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 labours we are the gainers. While making no claim for
originality the writer, nevertheless, has endeavoured to examine
and deal with his subject from an entirely independent viewpoint.
We have studied diligently the writings of such men as Augustine
and Acquinas, Calvin and Melanethon, Jonathan Edwards and Ralph
Erskine, Andrew Fuller and Robert Haldane
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 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 favourable 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" (
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 minimising, 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 emphasising of the human side and an insufficient emphasis on the Divine side, or, an over emphasising 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 pretensions of men are taking on an ever-increasing blatancy, the need becomes greater for the claims of God to be emphasised. 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 tranquillising and so stabilising 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 realise (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 honour 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 honour," 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 philosophising and theorising 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 (
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" (
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 dishonoured 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 moulded by the Holy Scriptures, for, "faith cometh by
hearing, and hearing by the
Word of God" (
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 fulfilment. 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 honour to whom honour 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 generalisations-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 vigour 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" (
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" (
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" (
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" (
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 appals 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" (
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" (
"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"
(
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? (
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 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" (
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 honour and another unto dishonour. 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 characterises
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"
(
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" (
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" (
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" (
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" (
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" (
In the final analysis, the
exercise of God's love must be 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 a
law 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" (
That the exercise of God's
love is according to His own Sovereign pleasure is also clear from
the language of
God is Sovereign in the exercise of His
grace. This of necessity, for grace
is favour 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 favours 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" (
Grace has been defined as
the unmerited favour of God;
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 honour. So in the New Testament. Divine Truth is hidden from the wise and prudent, but is revealed to babes. The Pharisees and Sadducees 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
favours 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 honour, 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 favours on whom He pleases, often on the most
unlikely and unworthy.
"Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory,
and honour, and power: for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and
were created"
(
Having shown that Sovereignty characterises 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
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" (
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" (
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" (
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" (
"The LORD hath prepared His Throne In the
heavens; and His Kingdom ruleth over all"
(
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"
(
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 fulfils 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" (
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
emphasises 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" (
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" (
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" (
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" (
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 fulfil 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
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 (
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 milch 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" (
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 fulfilment 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 fulfil 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 fulfil 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 judgement-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 casuistry, 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" (
"The disposings (margin) of the
heart, and the answer of the tongue is from the LORD" (
"The king's heart is in the
hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: He turneth it whithersoever He
will (
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" (
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"
(
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 (
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" (
The same is true of
evil spirits:
they, too, fulfil 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 (
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"
(
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."
"O the depths of the riches both of the
wisdom and knowledge of God!
how unsearchable are His judgements, and His ways past finding
out"
(
"Salvation is of the LORD"
(
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" (
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?" (
Faith is God's
gift, and "all
men have not faith" (
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 honour, and another unto dishonour? 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
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" (
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" (
"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 favour 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" (
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" (
"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" (
"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" (
"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" (
"Elect according to the
foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the
Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ"
(
Summarising 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 favours 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" (
"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!"
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" (
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" (
(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"
(
(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 acknowledgement,
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.
(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" (
(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" (
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 judgement: 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" (
If there is one Scripture
more than any other upon which we should be willing to rest our
case it is
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" (
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
"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" (
"But we see Jesus, who was
made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death,
crowned with glory and honour; that He by the grace of God should
taste death for every
man" (
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
"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" (
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" (
That the work of the Holy
Spirit precedes
our believing is unequivocally established by
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" (
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
To return to
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.
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 judgement 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 unrighteousness, 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 (
"Of judgement, 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
judgement. The "judgement" 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 (
"And when He is come, He
will reprove (or, better, "convict"-bring in guilty) the world of
sin, and of righteousness, and of judgement: Of sin, because they
believe not on Me; of righteousness, because I go to My Father, and
ye see Me no more; Of judgement, because the prince of this world
is judged" (
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
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
(
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,
"Behold therefore the goodness and severity
of God"
(
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" (
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 (
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 favoured 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" (
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 innumerable crowds of unevangelised 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 unevangelised 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 favour, but that He might destroy them as the LORD
commanded Moses" (
"The LORD hath made all
things for Himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil"
(
"And then will I profess
unto them, I never knew you: depart from Me, ye that work iniquity"
(
In
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
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"
(
First, we know from
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" (
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 Pharaoh 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 (
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 havePharaoh's own testimony in favour of God
and against himself! In
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 judgements of God, join in singing "the song of
Moses the servant
of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are
Thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are Thy ways, Thou
King of saints" (
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
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
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
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
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 honour and vessels of mercy; and also, on the other hand, with those whom He "hates" and "hardens"-vessels unto dishonour and vessels of wrath.
Verses 21-23.
"Hath not the potter power
over the clay, of the same lump, to make one vessel unto honour,
and another unto dishonour? What if God, willing to shew His wrath,
and to make His power known, endured with 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
Verse 21. "Hath not the potter power over the clay of the same lump, to make one vessel unto honour, 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 honourable 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 honourable use and another to a less honourable 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 summarise 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 judgement 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 honour, and another unto dishonour?" 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 honour, 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 honour" 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
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 symbolised 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.
Though
"What then? That which
Israel seeketh for, that he obtained not, but the election obtained
it, and the rest were hardened" (
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" (
"A Stone of stumbling, and
a Rock of offence, even to them who stumble at the Word, being
disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed" (
"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"
(
"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" (
"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" (
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 dishonour; 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" (
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" (
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 fore-determining 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" (
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" (
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 savour of death unto death; and to the
other we are a savour of life unto life" (
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
Again: if God has chosen
only certain ones to salvation, why are we told that God "now
commandeth all men everywhere to repent" (
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" (
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 judgement,
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" (
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' (
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 favour as He pleases), hath passed by, and foreordained 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
Commenting upon
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 apredestination 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"
(
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 pretensions, 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
judgements 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" (
"For of Him, and
through Him, and to Him, are all things:
to whom be the glory for ever. Amen"
(
Has God foreordained
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" (
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
foreordained 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" (
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
fulfilment 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" (
"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" (
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"
(
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" (
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 recognise the fact that God suspends
these laws and acts apart from them whenever it pleaseth Him to do
so. In sending His blessings or judgements upon His creatures He
may cause the sun itself to stand still, and the stars in their
courses to fight for His people (
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" (
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" (
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,
2. God exerts upon His own elect an energising 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" (
It is this energising 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" (
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" (
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" (
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 honour-"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" (
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 acknowledgement-"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" (
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
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 favour in
his sight and he made him overseer over 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" (
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 practised 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" (
"The king's heart is in the
hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: He turneth it
whithersoever He will" (
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 travelling 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" (
Another equally striking
illustration of God directing
the wicked is found in
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
fulfilment 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
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 recognise 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" (
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" (
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 honour 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 honour upon Pharaoh, upon his
chariots, and upon his horsemen" (
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" (
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" (
Nor is the revelation of
this solemn truth confined to the Old Testament. In
Similarly we read in
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 energising, 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" (
"It is God which
worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure"
(
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 disfavour 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" (
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" (
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 (
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" (
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 co-operation with the Spirit;
but this would flatly contradict
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 (
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
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 - 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 analyse 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 judgement 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
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
centre 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" (
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
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" (
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" (
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" (
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" (
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 (
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" (
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, co-operate 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 inactive, 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
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
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" (
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 (
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 (
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" (
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).
"So then every
one of us shall give account of himself to God"
(
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" (
'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 recognised that the harmonising 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 honouring 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
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 philosophisings 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
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" (
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 thraldom
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" (
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" (
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 thraldom 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
For the sinner to come to Christ that he might have life is for him to realise 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 "judgement"; 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 agonise 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 favour; 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 realise 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
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" (
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" (
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" (
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 judgement 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 defence, "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 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" (
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" (
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" (
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" (
In the second place, it is
the duty of every
sinner to search the Scriptures which "are able to make thee wise
unto salvation" (
"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 (
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 censurable, 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 (
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
Come now to the New
Testament. Take such passages as
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" (
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" (
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" (
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" (
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 judgement: and the meek will He teach His way" (
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" (
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
In
"If we ask anything according to His will, He
heareth us"
(
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 dishonour 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 moulded 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 moulded 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 moulded 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
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?" (
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, revolutionised, 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
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 colour 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
honoured. God
requires we should recognise that He is, indeed, "the
high and
lofty One that
inhabiteth eternity" (
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 honouring 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 realisation of our nothingness and unworthiness. Again;
prayer is designed by God for the exercise of our faith. Faith
is begotten in the Word (
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" (
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" (
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 (
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" (
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"
(
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 dishonouring 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
Turn to
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" (
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" (
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 acknowledgement 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 epitomise 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
Our main purpose in this
chapter has been to emphasise 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" (
"Even so,
Father: for so it seemed good in Thy sight"
(
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 recognise 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" (
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" (
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 colour 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" (
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" (
"The fear of the LORD is the
beginning of knowledge" (
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" (
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 realisation 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" (
Now if irreverence begets
disobedience, true reverence will produce and promote obedience. To
realise 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 recognise 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" (
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 recognised God's Sovereignty, such murmuring is silenced, and instead, there is a bowing to the Divine will and an acknowledgement 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
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 recognise
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" (
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 recognise that the Divine Potter has absolute
power over the clay and moulds 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 vapour, 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" (
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" (
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" (
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
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 death of the Cross" (
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" (
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 pre-eminence. 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" (
What a beautiful and
striking illustration of Christ's thankfulness and joy is found in
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 recognised 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 realise 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 realisation 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 Guyon, 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 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?"
(
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 harmonise 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 honouring 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" (
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 neutralise 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" (
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
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" (
Again; we read in
Again; in
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" (
In the same way we
understand the words of
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
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!" (
Perhaps we should link up
with Christ's lament over Jerusalem in
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 favourite 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 popularise this concept.
It has been customary to
say God loves the sinner though He hates his sin.
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" (
Turning now to
But the objector comes back
to
Now the first thing to note
in connection with
In
One more: in
In like manner, the "world"
in
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
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" (
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.
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
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" (
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" (
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" (
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 fulfil them.
Second, repentance and
remission of sins are to be preached in the name of the Lord Jesus
"among all the nations" (
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" (
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" (
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
harmonise 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"
(
- 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" (
"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"
(
"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" (
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"
(
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 centre 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 old 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" (
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 judgements,
and His ways past finding
out!" (
It makes known the
irreversibleness of His
will. "Known unto God are all His works from the
beginning of the world" (
It magnifies His grace. Grace is unmerited favour, 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 favour. 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" (
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 instils 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" (
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" (
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"
(
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" (
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" (
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" (
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 moulded by His will
according to His eternal purpose! "Behold, He taketh away, who can
hinder Him? who will say unto Him what doest Thou?" (
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, and
perfect will of
God" (
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
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 favour 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" (
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."
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 favours! 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" (
"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."
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" (
"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?" (
"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' (
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" (
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?" (
"Alleluia: for
the Lord God omnipotent reigneth"
(
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-emphasising the one and ignoring the other, we readily admit; yea, history furnishes numerous examples of cases of each. To emphasise 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 dishonour 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" (
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 labour 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
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" (
When the Son of God became
incarnate He came here in "the form of a servant" (
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?" (
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"
(
In the foregoing pages we
have sought to repudiate such paganistic views as the
above-mentioned, and have endeavoured 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 fore-announced (
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" (
What a demonstration of the
irresistible Sovereignty of God is furnished by that wonderful
statement found in
"For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil
His will, and to agree, and give
their kingdom unto the Beast, until the words of God shall be
fulfilled" (
Closely connected with
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?" (
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
(
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" (
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 realisation 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 wrapped 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 (
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" (
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" (
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"
(
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 labours. 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.
"Alleluia:
for the Lord God
omnipotent reigneth" (
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.
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 crossed, 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"
(
The secret will of God is His eternal, unchanging purpose
concerning all things which He bath 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" (
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
(
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.
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
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 he ought 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
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. Godwards, 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" (
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 I, 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 excuseless. 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" (
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" (
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 the
Governor of sin: His will determines its exercise, His power
regulates its bounds (
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
over-ruling 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 acknowledgement 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" (
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" (
It may appear to some of our readers that the exposition we
have given of
Many people suppose they already know the simple meaning of
"Kosmos" is used of the
Universe as a whole:
"Kosmos" is used of the
earth:
"Kosmos" is used of the
world-system:
"Kosmos" is used of the whole
human race:
"Kosmos" is used of humanity
minus believers:
"Kosmos" is used of Gentiles
in contrast from Jews:
"Kosmos" is used of believers
only:
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
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" (
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
In the second place, if
other passages in the New Testament which speak of "propitiation,"
be compared with
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" (
(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
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
|
|
|
|
"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
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
In the seventh place, to
insist that "the whole world" in
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" (