can make it
effectual" (Dr. Bullinger).
This chapter might be extended indefinitely,
but it is already too long so a word or two more must suffice. A number of
other questions will be dealt with in the pages yet to follow, and those that
we fail to touch upon the reader must take to the Lord Himself who has said
"If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that
giveth to all liberally, and upbraideth not" (James 1:5).
CHAPTER
TWELVE
THE
VALUE OF THIS DOCTRINE
"All
Scripture is given by inspiration of God,
And is profitable for doctrine, For reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, Thoroughly furnished unto all good works" (2 Tim. 3:16, 17).
And is profitable for doctrine, For reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, Thoroughly furnished unto all good works" (2 Tim. 3:16, 17).
"All Scripture is given by inspiration
of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for
correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be
perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works" (2 Tim. 3:16, 17). "Doctrine" means
"teaching," and it is by doctrine or teaching that the great
realities of God and of our relation to Him-of Christ, the Spirit, salvation,
grace, glory-are made known to us. It is by doctrine (through the power of the
Spirit) that believers are nourished and edified, and where doctrine is
neglected growth in grace and effective witnessing for Christ necessarily
cease. How sad then that doctrine is now decried as "unpractical"
when, in fact, doctrine is the very base of the practical life. There is an inseparable
connection between belief and practice: "As he thinketh in his
heart, so is he" (Prov. 23:7). The
relation between Divine truth and Christian character is that of cause to
effect: "And ye shall know the truth, and the
truth shall make you free" (John 8:32)-free
from ignorance, free from prejudice, free from error, free from the wiles of
Satan, free from the power of evil; and if the truth is not "known"
then such freedom will not be enjoyed. Observe the order of
mention in the passage with which we have opened. All Scripture is profitable
first for "doctrine"! The same order is observed throughout the Epistles,
particularly in the great doctrinal treatises of the Apostle Paul. Read the
Epistle of "Romans" and it will be found that there is not a single
admonition in the first five chapters. In the Epistle of "Ephesians"
there are no exhortations till the fourth chapter is reached. The order is
first doctrinal exposition and then admonition or exhortation for the
regulation of the daily walk.
The substitution of so-called
"practical" preaching for the doctrinal exposition which it has
supplanted is the root cause of many of the evil maladies which now afflict the
Church of God. The reason why there is so little depth, so little intelligence,
so little grasp of the fundamental verities of Christianity is because so few
believers have been established in the faith through hearing expounded and
through their own personal study of the doctrines of grace. While their soul is
unestablished in the doctrine of the Divine Inspiration of the Scripture, their
full and verbal inspiration, there can be no firm foundation for faith to rest
upon. While the soul is ignorant of the doctrine of Justification there can be
no real and intelligent assurance of its acceptance in the Beloved. While the
soul is unacquainted with the teaching of the Word upon Sanctification it is open
to receive all the crudities and errors of the Perfectionists or
"Holiness" people. While the soul knows not what Scripture has to say
upon the doctrine of the New Birth there can be no proper grasp of the two
natures in the believer, and ignorance here inevitably results in the loss of
peace and joy. And so we might go on right through the list of Christian
doctrine. It is ignorance of doctrine that has rendered the
professing church helpless to cope with the rising tide of infidelity. It
is ignorance of doctrine which is mainly responsible for
thousands of professing Christians being captivated by the numerous false isms
of the day. It is because the time has now arrived when the bulk of our
churches "will not endure sound doctrine" (2 Tim. 4:3) that
they so readily receive false doctrines. Of course it is true
that doctrine, like anything else in Scripture, may be studied from a merely
cold intellectual viewpoint, and thus approached, doctrinal
teaching and doctrinal study will leave the heart untouched,
and will naturally be "dry" and profitless. But, doctrine properly
received, doctrine studied with an exercised heart, will ever
lead into a deeper knowledge of God and of the unsearchable riches of Christ.
The doctrine of God's Sovereignty then is no
mere metaphysical dogma which is devoid of practical value, but is one that is
calculated to produce a powerful effect upon Christian character and the daily
walk. The doctrine of God's Sovereignty lies at the foundation of Christian
theology, and in importance is perhaps second only to the Divine Inspiration of
the Scriptures. It is the center of gravity in the system of Christian truth:
the sun around which all the lesser orbs are grouped. It is the golden
milestone to which every highway of knowledge leads and from which they all
radiate. It is the cord upon which all other doctrines are strung like so many
pearls, holding them in place and giving them unity. It is the plumbline by which
every creed needs to be measured, the balance in which every human dogma must
be weighed. It is designed as the sheet-anchor for our souls amid the storms of
life. The doctrine of God's Sovereignty is a Divine cordial to refresh our
spirits. It is designed and adapted to mold the affections of the heart and to
give a right direction to conduct. It produces gratitude in prosperity and
patience in adversity. It affords comfort for the present and a sense of
security respecting the unknown future. It is, and it does all, and much more
than we have just said because it ascribes to God, Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit, the glory which is His due, and places the creature in his proper place
before Him-in the dust.
We shall now consider the Value of the
doctrine in detail.
1. IT DEEPENS OUR VENERATION OF THE DIVINE
CHARACTER.
The doctrine of God's Sovereignty as it is
unfolded in the Scriptures affords an exalted view of the Divine perfections.
It maintains His creatorial rights. It insists that "to
us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and
we in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and
we by Him" (1 Cor. 8:6). It
declares that His rights are those of the "potter" who forms and
fashions the clay into vessels of whatever type and for whatever use He may
please. Its testimony is "Thou hast created all things, and for
Thy pleasure they are and were created" (Rev. 4:11). It
argues that none has any right to "reply" against God, and that the
only becoming attitude for the creature to take is one of reverent submission
before Him. Thus the apprehension of the absolute supremacy of God is of great
practical importance, for unless we have a proper regard to His high
Sovereignty He will never be honored in our thoughts of Him, nor will He have
His proper place in our hearts and lives.
It exhibits the inscrutableness of
His wisdom. It shows that while God is immaculate in His holiness He
has permitted evil to enter His fair creation; that while He is the
Possessor of all power He has allowed the Devil to wage war against
Him for six thousand years at least; that while He is the perfect embodiment
of love He spared not His own Son; that while He is the God
of all grace multitudes will be tormented for ever and ever in
the Lake of Fire. High mysteries are these. Scripture does not deny them, but
acknowledges their existence: "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!" (Rom. 11:33).
It makes known the irreversibleness
of His will. "Known unto God are all His works from the beginning
of the world" (Acts 15:18).
From the beginning God purposed to glorify Himself "in the Church by
Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end" (Eph. 3:21). To
this end He created the world and formed man. His all-wise plan was not
defeated when man fell, for in the Lamb "slain from the foundation of the world"
(Rev. 13:8) we
behold the Fall anticipated. Nor will God's purpose be thwarted by the
wickedness of men since the Fall, as is clear from the words of the
Psalmist "Surely the wrath of man shall praise Thee: the
remainder of wrath shalt Thou restrain" (Psa. 76:10).
Because God is the Almighty His will cannot be withstood. "His purposes
originated in eternity, and are carried forward without change to eternity.
They extend to all His works, and control all events. He 'worketh all things
after the counsel of His own will'" (Dr. Rice). Neither man nor Devil can
successfully resist Him, therefore is it written, "The Lord
reigneth; let the people tremble" (Psa. 99:1).
It magnifies His grace. Grace
is unmerited favor, and because grace is shown to the undeserving and
Hell-deserving, to those who have no claim upon God, therefore
is grace free and can be manifested toward the chief of
sinners. But because grace is exercised toward those who are destitute of
worthiness or merit grace is Sovereign; that is to say, God bestows grace upon
whom He pleases. Divine Sovereignty has ordained that some shall
be cast into the Lake of Fire to show that all deserved such a
doom. But grace comes in like a dragnet and draws out from a lost humanity a
people for God's name, to be throughout all eternity the monuments of His
inscrutable favor. Sovereign grace reveals God breaking down the opposition of
the human heart, subduing the enmity of the carnal mind, and bringing us to
love Him because He first loved us.
2. IT IS THE SOLID FOUNDATION OF ALL TRUE
RELIGION.
This naturally follows from what we have said
above under the first head. If the doctrine of Divine Sovereignty alone gives
God His rightful place, then it is also true that it alone can supply a firm
base for practical religion to build upon. There can be no progress in Divine
things until there is the personal recognition that God is Supreme, that He is
to be feared and revered and He is to be owned and served as
Lord. We read the Scriptures in vain unless we come to them earnestly
desiring a better knowledge of God's will for us: any other motive is selfish
and utterly inadequate and unworthy. Every prayer we send up to God is but
carnal presumption unless it be offered "according to His will":
anything short of this is to ask 'amiss' that we might consume upon our own lusts
the thing requested! Every service we engage in is but a "dead work"
unless it be done for the glory of God. Experimental religion consists mainly
in the perception and performance of the Divine will, performance both active
and passive. We are predestinated to be "conformed to the image of God's
Son" whose meat it ever was to do the will of the One that sent Him, and
the measure in which each saint is becoming "conformed" practically,
in his daily life, is largely determined by his response to our Lord's word
"Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am
meek and lowly in heart."
3. IT REPUDIATES THE HERESY OF SALVATION BY
WORKS.
"There is a way which seemeth right unto
a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death" (Prov. 14:12). The
way which "seemeth right" and which ends in "death," death
eternal, is salvation by human effort and merit. The belief in salvation by
works is one that is common to human nature. It may not always assume the
grosser form of Popish penances, or even of Protestant "repentance,"
i.e., sorrowing for sin, which is never the meaning of repentance in Scripture;
anything which gives man a place at all is but a variety of the same evil
genus. To say, as alas! many preachers, are saying, God is willing to do His
part if you will do yours, is a wretched and excuseless denial of
the Gospel of His grace. To declare that God helps those who help themselves is
to repudiate one of the most precious truths taught in the
Bible, and in the Bible alone; namely, that God helps those who are unable to
help themselves, who have tried again and again only to fail. To say that the
sinner's salvation turns upon the action of his own will is
another form of the God-dishonoring dogma of salvation by human efforts. In the
final analysis, any movement of the will is a work: it is something from
me, something which I do. But the doctrine of God's
Sovereignty lays the axe at the root of this evil by declaring "It
is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that
sheweth mercy" (Rom. 9:16).
Does some one say, Such a doctrine will drive sinners to despair. The
reply is, Be it so; it is just such despair the writer longs to see prevail. It
is not until the sinner despairs of any help from himself that he will ever
fall into the arms of Sovereign mercy; but if once the Holy Spirit convicts him
that there is no help in himself then he will recognize that
he is lost, and will cry, "God be merciful to me a
sinner," and such a cry will be heard. If the author may
be allowed to bear personal witness, he has found during the course of his
ministry that the sermons he has preached on human depravity, the sinner's
helplessness to do anything himself, and the salvation of the
soul turning upon the Sovereign mercy of God, have been those most owned and
blessed in the salvation of the lost. We repeat, then, a sense of utter helplessness is
the first prerequisite to any sound conversion. There is no salvation for any
soul until it looks away from itself, looks to something, yea, to
Someone, outside of itself.
4. IT IS DEEPLY HUMBLING TO THE CREATURE.
This doctrine of the absolute Sovereignty of
God is a great battering-ram against human pride, and in this it is in sharp
contrast from the "doctrines of men." The spirit of our age is
essentially that of boasting and glorying in the flesh. The achievements of
man, his development and progress, his greatness and self-sufficiency, are the
shrine at which the world worships today. But the truth of God's Sovereignty,
with all its corollaries, removes every ground for human boasting and instills
the spirit of humility in its stead. It declares that salvation is of the
Lord-of the Lord in its origination, in its operation, and in its consummation.
It insists that the Lord has to apply as well as supply, that He has to
complete as well as begin His saving work in our souls, that He has not only to
reclaim but to maintain and sustain us to the end. It teaches that salvation is
by grace through faith, and that all our works (before
conversion), good as well as evil, count for nothing toward salvation. It tells
us we are "born, not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but
of God" (John 1:13). And
all this is most humbling to the heart of man who wants to contribute something
to the price of his redemption and do that which will afford ground for
boasting and self-satisfaction.
But if this doctrine humbles us it results in
praise to God. If, in the light of God's Sovereignty, we have
seen our own worthlessness and helplessness we shall indeed cry with the
Psalmist "All my springs are in Thee" (Psa. 87:7). If
by nature we were "children of wrath," and by practice rebels against
the Divine government and justly exposed to the "curse" of the Law,
and if God was under no obligation to rescue us from the fiery
indignation and yet, notwithstanding, He delivered up His well-beloved Son
for us all; then how such grace and love will melt our hearts,
how the apprehension of it will cause us to say in adoring gratitude "Not
unto us, O LORD, not unto us, but unto Thy name give
glory, for Thy mercy, and for Thy truth's sake" (Psa. 115:1). How
readily shall each of us acknowledge "By the grace of God I
am what I am! With what wondering praise shall we exclaim-
"Why
was I made to hear His voice,
And
enter while there's room,
When thousands make a wretched choice,
And rather starve than come?
'Twas the same love that spread the feast,
That sweetly forced us in;
Else we had still refused to taste
And perished in our sin."
When thousands make a wretched choice,
And rather starve than come?
'Twas the same love that spread the feast,
That sweetly forced us in;
Else we had still refused to taste
And perished in our sin."
5. IT AFFORDS A SENSE OF ABSOLUTE SECURITY.
God is infinite in power and therefore it is
impossible to withstand His will or resist the outworking of His decrees. Such
a statement as that is well calculated to fill the sinner with alarm, but from
the saint it evokes naught but praise. Let us add a word and see what a
difference it makes: My God is infinite in power! then "I
will not fear what man can do unto me." My God is infinite in power, then
"what time I am afraid I will trust in Him." My God is infinite
in power, then I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: "for
Thou, LORD, only makest me dwell in safety" (Psa. 4:8).
Right down the ages this has been the source of the saints' confidence. Was not
this the assurance of Moses when, in his parting words to Israel, he said
"There is none like unto the God of Jeshurun (Israel), who rideth upon the
Heaven in Thy help, and in His excellency on the sky. The eternal God is thy
refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms" (Deut. 33:26, 27)? Was it not this sense of
security that caused the Psalmist, moved by the Holy Spirit to write "He
that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow
of the Almighty. I will say to the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress, my
God: in Him will I trust. Surely He shall deliver thee
from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover
thee with His feathers, and under His wings shalt thou trust: His truth shall
be thy shield and buckler: Thou shalt not be afraid for the
terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; Nor for the pestilence
that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. A
thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right band, but
it shall not come nigh thee. Because thou hast made the Lord, which is
my refuge, even the Most High thy Habitation; There
shall no evil befall thee (instead, all things will work together for good), neither
shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling" (Psa. 91:1-7, 9-10)?
"Death
and plagues around me fly,
Till
He bid, I cannot die;
Not a single shaft can hit,
Till the God of love sees fit."
Not a single shaft can hit,
Till the God of love sees fit."
Oh the preciousness of this truth! Here am I, a poor, helpless, senseless "sheep," yet am I secure in the hand of Christ. And why am I secure there? None can pluck me thence because the hand that holds me is that of the Son of God, and all power in Heaven and earth is His! Again; I have no strength of my own: the world, the flesh, and the Devil, are arrayed against me so I commit myself into the care and keeping of the Lord and say with the Apostle "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). And what is the ground of my confidence? How do I know that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him? I know it because God is almighty, the King of kings and Lord of lords.
6. IT SUPPLIES COMFORT IN SORROW.
The doctrine of God's Sovereignty is one that
is full of consolation and imparts great peace to the Christian. The
Sovereignty of God is a foundation that nothing can shake and is more firm than
the heavens and earth. How blessed to know there is no corner of the universe
that is out of His reach! as said the Psalmist, "Whither shall I go from
Thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from Thy presence? If I ascend
up into Heaven, Thou art there: if I make my bed in
hell, behold, Thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning,
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall Thy hand
lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold me. If I say surely the
darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about
me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from Thee; but the night shineth as the day:
the darkness and the light are both alike to Thee" (Psa. 139:7-12). How
blessed it is to know that God's strong hand is upon every one and every thing!
How blessed to know that not a sparrow falleth to the ground without His
notice!
How blessed to know that our very afflictions come
not by chance, nor from the Devil, but are ordained and ordered by God: "That
no man should be moved by these afflictions: for yourselves know that
we are appointed thereunto" (1 Thess. 3:3)!
But our God is not only infinite in power. He
is infinite in wisdom and goodness too. And herein is the preciousness of this
truth. God wills only that which is good and His will is irreversible and
irresistible! God is too wise to err and too loving to cause His child a
needless tear. Therefore if God be perfect wisdom and perfect goodness how
blessed is the assurance that everything is in His hand
and molded by His will according to His eternal purpose! "Behold,
He taketh away, who can hinder Him? who will say unto Him what doest
Thou?" (Job 9:12).
Yet, how comforting to learn that it is "He," and not the
Devil, who "taketh away" our loved ones! Ah! what peace for our poor
frail hearts to be told that the number of our days is with Him (Job 7:1; 14:5); that disease and death
are His messengers and always march under His orders; that it is
the Lord who gives and the Lord who takes away!
7. IT BEGETS A SPIRIT OF SWEET RESIGNATION.
To bow before the Sovereign will of God is
one of the great secrets of peace and happiness. There can be no real
submission with contentment until we are broken in spirit, that is, until we
are willing and glad for the Lord to have His way with
us. Not that we are insisting upon a spirit of fatalistic acquiescence: far
from it. The saints are exhorted to "prove what is that good, and acceptable, andperfect
will of God" (Rom. 12:2).
We touched upon this subject of resignation
to God's will in the chapter upon our Attitude toward God's Sovereignty, and
there, in addition to the supreme Pattern, we cited the examples of Eli and
Job: we would now supplement their cases with further examples. What a word is
that in Leviticus 10:3 "And Aaron held his peace." Look at the
circumstances: "And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of
them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered
strange fire before the Lord, which He commanded them not. And there went out
fire from the Lord, and devoured them, and they died before the Lord... And
Aaron held his peace." Two of the high priests' sons were slain,
slain by a visitation of Divine judgment, and they were
probably intoxicated at the time; moreover, this trial came
upon Aaron suddenly, without anything to prepare him
for it; yet he "held his peace." Precious exemplification of the
power of God's all-sufficient grace!
Consider now an utterance which fell from the
lips of David: "And the king said unto Zadok, Carry back the ark of God
into the city: if I shall find favor in the eyes of the Lord, He will bring me
again, and shew me both it, and His habitation. But if He thus say, I have no
delight in thee; behold, here am I, let Him do to me as seemeth good
unto Him" (2 Sam. 15:25, 26). Here, to, the
circumstances which confronted the speaker were exceedingly trying to the human
heart. David was sore pressed with sorrow. His own son was driving him from the
throne and seeking his very life. Whether he would ever see Jerusalem and the
Tabernacle again he knew not. But he was so yielded up to God, he was so fully
assured that His will was best, that even though it meant the
loss of the throne and the loss of his life he was content for Him to have His
way-"let Him do to me as seemeth Him good."
There is no need to multiply examples, but a
reflection upon the last case will be in place. If amid the shadows of the Old
Testament dispensation David was content for the Lord to have His way,
now that the heart of God has been fully revealed at the Cross
how much more ought we to delight in the execution of His
will! Surely we shall have no hesitation in saying-
"Ill that He blesses
is our good,
And unblest
good is ill,
And all is right that seems most wrong,
If it be His sweet will."
And all is right that seems most wrong,
If it be His sweet will."
8. IT EVOKES A SONG OF PRAISE.
It could not be otherwise. Why should I, who
am by nature no different from the careless and godless throngs all around,
have been chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world and now blest
with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Him! Why was
I, that once was an alien and a rebel, singled out for such wondrous favors!
Ah! that is something I cannot fathom. Such grace, such love, "passeth
knowledge." But if my mind is unable to discern a reason my heart can
express its gratitude in praise and adoration. But not only should I be
grateful to God for His grace toward me in the past, His present dealings will
fill me with thanksgiving. What is the force of that word "Rejoice in
the Lord alway" (Phil. 4:4)?
Mark it is not "Rejoice in the Saviour," but we are
to "Rejoice in the Lord" as "Lord," as the
Master of every circumstance. Need we remind the reader that when
the Apostle penned these words he was himself a prisoner in the hands of the
Roman government. A long course of affliction and suffering lay behind him.
Perils on land and perils on sea, hunger and thirst, scourging and stoning, had
all been experienced. He had been persecuted by those within the church as well
as by those without: the very ones who ought to have stood by him had forsaken
him. And still he writes, "Rejoice in the Lord alway"! What
was the secret of his peace and happiness? Ah! had not this same Apostle
written "And we know that all things work together for good to
them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose" (Rom. 8:28)? But
how did he, and how do we, "know" that all things
work together for good? The answer is, Because all
things are under the control of and are being regulated by the Supreme
Sovereign, and because He has naught but thoughts of love
toward His own, then "all things" are so ordered by Him that they
are made to minister to our ultimate good. It is for this
cause we are to give "thanks always for all
things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Eph. 5:20).
Yes, give thanks for "all things" for, as it has been well said
"Our disappointments are but His appointments." To
the one who delights in the Sovereignty of God the clouds not only have a
'silver lining' but they are silver all through, the darkness
only serving to offset the light-
"Ye
fearful saints fresh courage take
The
clouds ye so much dread,
Are big with mercy and shall break
In blessings o'er your head."
Are big with mercy and shall break
In blessings o'er your head."
9. IT GUARANTEES THE FINAL TRIUMPH OF GOOD OVER EVIL.
Ever since the day that Cain slew Abel, the
conflict on earth between good and evil has been a sore problem to the saints.
In every age the righteous have appeared to defy God with impunity. The Lord's people,
for the most part, have been poor in this world's good whereas the wicked in
their temporal prosperity have flourished like the green bay tree. As one looks
around and beholds the oppression of believers and the earthly success of
unbelievers, and notes how few are the former and how numerous the latter; as
he sees the apparent defeat of the right and the triumphing of might and the
wrong; as he hears the roar of battle, the cries of the wounded, and the
lamentations of the bereaved; as he discovers that almost everything down here
is in confusion, chaos, and ruins, it seems as though Satan were getting the
better of the conflict. But as one looks above, instead of
around, there is plainly visible to the eye of faith a Throne, a Throne
unaffected by the storms of earth, a Throne that is "set," stable and
secure; and upon it is seated One whose name is the Almighty, and who
"worketh all things after the counsel of His own will" (Eph. 1:11).
This then is our confidence-God is on the Throne. The helm is
in His hand, and being Almighty His purpose cannot fail for
"He is in one mind, and who can turn Him? and what His
soul desireth, even that He doeth" (Job. 23:13).
Though God's governing hand is invisible to the eye of sense it is real to
faith, that faith which rests with sure confidence upon His Word, and therefore
is assured He cannot fail. What follows below is from the pen of
our brother, Mr. A. C. Gaebelein.
"There can be no failure with God. 'God
is not a man, that He should lie; neither the Son of man, that He should
repent: hath He said and shall He not do it? or hath He spoken, and shall He
not make it good?" (Num. 23:19). All
will be accomplished. The promise made to His own beloved people to come for
them and take them from hence to glory will not fail. He will surely come and
gather them in His own presence. The solemn words spoken to the nations of the
earth by the different prophets will also not fail. 'Come near, ye nations, to
hear; and hearken, ye people: let the earth hear, and all that is therein; the
world, and all things that come forth of it. For the indignation of the LORD is
upon all nations, and His fury upon all their armies: He hath utterly destroyed
them, He hath delivered them to the slaughter' (Isa. 34:1, 2). Nor will that day fail
in which 'the lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men
shall be bowed down, and the LORD alone shall be exalted' (Isa. 2:11). The
day in which He is manifested, when His glory shall cover the heavens and His
feet will stand again upon this earth, will surely come. His kingdom will not
fail, nor all the promised events connected with the end of the age and the
consummation.
"In these dark and trying times how well
it is to remember that He is on the throne, the throne which cannot be shaken,
and that He will not fail in doing all He has spoken and promised. 'Seek ye out
of the book of the LORD, and read: No one of these shall fail' (Isa. 34:16). In
believing, blessed anticipation, we can look on to the glory-time when His Word
and His Will is accomplished, when through the coming of the Prince of Peace,
righteousness and peace comes at last. And while we wait for the supreme and
blessed moment when His promise to us is accomplished, we trust Him, walking in
His fellowship and daily find afresh, that He does not fail to sustain and keep
us in all our ways."
10. IT PROVIDES A RESTING-PLACE FOR THE
HEART.
Much that might have been said here has
already been anticipated under previous heads. The One seated upon the Throne
of Heaven, the One who is Governor over the nations and who has ordained and
now regulates all events, is infinite not only in power but in wisdom and
goodness as well. He who is Lord over all creation is the One that was
"manifest in the flesh" (1 Tim. 3:16). Ah!
here is a theme no human pen can do justice to. The glory of God consists not
merely in that He is Highest, but in that being high He stooped in lowly love
to bear the burden of His own sinful creatures, for it is written "God was
in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself" (2 Cor. 5:19). The
Church of God was purchased "with His own
Blood" (Acts 20:28). It
is upon the gracious self-humiliation of the King Himself that His kingdom is
established. O wondrous Cross! By it He who suffered upon it has become not the
Lord of our destinies (He was that before), but the Lord of our hearts.
Therefore, it is not in abject terror that we bow before the Supreme Sovereign,
but in adoring worship we cry "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to
receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and
blessing" (Rev. 5:12).
Here then is the refutation of the wicked
charge that this doctrine is a horrible calumny upon God and
dangerous to expound to His people. Can a doctrine be "horrible" and
"dangerous" that gives God His true place, that maintains His rights,
that magnifies His grace, that ascribes all glory to Him and
removes every ground of boasting from the creature? Can a doctrine be
"horrible" and "dangerous" which affords the saints a sense
of security in danger, that supplies them comfort in sorrow, that begets
patience within them in adversity, that evokes from them praise at all times?
Can a doctrine be "horrible" and "dangerous" which assures
us of the certain triumph of good over evil, and which provides a sure
resting-place for our hearts, and that place, the perfections of the Sovereign
Himself? No; a thousand times, no! Instead of being "horrible and
dangerous" this doctrine of the Sovereignty of God is glorious
and edifying, and a due apprehension of it will but serve to make us exclaim
with Moses, "Who is like unto thee, O LORD, among the gods? who
is like Thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?" (Exo. 15:11).
CONCLUSION
In our Foreword to the Second Edition we
acknowledge the need for preserving the balance of Truth. Two
things are beyond dispute: God is Sovereign, man is responsible. In this book
we have sought to expound the former; in our other works we have frequently
pressed the latter. That there is real danger of over-emphasizing the one and
ignoring the other, we readily admit; yea, history furnishes numerous examples
of cases of each. To emphasize the Sovereignty of God without also maintaining
the accountability of the creature tends to fatalism; to be so concerned in
maintaining the responsibility of man as to lose sight of the Sovereignty of
God is to exalt the creature and dishonor the Creator.
Almost all doctrinal error is really, Truth
perverted, Truth wrongfully divided, Truth disproportionately held
and taught. The fairest face on earth, with the most comely features, would
soon become ugly and unsightly if one member continued growing while the others
remained undeveloped. Beauty is, primarily, a matter of proportion. Thus it is
with the Word of God: its beauty and blessedness are best perceived when its
manifold wisdom is exhibited in its true proportions. Here is where so many
have failed in the past. A single phase of God's Truth has so impressed this
man or that he has concentrated his attention upon it, almost to the exclusion
of everything else. Some portion of God's Word has been made a "pet
doctrine," and often this has become the distinctive badge of some party.
But it is the duty of each servant of God to "declare all the
counsel of God" (Acts 20:27).
It is true that the degenerate days in which
our lot is cast, when on every side man is exalted and "superman" has
become a common expression, there is real need for a special emphasis
upon the glorious fact of God's supremacy. The more so where this is expressly
denied. Yet even here much wisdom is required lest our zeal should not be
"according to knowledge." The words "meat in due season"
should ever be before the servant of God. What is needed, primarily, by one
congregation may not be specifically needed by another. If called to labor
where Arminian preachers have preceded, then the neglected truth of God's
Sovereignty should be expounded, though with caution and care lest too much
"strong meat" be given to "babes." The example of Christ
in John 16:12 "I
have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now," must
be borne in mind. On the other hand, if I am called to take charge of a
distinctly Calvinistic pulpit, then the truth of human responsibility (in its
many aspects) may be profitably set forth. What the preacher needs to give out
is not what his people most like to hear, but what they
most need, i.e., those aspects of truth they are least
familiar with, or least exhibiting in their walk.
To carry into actual practice what we have
inculcated above will, most probably, lay the preacher open to the charge of
being a Turncoat. But what matters that if he has his Master's approval? He is
not called upon to be "consistent" with himself nor with any rules
drawn up by man; his business is to be consistent with Holy Writ. And
in Scripture each part or aspect of Truth is balanced by another aspect of
Truth. There are two sides to everything, even to the character of God for He
is "light" (1 John 1:5) as
well as "love" (1 John 4:8), and
therefore are we called upon to "Behold therefore the goodness and severity
of God" (Rom. 11:22). To
be all the time preaching on the one to the exclusion of the other caricatures
the Divine character.
When the Son of God became incarnate He came
here in "the form of a servant" (Phil. 2:7);
nevertheless, in the manger He was "Christ the Lord" (Luke 2:11)! All
things are possible with God (Matt. 19:26) yet
God "cannot lie" (Titus 1:2).
Scripture says "Bear ye one another's burdens" (Gal. 6:2), yet
the same chapter insists "every man shall bear his own burden" (Gal. 6:5). We
are enjoined to take "no thought for the morrow" (Matt. 6:34), yet
"if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house,
he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel" (1 Tim. 5:8). No
sheep of Christ's can perish (John 10:28, 29), yet the Christian is
bidden to make his "calling and election sure" (2 Peter 1:10). And
so we might go on multiplying illustrations. These things are not
contradictions but complementaries: the one "balances the other."
Thus, the Scriptures set forth both the Sovereignty of God and
the responsibility of man. So, too, should every servant of God, and that, in
their proper proportion.
But we return now to a few closing
reflections upon our present theme, "And Jehoshaphat stood in the
congregation of Judah and Jerusalem, in the house of the LORD, before the new
court, and said, ) LORD God of our fathers, art not Thou God in Heaven? and
rulest not Thou over all the kingdoms of the heathen? and in Thine hand is
there not power and might, so that none is able to withstand Thee?" (2 Chron. 20:5, 6). Yes, the Lord is God,
ruling in supreme majesty and might. Yet in our day, a day of boasted
enlightenment and progress, this is denied on every hand. A materialistic
science and atheistic philosophy have bowed God out of His own world, and
everything is regulated, forsooth, by (impersonal) laws of Nature. So in human
affairs: at best God is a far-distant spectator, and a helpless one at
that. God could not help the launching of the dreadful war, and though He
longed to put a stop to it He was unable to do so-and this in the face of 1 Chronicles 5:22; 2 Chronicles 24:24!
Having endowed man with "free agency" God is obliged to let man make
his own choice and go his own way, and He cannot interfere with him, or
otherwise his moral responsibility would be destroyed! Such are the popular
beliefs of the day. One is not surprised to find these sentiments emanating
from German theologians, but how sad that they should be taught in many of our
Seminaries, echoed from many of our pulpits, and accepted by many of the rank
and file of professing Christians.
One of the most flagrant sins of our age is
that of irreverence-the failure to ascribe the glory which is due the august
majesty of God. Men limit the power and activities of the Lord in their
degrading concepts of His being and character. Originally, man was made in the
image and likeness of God, but today we are asked to believe in a god made in
the image and likeness of man. The Creator is reduced to the level of the
creature: His omniscience is called into question, His omnipotency is no longer
believed in, and His absolute Sovereignty is flatly denied. Men claim to be the
architects of their own fortunes and the determiners of their own destiny. They
know not that their lives are at the disposal of the Divine Despot. They know
not they have no more power to thwart His secret decrees than a worm has to
resist the tread of an elephant. They know not that "The LORD hath
prepared His throne in the heavens; and His kingdom ruleth over
all" (Psa. 103:19).
In the foregoing pages we have sought to
repudiate such paganistic views as the above-mentioned, and have endeavored to show
from Scripture that God is God, on the Throne, and that so far
from the recent war being an evidence that the helm had slipped out of His hand
it was a sure proof that He still lives and reigns, and is now bringing to pass
that which He had fore-determined and foreannounced (Matt. 24:6-8 etc.).
That the carnal mind is enmity against God, that the unregenerate man is a
rebel against the Divine government, that the sinner has no concern for the
glory of his Maker, and little or no respect for His revealed will, is freely
granted. But, nevertheless, behind the scenes God is ruling and over-ruling,
fulfilling His eternal purpose, not only in spite of but also by means of those
who are His enemies.
How earnestly are the claims of man contended
for against the claims of God! Has not man power and knowledge, but what of it?
Has God no will, or power, or knowledge? Suppose man's will conflicts with
God's, then what? Turn to the Scripture of Truth for answer. Men had a will on
the plains of Shinar and determined to build a tower whose top should reach
unto Heaven, but what came of their purpose? Pharaoh had a
will when He hardened his heart and Pharaoh refused to allow Jehovah's people
to go and worship Him in the wilderness, but what came of his rebellion? Balak
had a will when he hired Balaam to come and curse the Hebrews, but of what
avail was it? The Canaanites had a will when they determined to prevent Israel
occupying the land of Canaan, but how far did they succeed? Saul had a will
when he hurled his javelin at David, but it entered the wall instead! Jonah had
a will when he refused to go and preach to the Ninevites, but what came of it?
Nebuchadnezzar had a will when he thought to destroy the three Hebrew children,
but God had a will too, and the fire did not harm them. Herod had a will when
he sought to slay the Child Jesus, and had there been no living, reigning God,
his evil desire would have been effected: but in daring to pit his puny will
against the irresistible will of the Almighty his efforts came to nought. Yes,
my reader, and you, too, had a will when you formed your plans without first
seeking counsel of the Lord, therefore did He overturn them!
"There are many devices in a man's heart; nevertheless the
counsel of LORD, that shall stand" (Prov. 19:21).
What a demonstration of the irresistible
Sovereignty of God is furnished by that wonderful statement found in Revelation 17:17: "For
God hath put in their hearts to fulfill His will, and to agree, and
give their kingdom unto the Beast, until the words of God shall be
fulfilled." The fulfillment of any single prophecy is but the Sovereignty
of God in operation. It is the demonstration that what He has decreed He is
able also to perform. It is proof that none can withstand the execution of His
counsel or prevent the accomplishment of His pleasure. It is evidence that God inclines
men to fulfill that which He has ordained and perform that which He has
foredetermined. If God were not absolute Sovereign then Divine prophecy would
be valueless, for in such case no guarantee would be left that what He had
predicted would surely come to pass.
"For God hath put in their hearts to
fulfill His will, and to agree, and give
their kingdom unto the Beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled" (Rev. 17:17). We
can not do better than quote here the excellent comments of our esteemed
friend, Mr. Walter Scott, upon this verse-"God works unseen, but not the
less truly, in all the political changes of the day. The astute statesman, the
clever diplomatist, is simply an agent in the Lord's hands. He knows it not.
Self-will and motives of policy may influence to action, but God is steadily
working toward an end-to exhibit the heavenly and earthly glories of His Son.
Thus, instead of kings and statesmen thwarting God's purpose, they
unconsciously forward it. God is not indifferent, but is behind the scenes of
human action. The doings of the future ten kings in relation to Babylon and the
Beast-the ecclesiastical and secular powers-are not only under the direct
control of God, but all is done in fulfillment of His words."
Closely connected with Revelation 17:17 is
that which is brought before us in Micah 4:11, 12: "Now also many
nations are gathered against thee, that say, Let her be defiled, and let our
eye look upon Zion. But they know not the thoughts of the LORD, neither
understand they His counsel: for He shall gather them as
sheaves into the floor." This is another remarkable statement, inspired of
God, and three things in it deserve special notice. First, a day is coming when
"many nations" shall "gather against" Israel with the
express purpose of humiliating her. Second, quite unconsciously to
themselves-for they "understand not" His counsel-they
are "gathered" together by God, for "He shall
gather them." Third, God gathers these "many nations" against
Israel in order that the daughter of Zion may "beat them in pieces"
(v. 13). Here then is another instance which demonstrates God's absolute
control of the nations, of His power to fulfill His secret counsel or decrees
through and by them, and of His inclining men to perform His pleasure though it
be performed blindly and unwittingly by them.
Once more. What a word was that of the Lord
Jesus as He stood before Pilate! Who can depict the scene! There was the Roman
official, and there also was the Servant of Jehovah standing before him. Said
Pilate, "Whence art Thou?" And we read "Jesus gave him no
answer." Then said Pilate unto Him "Speakest Thou not unto me? Knowest
Thou not that I have power to crucify Thee, and have power to
release Thee?" (John 19:10). Ah!
that is what Pilate thought. That is what many another has thought. He was
merely voicing the common conviction of the human heart, the heart which leaves
God out of its reckoning. But hear the Lord Jesus as He corrects Pilate,
and at the same time repudiates the proud boasting of men in
general: "thou couldest have no power against Me, except it were
given thee from above" (John 19:11). How
sweeping is this assertion! Man-even though he be a prominent official in the
most influential empire of his day-has no power except that
which is given him from above, no power, even, to do that which is evil, i.e.,
carry out his own evil designs unless God empowers him so
that His purpose may be forwarded. It was God who
gave Pilate the power to sentence to death His well-beloved Son! And how this
rebukes the sophistries and reasonings of men who argue that God does nothing
more than permit evil! Why, go right back to the very first
words spoken by the Lord God to man after the Fall and hear Him saying "I
will put ENMITY between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and
her seed" (Gen. 3:15)!
Bare permission of sin does not cover all the facts which are revealed in
Scripture touching this mystery. As Calvin succinctly remarked "But what
reason shall we assign for His permitting it but because it is His
will?"
At the close of Chapter Eleven we promised to
give attention to one or two other difficulties which were not examined at that
time. To them we now turn. If God has not only predetermined the salvation of
His own but has also foreordained the good works which they are to walk in (Eph. 2:10),
then what incentive remains for us to strive after practical godliness? If God
has fixed the number of those who are to be saved, and the others are vessels
of wrath fitted to destruction, then what encouragement have we to preach the
Gospel to the lost? Let us take up these questions in the order of mention.
1. GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY AND THE BELIEVER'S
GROWTH IN GRACE.
If God has foreordained everything that comes
to pass, of what avail is it for us to "exercise"
ourselves "unto godliness" (1 Tim. 4:7)? If
God has before ordained the good works in which we are to walk (Eph. 2:10) then
why should we be "careful to maintain good works" (Titus 3:8)?
This only raises once more the problem of human responsibility. Really, it
should be enough for us to reply, God has bidden us do so.
Nowhere does Scripture inculcate or encourage a spirit of fatalistic
indifference. Contentment with our present attainments is expressly disallowed.
The word to every believer is"Press toward the mark for the
prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 3:14).
This was the Apostle's aim, and it should be ours. Instead of hindering the
development of Christian character, a proper apprehension and appreciation of
God's Sovereignty will forward it. Just as the sinner's despair of
any help from himself is the first prerequisite of a sound conversion, so the
loss of all confidence in himself is the first essential in the believer's
growth in grace; and just as the sinner despairing of help from himself will
cast him into the arms of Sovereign mercy so the Christian, conscious of his
own frailty, will turn unto the Lord for power. It is when we are weak we are
strong (2 Cor. 12:10): that is to say, there must be consciousness of
our weakness before we shall turn to the Lord for help. While the Christian
allows the thought that he is sufficient in himself, while he imagines that by
mere force of will he shall resist temptation, while he has any confidence in
the flesh then, like Peter who boasted that though all forsook
the Lord yet should not he, so we shall certainly fail and fall. Apart from
Christ we can do nothing (John 15:5). The
promise of God is "He giveth power to the faint; and to them that
have no might (of their own) He increaseth strength" (Isa. 40:29).
The question now before us is of great
practical importance, and we are deeply anxious to express ourselves clearly
and simply. The secret of development of Christian character is the realization
of our own powerlessness, acknowledged powerlessness, and the consequent
turning unto the Lord for help. The plain fact is that of ourselves we cannot
do this, or make ourselves do it. "In nothing be anxious"-but who can
avoid and prevent anxiety when things go wrong? "Awake to righteousness
and sin not"-but who can help sinning? These are merely examples selected
at random from scores of others. Does then God mock us by biding
us do what He knows we are unable to do? The answer of Augustine to
this question is the best we have met with-"God gives commands we cannot
perform, that we may know what we ought to request from
Him." A consciousness of our powerlessness should cast us upon Him who has
all power. Here then is where a vision and view of God's Sovereignty helps, for
it reveals His sufficiency and shows us our insufficiency.
2. GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY AND CHRISTIAN SERVICE.
If God has determined before the foundation
of the world the precise number of those who shall be saved then why should we concern
ourselves about the eternal destiny of those with whom we come into contact?
What place is left for zeal in Christian service? Will not the
doctrine of God's Sovereignty, and its corollary of predestination, discourage
the Lord's servants from faithfulness in evangelism? No; instead of discouraging
His servants a recognition of God's Sovereignty is most encouraging
to them. Here is one, for example, who is called upon to do the work of an
evangelist, and he goes forth believing in the freedom of the will and in the
sinner's own ability to come to Christ. He preaches the Gospel as faithfully
and zealously as he knows how; but he finds the vast majority of his hearers
are utterly indifferent and have no heart at all for Christ. He discovers that
men are, for the most part, thoroughly wrapt up in the things of the world, and
that few have any concern about the world to come. He beseeches men to be
reconciled to God and pleads with them over their soul's salvation. But it is
of no avail. He becomes thoroughly disheartened and asks himself, What is the
use of it all? Shall he quit, or had he better change his mission and message?
If men will not respond to the Gospel, had he not better engage in that which
is more popular and acceptable to the world? Why not occupy himself with
humanitarian efforts, with social uplift work, with the purity campaign? Alas!
that so many men who once preached the Gospel are now engaged in these
activities instead.
What then is God's corrective for His
discouraged servant? First, he needs to learn from Scripture that God is not
now seeking to convert the world, but that in this Age He is "taking out
of the Gentiles" a people for His name (Acts 15:14).
What then is God's corrective for His discouraged servant? This: a proper
apprehension of God's plan for this Dispensation. Again: what
is God's remedy for dejection at apparent failure in our labors? This: the
assurance that God's purpose cannot fail, that God's
plans cannot miscarry, that God's will must be
done. Our labors are not intended to bring about that which God has
not decreed. Once more: what is God's word of cheer for the one who is
thoroughly disheartened at the lack of response to his appeals and the absence
of fruit, for his labors? This: that we are not responsible
for results: that is God's side, and God's business. Paul may
"plant," and Apollos may "water," but it is God who
"gave the increase" (1 Cor. 3:6). Our
business is to obey Christ and preach the Gospel to every creature, to
emphasize the "Whosoever believeth" and then to leave the Sovereign
operations of the Holy Spirit to apply the Word in quickening power to
whom He wills, resting on the sure promise of Jehovah:
"For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from Heaven, and returneth not
thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may
give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall My Word be that goeth forth
out of My mouth: it shall not return unto Me void, but it
shall accomplish that which I please (it may not be that
which we please), and it shall prosper in the thing whereto
I sent it" (Isa. 55:10, 11). Was it not this
assurance that sustained the beloved Apostle when he declared "Therefore
(see context) I endure all things for the elect's sake" (2 Tim. 2:10)!
Yea, is not this same lesson to be learned from the blessed example of the Lord
Jesus! When we read that He said to the people "Ye also have seen
Me, and believe not," He fell back upon the Sovereign
pleasure of the One who sent Him, saying "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). He
knew that His labor would not be in vain. He knew God's Word would not return
unto Him "void." He knew that "God's elect" would come
to Him and believe on Him. And this same assurance fills the soul of every
servant who intelligently rests upon the blessed truth of God's Sovereignty.
Ah, fellow-Christian-worker, God has not sent
us forth to "draw a bow at a venture." The success of the ministry
which He has committed into our hands is not left contingent on the fickleness
of the wills in those to whom we preach. How gloriously encouraging, how
soul-sustaining the assurance are those words of our Lord's if we rest on them
in simple faith: "And other sheep I have ("have" mark you, not "will
have"; "have" because given to Him by the Father before the
foundation of the world), which are not of this fold (i.e. the Jewish fold then
existing): them also I must bring, and they shall hear
My voice" (John 10:16). Not
simply, "they ought to hear My voice," not simply
"they may hear My voice," not "they will if they
are willing." There is no "if," no uncertainty about it.
"They shall hear My voice" is His own positive,
unqualified, absolute promise. Here then is where faith is to
rest! Continue your quest, dear friend, after the "other sheep" of
Christ's. Be not discouraged because the "goats" heed not His voice
as you preach the Gospel. Be faithful, be scriptural, be persevering, and
Christ may use even you to be His mouthpiece in calling some of His lost sheep
unto Himself. "Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable,
always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that
your labor is not in vain in the Lord" (1 Cor. 15:58).
It now remains for us to offer a few closing
reflections and our happy task is finished.
God's Sovereign election of certain ones to
salvation is a MERCIFUL provision. The
sufficient answer to all the wicked accusations that the doctrine of
Predestination is cruel, horrible, and unjust, is that unless God
had chosen certain ones to salvation none would have been
saved, for "there is none that seeketh after God" (Rom. 3:11).
This is no mere inference of ours but the definite teaching of Holy Scripture.
Attend closely to the words of the Apostle in Romans 9 where this theme is
fully discussed: "Though the number of the children of Israel be as the
sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved... And as Esaias (Isaiah)
said before, Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a
seed, we had been as Sodom, and been made like unto
Gomorrah" (Rom. 9:27, 29). The teaching of this
passage is unmistakable: but for Divine interference Israel would have become
as Sodom and Gomorrah. Had God left Israel alone human depravity would have run
its course to its own tragic end. But God left Israel a "remnant" or
"seed." Of old the cities of the plain had been obliterated for their
sin and none was left to survive them; and so it would have been in Israel's
case had not God "left" or spared a remnant. Thus it is with the
human race: but for God's Sovereign grace in sparing a remnant all of
Adam's descendants had perished in their sins. Therefore, we say that God's
Sovereign election of certain ones to salvation is a merciful provision.
And, be it noted, in choosing the ones He did God did no injustice to
the others who were passed by, for none had any right to
salvation. Salvation is by grace, and the exercise of grace is
a matter of pure Sovereignty-God might save all or
none, many or few, one or ten thousand, just as He saw best. Should it be
replied, But surely it were "best" to save all, the
answer would be: We are not capable of judging. We might
have thought it "best" never to have created Satan, never to have
allowed sin to enter the world, or having entered to have brought the conflict
between good and evil to an end long before now. Ah! God's ways are not ours,
and His ways are "past finding out."
God foreordains everything which comes to
pass. His Sovereign rule extends throughout the
entire Universe and is over every creature. "For of Him, and through Him,
and to Him, are all things"(Rom. 11:36). God
initiates all things, regulates all things, and all things are working unto His
eternal glory. "There is but one God, the Father, of whom are all
things, and we in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are
all things, and we by Him" (1 Cor. 8:6). And
again, "According to the purpose of Him who worketh all things
after the counsel of His own will" (Eph. 1:11).
Surely if anything could be ascribed to chance it is the
drawing of lots, and yet the Word of God expressly declares
"The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is
of the LORD" (Prov. 16:33)!
God's wisdom in the government of our world
shall yet be completely vindicated before all created intelligences. God is no idle Spectator, looking on from a distant world
at the happenings, on our earth, but is Himself shaping everything to the
ultimate promotion of His own glory. Even now He is working out His eternal
purpose, not only in spite of human and Satanic opposition but by means of
them. How wicked and futile have been all efforts to resist His will shall one
day be as fully evident as when of old He overthrew the rebellious Pharaoh and
his hosts at the Red Sea.
It has been well said "The end and
object of all is the glory of God. It is perfectly, divinely true, that 'God
hath ordained for His own glory whatsoever comes to pass.' In order to guard
this from all possibility of mistake, we have only to remember who is this God,
and what the glory that He seeks. It is He who is the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ-of Him in whom divine love came seeking not her
own, among us as 'One that serveth.' It is He who, sufficient in Himself, can
receive no real accession of glory from His creatures, but from whom-'Love,' as
He is 'Light'-cometh down every good and every perfect gift, in whom is no
variableness nor shadow of turning. Of His own alone can His creatures give to
Him."
"The glory of such an one is found in
the display of His own goodness, righteousness, holiness, truth; in manifesting
Himself as in Christ He has manifested Himself and will forever. The glory of
this God is what of necessity all things must serve-adversaries and
evil as well as all else. He has ordained it; His
power will insure it; and when all apparent clouds and obstructions are
removed, then shall He rest-'rest in His love' forever, although eternity only
will suffice for the apprehension of the revelation. 'God shall be all
in all' (italics ours throughout this paragraph) gives in six words
the ineffable result" (F. W. Grant on "Atonement").
That what we have written gives but an
incomplete and imperfect presentation of this most important subject we must
sorrowfully confess. Nevertheless, if it results in a clearer apprehension of
the majesty of God and His Sovereign mercy we shall be amply repaid for our
labors. If the reader has received blessing from the perusal
of these pages let him not fail to return thanks to the Giver of every good and
every perfect gift, ascribing all praise to His inimitable and
Sovereign grace.
"The
Lord, our God, is clothed with might,
The winds and waves obey His will;
He speaks, and in the shining height
The sun and rolling worlds stand still.
Rebel ye waves, and o'er the land
With threatening aspect foam and roar,
The Lord hath spoken His command
That breaks your rage upon the shore.
Ye winds of night, your force combine-
Without His holy high behest
You shall not in a mountain pine
Disturb the little swallow's nest.
His voice sublime is heard afar;
In distant peals it fades and dies;
He binds the cyclone to His car
And sweeps the howling murky skies.
Great God! how infinite art Thou,
What weak and worthless worms are we,
Let all the race of creatures bow
And seek salvation now from Thee.
Eternity, with all its years
Stands ever-present to Thy view,
To Thee there's nothing old appears
Great God! There can be nothing new.
Our lives through varied scenes are drawn,
And vexed with mean and trifling cares;
While Thine eternal thought moves on
Thy fixed and undisturbed affairs."
The winds and waves obey His will;
He speaks, and in the shining height
The sun and rolling worlds stand still.
Rebel ye waves, and o'er the land
With threatening aspect foam and roar,
The Lord hath spoken His command
That breaks your rage upon the shore.
Ye winds of night, your force combine-
Without His holy high behest
You shall not in a mountain pine
Disturb the little swallow's nest.
His voice sublime is heard afar;
In distant peals it fades and dies;
He binds the cyclone to His car
And sweeps the howling murky skies.
Great God! how infinite art Thou,
What weak and worthless worms are we,
Let all the race of creatures bow
And seek salvation now from Thee.
Eternity, with all its years
Stands ever-present to Thy view,
To Thee there's nothing old appears
Great God! There can be nothing new.
Our lives through varied scenes are drawn,
And vexed with mean and trifling cares;
While Thine eternal thought moves on
Thy fixed and undisturbed affairs."
Appendix I
The Will of God from The Sovereignty of
God
by A. W. Pink
In treating
of the Will of God some theologians have differentiated between His decretive
will and His permissive will, insisting that there are certain things which God
has positively fore-ordained, but other things which He merely suffers to exist
or happen. But such a distinction is really no distinction at all, inasmuch as
God only permits that which is according to His will. No such distinction would
have been invented had these theologians discerned that God could have decreed
the existence and activities of sin without Himself being the Author of sin.
Personally, we much prefer to adopt the distinction made by the older
Calvinists between God’s secret and revealed will, or, to state it in another
way, His disposing and His preceptive will. by A. W. Pink
God’s revealed will is made known in His Word, but His secret will is His own hidden counsels. God’s revealed will is the definer of our duty and the standard of our responsibility. The primary and basic reason why I should follow a certain course or do a certain thing is because it is God’s will that I should, His will being clearly defined for me in His Word. That I should not follow a certain course, that I must refrain from doing certain things, is because they are contrary to God’s revealed will. But suppose I disobey God’s Word, then do I not cross His will? And if so, how can it still be true that God’s will is always done and His counsel accomplished at all times? Such questions should make evident the necessity for the distinction here advocated. God’s revealed will is frequently crost, but His secret will is never thwarted. That it is legitimate for us to make such a distinction concerning God’s will is clear from Scripture. Take these two passages: "For this is the will of God, even your sanctification" (1 Thess. 4:3); "For who hath resisted His will?" (Rom. 9:19). Would any thoughtful reader declare that God’s "will" has precisely the same meaning in both of these passages? We surely hope not. The first passage refers to God’s revealed will, the latter to His secret will. The first passage concerns our duty, the latter declares that God’s secret purpose is immutable and must come to pass notwithstanding the creature’s insubordination. God’s revealed will is never done perfectly or fully by any of us, but His secret will never fails of accomplishment even in the minutest particular. His secret will mainly concerns future events; His revealed will, our present duty: the one has to do with His irresistible purpose, the other with His manifested pleasure: the one is wrought upon us and accomplished through us, the other is to be done by us.
The secret will of God is His eternal, unchanging purpose concerning all things which He hath made, to be brought about by certain means to their appointed ends: of this God expressly declares "My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure" (Isa. 46:10). This is the absolute, efficacious will of God, always effected, always fulfilled. The revealed will of God contains not His purpose and decree but our duty,—not what He will do according to His eternal counsel, but what we should do if we would please Him, and this is expressed in the precepts and promises of His Word. Whatever God has determined within Himself, whether to do Himself, or to do by others, or to suffer to be done, whilst it is in His own breast, and is not made known by any event in providence, or by precept, or by prophecy, is His secret will. Such are the deep things of God, the thoughts of His heart, the counsels of His mind, which are impenetrable to all creatures. But when these are made known they become His revealed will: such is almost the whole of the book of Revelation, wherein God has made known to us "things which must shortly come to pass" (Rev. 1:1—"must" because He has eternally purposed that they should).
It has been objected by Arminian theologians that the division of God’s will into secret and revealed is untenable, because it makes God to have two different wills, the one opposed to the other. But this is a mistake, due to their failure to see that the secret and revealed will of God respect entirely different objects. If God should require and forbid the same thing, or if He should decree the same thing should and should not exist, then would His secret and revealed will be contradictory and purposeless. If those who object to the secret and revealed will of God being inconsistent would only make the same distinction in this case that they do in many other cases, the seeming inconsistency would at once disappear. How often do men draw a sharp distinction between what is desirable in its own nature. and what is not desirable all things considered. For example, the fond parent does not desire simply considered to punish his offending child, but, all things considered, he knows it is his bounden duty, and so corrects his child. And though he tells his child he does not desire to punish him, but that he is satisfied it is for the best all things considered to do so, then an intelligent child would see no inconsistency in what his father says and does. Just so the All-wise Creator may consistently decree to bring to pass things which He hates, forbids and condemns. God chooses that some things shall exist which He thoroughly hates (in their intrinsic nature), and He also chooses that some things shall not yet exist which He perfectly loves (in their intrinsic nature). For example: He commanded that Pharaoh should let His people go, because that was right in the nature of things, yet, He had secretly declared that Pharaoh should not let His people go, not because it was right in Pharaoh to refuse, but because it was best all things considered that he should not let them go—i.e. best because it subserved God’s larger purpose.
Again; God commands us to be perfectly holy in this life (Matt. 5:48), because this is right in the nature of things, but He has decreed that no man shall be perfectly holy in this life, because this is best all things considered that none shall be perfectly holy (experimentally) before they leave this world. Holiness is one thing, the taking place of holiness is another; so, sin is one thing, the taking place of sin is another. When God requires holiness His preceptive or revealed will respects the nature or moral excellence of holiness; but when He decrees that holiness shall not take place (fully and perfectly) His secret or decretive will respects only the event of it not taking place. So, again, when He forbids sin, His preceptive or revealed will respects only the nature or moral evil of sin; but when He decrees that sin shall take place, His secret will respects only its actual occurrence to serve His good purpose. Thus the secret and revealed will of God respect entirely different objects.
God’s will of decree is not His will in the same sense as His will of command is. Therefore, there is no difficulty in supposing that one may be contrary to the other. His will, in both senses, is His inclination. Everything that concerns His revealed will is perfectly agreeable to His nature, as when He commands love, obedience, and service from His creatures. But that which concerns His secret will has in view His ultimate end, that to which all things are now working. Thus, He decreed the entrance of sin into His universe, though His own holy nature hates all sin with infinite abhorrence, yet, because it is one of the means by which His appointed end is to be reached He suffered it to enter. God’s revealed will is the measure of our responsibility and the determiner of our duty. With God’s secret will we have nothing to do: that is His concern. But, God knowing that we should fail to perfectly do His revealed will ordered His eternal counsels accordingly, and these eternal counsels, which make up His secret will, though unknown to us are, though unconsciously, fulfilled in and through us.
Whether the reader is prepared to accept the above distinction in the will of God or not he must acknowledge that the commands of Scripture declare God’s revealed will, and he must also allow that sometimes God wills not to hinder a breach of those commands, because He does not as a fact so hinder it. God wills to permit sin as is evident, for He does permit it. Surely none will say that God Himself does what He does not will to do.
Finally, let it be said again that, my responsibility with regard to the will of God is measured by what He has made known in His Word. There I learn that it is my duty to use the means of His providing, and to humbly pray that He may be pleased to bless them to me. To refuse so to do on the ground that I am ignorant of what may or may not be His secret counsels concerning me, is not only absurd, but the height of presumption. We repeat: the secret will of God is none of our business; it is His revealed will which measures our accountability. That there is no conflict whatever between the secret and the revealed will of God is made clear from the fact that, the former is accomplished by my use of the means laid down in the latter.
Appendix II
The Case of Adam from The Sovereignty of God
By A.W.
Pink
In our chapter on God's Sovereignty and Human
Responsibility we dealt only with the responsibility of man considered as a
fallen creature, and at the close of the discussion it was pointed out how that
the measure and extent of our responsibility varies in different individuals,
according to the advantages they have received and the privileges they have
enjoyed, which is a truth clearly established by the declaration of the Saviour
recorded in Luke 12:47,48, "And that servant, which knew his lord's will,
and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten
with many stripes. But he that knew not, and did not commit things worthy of
stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given,
of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they
will ask the more".
Now, strictly speaking, there are only two men who have
ever walked this earth which were endowed with full and unimpaired
responsibility, and they were the first and last Adam's. The responsibility of
each of the rational descendants of Adam, while real, and sufficient to
establish them accountable to their Creator is, nevertheless, limited in
degree, limited because impaired through the effects of the Fall.
Not only is the responsibility of each descendant of
Adam sufficient to constitute him, personally an
accountable creature (that is, as one so constituted that heought to
do right and ought not to do wrong), but originally every one
of us was also endowed, judicially, with full and unimpaired responsibility,
not in ourselves, but, in Adam. It should ever be borne in mind
that not only was Adam the father of the human race seminally, but
he was also the head of the race legally. When Adam was placed in
Eden he stood there as our representative, so that what he did is
reckoned to the account of each for whom he acted.
It is beside our present purpose to enter here into a
lengthy discussion of the Federal Headship of Adam*[Though there is deep and
widespread need for this, and we hope ere long to write upon this subject in
another book.], suffice it now to refer the reader to Rom. 5:12-19 where this
truth is dealt with by the Holy Spirit. In the heart of this most important
passaGen. we are told that Adam was "the figure of him that
was to come" (Rom. 5:14), that is, of Christ. In what sense,
then, was Adam "the figure" of Christ? The answer must be, In that he
was a Federal Head; in that he acted on the behalf of a race of men; in that he
was one who has legally, as well as vitally, affected all connected with him.
It is for this reason that the Lord Jesus is in 1 Cor. 15:45 denominated
"the last Adam", that is, the Head of the new creation,
as the first Adam was the Head of the old creation.
In Adam, then, each of us stood. As the representative of
the human race the first man acted. As then Adam was created with full and
unimpaired responsibility, unimpaired because there was no evil nature within
him; and as we were all "in Adam", it necessarily follows that all of
us, originally, were also endowed with full and unimpaired
responsibility. Therefore, in Eden, it was not merely the responsibility of
Adam as a single person that was tested, but it was human responsibility, the
responsibility of the race, as a whole and in part, which was on trial.
Webster defines responsibility first, as "liable to
account"; second, as "able to discharge an obligation". perhaps.
the meaning and scope of the term responsibility might be expressed and summed
up in the one word oughtness. God-wards, responsibility respects
that which is due the Creator from the creature, and which the
creature is under moral obligations to render.
In the light of the above definition it is at once
apparent that responsibility is something that must be placed on trial.
And as a fact, this is, as we learn from the inspired record, exactly what
transpired in Eden. Adam was placed on probation. His obligations to God were
put to the test. His loyalty to the creator was tried out. The test consisted
of obedience to his maker's command. Of a certain tree he was forbidden to eat.
But right here a very formidable difficulty confronts us.
From God's standpoint the result of Adam's
probation was not left in uncertainty. Before he formed him out of the dust of
the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, God knew exactly
how the appointed test would terminate. With this statement every Christian
reader must be in accord, for, to deny God's foreknowledge is to deny his
omniscience, and this is to repudiate one of the fundamental attributes of
Deity. But we must go further: not only had God a perfect foreknowledge of the
outcome of Adam's trial, not only did his omniscient eye see Adam eating of the
forbidden fruit, but he decreed beforehand that he should do
so. This is evident not only from the general fact that nothing happens save
that which the Creator and Governor of the universe has eternally purposed, but
also from the express declaration of Scripture that Christ as a Lamb
"verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world" (1Pe
1:20). If, then, God had foreordained before the foundation of the world that
Christ should, in due time, be offered as a sacrifice for sin, then it is
unmistakably evident that God had also foreordained sin should enter the world,
and if so, that Adam should transgress and fall. In full harmony with
this, God himself placed in Eden the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil, and also allowed the Serpent to enter and deceive Eve.
Here then is the difficulty: If God has eternally decreed
that Adam should eat of the tree, how could he be held
responsible not to eat of it? Formidable as the problem
appears, nevertheless, it is capable of a solution, a solution, moreover, which
can be grasped even by the finite mind. The solution is to be found in the
distinction between God's secret will and his revealed will. As stated in
Appendix A, human responsibility is measured by our knowledge of God's revealed will;
what God has told us, not what he has not told us, is the
definer of our duty. So it was with Adam.
That God had decreed sin should enter this world through
the disobedience of our first parents was a secret hid in his
own breast. Of this Adam knew nothing, and that made all the difference so
far as his responsibility was concerned. Adam was quite unacquainted with the
Creator's hidden counsels. What concerned him was God's revealed will. And
that was plain! God had forbidden him to eat of the
tree, and that was enough. But God went further: he even warned Adam of the
dire consequences which would follow should he disobey -- death would be the
penalty. Transgression, then, on the part of Adam was entirely without
excuse. Created with no evil nature in him, with a will in perfect
equipoise, placed in the fairest environment, given dominion over all the lower
creation, allowed full liberty with only a single restriction upon him, plainly
warned of what would follow an act of insubordination to God, there was every
possible inducement for Adam to preserve his innocence; and, should he fail and
fall, then by every principle of righteousness his blood must lie upon his own
head, and his guilt be imputed to all in whose behalf he acted.
Had God disclosed to Adam his purpose that sin would
enter this world, and that he had decreed Adam should eat of
the forbidden fruit, it is obvious that Adam could not have been held
responsible for the eating of it. But in that God withheld the
knowledge of his counsels from Adam, his accountability was not
interfered with.
Again; had God created Adam with a bias toward evil, then
human responsibility had been impaired and man's probation merely one in name.
But inasmuch as Adam was included among that which God, at the end of the sixth
day, pronounced "Very good", and, inasmuch as man was made
"upright" (Ec 7:29), then every mouth must be stopped and the whole
world must acknowledge itself "guilty before God" (Rom.
3:19).
Once more, it needs to be carefully borne in mind that
God did not decree that Adam should sin and then inject into Adam an
inclination to evil, in order that his decree might be carried out. No;
"God cannot be tempted, neither tempteth he any man"
(Jas 1:13). Instead, when the Serpent came to tempt Eve, God caused her to
remember his command forbidding to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil and of the penalty attached to disobedience! Thus, though God haddecreed
the Fall, in no sense was he the Author of Adam's sin, and at
no point was Adam's responsibility impaired. Thus may we admire and adore the
"manifoldwisdom of God", in devising a way whereby his eternal
decree should be accomplished, and yet the responsibility of his creatures be
preserved intact.
Perhaps a further word should be added concerning the
decretive will of God, particularly in its relation to evil. First of all we
take the high ground that, whatever things God does or permits, are right,
just, and good, simply because God does or permits them. When
Luther gave answer to the question, "Whence it was that Adam was permitted
to fall, and corrupt his whole posterity; when God could have prevented him
from falling, etc", he said, "God is a Being whose will acknowledges
no cause: neither is it for us to prescribe rules to his sovereign pleasure, or
call him to account for what he does. He has neither superior nor equal; and
his will is the rule of all things. He did not thus will such and such things
because they were right, and he was bound to will them; but they are therefore
equitable and right because he wills them. The will of man, indeed, may be
influenced and moved; but God's will never can. To assert the contrary is to
undeify him" (De Servo, Arb. c/ 153).
To affirm that God decreed the entrance of sin into his
universe, and that he foreordained all its fruits and activities, is to say
that which, at first may shock the reader; but reflection should show that it
is far more shocking to insist that sin has invaded his dominions against his
will, and that its exercise is outside his jurisdiction: for
in such a case where would be his omnipotency? No; to recognise that God has
foreordained all the activities of evil, is to see that he is theGovernor of
sin: his will determines its exercise, his power regulates its bounds (Psa.
76:10). He is neither the Inspirer nor the Infuser of sin in any of his
creatures, but he is its Master, by which we mean God's management of the
wicked is so entire that, they can do nothing save that which his hand and
counsel, from everlasting, determined should be done.
Though nothing contrary to holiness and righteousness can
ever emanate from God, yet he has, for his own wise ends, ordained his
creatures to fall into sin. Had sin never been permitted, how could the justice
of God have been displayed in punishing it? How could the wisdom of God have
been manifested in so wondrously overruling it? How could the grace of God have
been exhibited in pardoning it? How could the power of God have been exercised
in subduing it? A very solemn and striking proof of Christ's acknowledgment
of God's decretal of sin is seen in his treatment of Judas. The Saviour knew
full well that Judas would betray him, yet we never read that he expostulated
with him! Instead, he said to him, "That thou doest, do quickly"
(John 13:27)! Yet, mark this was said after he had received
the sop and Satan had taken possession of his heart. Judas was already prepared
for and determined on his traitorous work, therefore did Christ permissively
(bowing to his Father's ordination) bid him go forth to his awful work.
Thus, though God is not the author of
sin, and though sin is contrary to his holy nature, yet the
existence and operations of it are not contrary to his will, but
subservient to it. God never tempts man to sin, but he has, by his eternal
counsels (which he is now executing), determined its course.
Moreover, as we have shown in chapter 8, though God has decreed man's sins, yet
is man responsible not to commit them, and blameable because he does.
Strikingly were these two sides of this awful subject brought together by
Christ in that statement of his: "Woe unto the world because of offences!
For it must needs be that offences come (because God has
foreordained them); but woe to that man by whom the offence
cometh" (Mt 18:7). So, too, though all which took place at Calvary was by
the "determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God" (Acts 2:23),
nevertheless, "wicked hands" crucified the Lord of glory, and, in
consequence, his blood has righteously rested upon them and on their children.
High mysteries are these, yet it is both our happy priviledge and bounden duty
to humbly receive whatsoever God has been pleased to reveal concerning them in
his Word of Truth.
Appendix
III
The
Meaning of "KOSMOS" In John 3:16 from THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
By
A. W. Pink
It may appear to some of our readers that the exposition we have
given of John 3:16 in the chapter on "Difficulties and Objections" is
a forced and unnatural one, inasmuch as our definition of the term
"world" seems to be out of harmony with the meaning and scope of this
word in other passages, where, to supply the world of believers (God’s elect)
as a definition of "world" would make no sense. Many have said to us,
"Surely, ‘world’ means world, that is, you, me, and everybody." In
reply we would say: We know from experience how difficult it is to set aside
the "traditions of men" and come to a passage which we have heard
explained in a certain way scores of times, and study it carefully for
ourselves without bias Nevertheless, this is essential if we would learn the
mind of God.
Many people suppose they already know the simple meaning of John
3:16, and therefore they conclude that no diligent study is required of them to
discover the precise teaching of this verse. Needless to say, such an attitude
shuts out any further light which they otherwise might obtain on the passage.
Yet, if anyone will take a Concordance and read carefully the various passages
in which the term "world" (as a translation of "kosmos")
occurs, he will quickly perceive that to ascertain the precise meaning of, the
word "world" in any given passage is not nearly so easy as is
popularly supposed. The word "kosmos," and its English equivalent
"world," is not used with a uniform significance in the New Testament.
Very far from it. It is used in quite a number of different ways. Below we will
refer to a few passages where this term occurs, suggesting a tentative
definition in each case:
"Kosmos" is used of the Universe as a whole: Acts 17:24
- "God that made the world and all things therein seeing that He is Lord
of heaven and earth."
"Kosmos" is used of the earth: John 13:1; Ephesians 1:4,
etc., etc.- "When Jesus knew that his hour was come that He should depart
out of this world unto the Father, having loved His own which were in the world
He loved them unto the end." "Depart out of this world"
signifies, leave this earth. "According as He hath chosen us in Him before
the foundation of the world." This expression signifies, before the earth
was founded—compare Job 38:4 etc.
"Kosmos" is used of the world-system: John 12:31 etc.
"Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the Prince of this world be
cast out"— compare Matthew 4:8 and 1 John 5:19, R. V.
"Kosmos" is used of the whole human race: Romans 3:19,
etc.—"Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them
who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may
become guilty before God."
"Kosmos" is used of humanity minus believers: John
15:18; Romans 3:6 "If the world hate you, ye know that it hated Me before
it hated you." Believers do not "hate" Christ, so that "the
world" here must signify the world of unbelievers in contrast from
believers who love Christ. "God forbid: for then how shall God judge the
world." Here is another passage where "the world" cannot mean
"you, me, and everybody," for believers will not be
"judged" by God, see John 5:24. So that here, too, it must be the
world of unbelievers which is in view.
"Kosmos" is used of Gentiles in contrast from Jews:
Romans 11:12 etc. "Now if the fall of them (Israel) be the riches of the
world, and the diminishing of them (Israel) the riches of the Gentiles; how
much more their (Israel’s) fulness." Note how the first clause in italics
is defined by the latter clause placed in italics. Here, again, "the
world" cannot signify all humanity for it excludes Israel!
"Kosmos" is used of believers only: John 1:29; 3:16, 17;
6:33; 12:47; 1 Corinthians 4:9; 2 Corinthians 5:19. We leave our readers to
turn to these passages, asking them to note, carefully, exactly what is said
and predicated of "the world" in each place.
Thus it will be seen that "kosmos" has at least seven
clearly defined different meanings in the New Testament. It may be asked, Has then God used a word
thus to confuse and confound those who read the Scriptures? We answer, No! nor has He written His Word
for lazy people who are too dilatory, or too busy with the things of this
world, or, like Martha, so much occupied with "serving," they have no
time and no heart to "search" and "study" Holy Writ! Should it be asked further, But how is a
searcher of the Scriptures to know which of the above meanings the term
"world" has in any given passage?
The answer is: This may be ascertained by a careful study of the
context, by diligently noting what is predicated of "the world" in
each passage, and by prayer fully consulting other parallel passages to the one
being studied. The principal subject of
John 3:16 is Christ as the Gift of God.
The first clause tells us what moved God to "give" His only
begotten Son, and that was His great "love;" the second clause
informs us for whom God "gave" His Son, and that is for,
"whosoever (or, better, ‘every one’) believeth;" while the last
clause makes known why God "gave" His Son (His purpose), and that is,
that everyone that believeth "should not perish but have everlasting
life." That "the world"
in John 3:16 refers to the world of believers (God’s elect), in
contradistinction from "the world of the ungodly" (2 Pet. 2:5), is
established, unequivocally established, by a comparison of the other passages
which speak of God’s "love."
"God commendeth His love toward US"—the saints, Romans
5:8. "Whom the Lord loveth He
chasteneth"—every son, Hebrews 12:6.
"We love Him, because He first loved US"—believers, 1 John 4:19. The wicked God "pities" (see Matt.
18:33). Unto the unthankful and evil God
is "kind" (see Luke 6:35). The
vessels of wrath He endures "with much long-suffering" (see Rom.
9:22). But "His own" God
"loves"!!
Appendix IV
1 John 2:2
from The Sovereignty of God
by A. W. Pink
There is one passage
more than any other which is appealed to by those who believe in universal
redemption, and which at first sight appears to teach that Christ died for the
whole human race. We have therefore decided to give it a detailed examination
and exposition.
"And He is the
propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the
whole world" (1 John 2:2). This is the passage which, apparently, most
favors the Arminian view of the Atonement, yet if it be considered attentively
it will be seen that it does so only in appearance, and not in reality. Below
we offer a number of conclusive proofs to show that this verse does not teach
that Christ has propitiated God on behalf of all the sins of all men.
In the first place,
the fact that this verse opens with "and" necessarily links it with
what has gone before. We, therefore, give a literal word for word translation
of 1 John 2 :1 from Bagster’s Interlinear: "Little children my, these
things I write to you, that ye may not sin; and if any one should sin, a
Paraclete we have with the Father, Jesus Christ (the) righteous". It
will thus be seen that the apostle John is here writing to and about the saints
of God. His immediate purpose was two-fold: first, to communicate a message
that would keep God’s children from sinning; second, to supply comfort and
assurance to those who might sin, and, in consequence, be cast down and fearful
that the issue would prove fatal. He, therefore, makes known to them the
provision which God has made for just such an mergency. This we find at the end
of verse 1 and throughout verse 2. The ground of comfort is twofold: let the
downcast and repentant believer (1 John 1:9) be assured that, first, he has an
"Advocate with the Father"; second, that this Advocate is
"the propitiation for our sins". Now believers only may take
comfort from this, for they alone have an "Advocate", for them alone
is Christ the propitiation, as is proven by linking the Propitiation
("and") with "the Advocate"!
In the second place,
if other passages in the New Testament which speak of "propitiation,"
be compared with 1 John 2:2, it will be found that it is strictly limited in
its scope. For example, in Romans 3 :25 we read that God set forth Christ
"a propitiation through faith in His blood". If Christ is a
propitiation "through faith", then He is not a "propitiation"
to those who have no faith! Again, in Hebrews 2:17 we read, "To make
propitiation for the sins of the people" (Heb. 2:17, R. V.).
In the third place,
who are meant when John says, "He is the propitiation for our sins"?
We answer, Jewish believers. And a part of the proof on which we base this
assertion we now submit to the careful attention of the reader.
In Galatians 2:9 we
are told that John, together with James and Cephas, were apostles "unto
the circumcision" (i.e. Israel). In keeping with this, the Epistle of
James is addressed to "the twelve tribes, which are scattered abroad"
(1:1). So, the first Epistle of Peter is addressed to "the elect who
are sojourners of the Dispersion" (1 Pet.1:1, R. V.). And John also is
writing to saved Israelites, but for saved Jews and saved Gentiles.
Some of the evidences
that John is writing to saved Jews are as follows.
(a) In the opening
verse he says of Christ, "Which we have seen with our eyes . . . . and
our hands have handled". How impossible it would have been for the
Apostle Paul to have commenced any of his epistles to Gentile saints with such
language!
(b) "Brethren,
I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from
the beginning" (1 John 2 :7). The "beginning" here referred
to is the beginning of the public manifestation of Christ—in proof compare 1:1;
2:13, etc. Now these believers the apostle tells us, had the "old
commandment" from the beginning. This was true of Jewish believers, but it
was not true of Gentile believers.
(c) "I write
unto you, fathers, because ye have known Him from the beginning"
(2:13). Here, again, it is evident that it is Jewish believers that are in
view.
(d) "Little
children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that Antichrist shall come,
even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.
They went out from us, but they were not of us" (2:18, 19).
These brethren to whom
John wrote had "heard" from Christ Himself that Antichrist
should come (see Matt. 24). The "many antichrists" whom John
declares "went out from us" were all Jews, for during the
first century none but a Jew posed as the Messiah. Therefore, when John says
"He is the propitiation for our sins" he can only mean for the
sins of Jewish believers.[1]
In the fourth place, when John added, "And not for ours only, but also for the whole world", he signified that Christ was the propitiation for the sins of Gentile believers too, for, as previously shown, "the world" is a term contrasted from Israel. This interpretation is unequivocally established by a careful comparison of 1 John 2:2 with John 11:51,52, which is a strictly parallel passage: "And this spake he not of himself: but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation; And not for that nation only, but that also He should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad". Here Caiaphas, under inspiration, made known for whom Jesus should "die". Notice now the correspondency of his prophecy with this declaration of John’s:
1 John 2:2
|
John 11:51, 52
|
"He is the
propitiation for our (believing Israelites) sins".
|
"He prophesied
that Jesus should die for that nation".
|
"And not for
ours only".
|
"And not for
that nation only".
|
"But also for
the whole world"— That is, Gentile believers scattered throughout the
earth.
|
"He should
gather together in one the children of God that were scattered
abroad".
|
In the fifth place,
the above interpretation is confirmed by the fact that no other is consistent
or intelligible. If the "whole world" signifies the whole
human race, then the first clause and the "also" in the second clause
are absolutely meaningless. If Christ is the propitiation for everybody, it
would be idle tautology to say, first, "He is the propitiation for our
sins and also for everybody". There could be no "also" if He
is the propitiation for the entire human family. Had the apostle meant to
affirm that Christ is a universal propitiation he had omitted the first clause
of verse 2, and simply said, "He is the propitiation for the sins of
the whole world." Confirmatory of "not for ours (Jewish
believers) only, but also for the whole world"—Gentile believers, too;
compare John 10:16; 17:20.
In the sixth place,
our definition of "the whole world" is in perfect accord with
other passages in the New Testament. For example: "Whereof ye heard
before in the word of the truth of the Gospel; which is come unto you, as it is
in all the world" (Col. 1:5, 6). Does "all the world"
here mean, absolutely and unqualifiedly, all mankind? Had all the human family
heard the Gospel? No; the apostle’s obvious meaning is that, the Gospel, instead
of being confined to the land of Judea, had gone abroad, without restraint,
into Gentile lands. So in Romans 1:8: "First, I thank my God through
Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole
world". The apostle is here referring to the faith of these Roman
saints being spoken of in a way of commendation. But certainly all mankind did
not so speak of their faith! It was the whole world of believers that he was
referring to! In Revelation 12:9 we read of Satan "which deceiveth the
whole world". But again this expression cannot be understood as a
universal one, for Matthew 24:24 tells us that Satan does not and cannot "deceive"
God’s elect. Here it is "the whole world" of unbelievers.
In the seventh place,
to insist that "the whole world" in 1 John 2:2 signifies the
entire human race is to undermine the very foundations of our faith. If Christ
is the propitiation for those that are lost equally as much as for those that
are saved, then what assurance have we that believers too may not be lost? If
Christ is the propitiation for those now in hell, what guarantee have I that I
may not end in hell? The blood-shedding of the incarnate Son of God is the only
thing which can keep any one out of hell, and if many for whom that precious
blood made propitiation are now in the awful place of the damned, then may not
that blood prove inefficacious for me! Away with such a God-dishonoring
thought.
However men may
quibble and wrest the Scriptures, one thing is certain: The Atonement is no failure.
God will not allow that precious and costly sacrifice to fail in accomplishing,
completely, that which it was designed to effect. Not a drop of that holy blood
was shed in vain. In the last great Day there shall stand forth no disappointed
and defeated Saviour, but One who "shall see of the travail of His soul
and be satisfied" (Isa. 53:11). These are not our words, but the
infallible assertion of Him who declares, "My counsel shall stand, and
I will do all My pleasure" (Isa. 64:10). Upon this impregnable rock we
take our stand. Let others rest on the sands of human speculation and
twentieth-century theorizing if they wish. That is their business. But to God
they will yet have to render an account. For our part we had rather be railed
at as a narrow-minded, out-of-date, hyper-Calvinist, than be found repudiating
God’s truth by reducing the Divinely-efficacious atonement to a mere fiction.
ENDNOTES:
[1] It is true that many
things in John’s Epistle apply equally to believing Jews and believing
Gentiles. Christ is the Advocate of the one, as much as of the other. The same
may be said of many things in the Epistle of James which is also a catholic, or
general epistle, though expressly addressed to the twelve tribes scattered
abroad.
Principal
Texts Examined:
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