Rainbow on Calvin, the Will of God and the Gospel Offer

Here is a short section from Jonathan Rainbow’s work The Will of God and The Cross: An Historical and Theological Study of John Calvin’s Doctrine of Limited Redemption.

The Universal Offer of the Gospel

Calvin clearly articulated a universal saving will of God that was conditional on faith, which consisted of the universal offer of the gospel through preaching … Calvin stressed that the gospel, and in it the benefits of Christ’s passion and death, are offered to all men.  In such contexts Calvin made it clear that “all” means all men individually.  Calvin the Latinist provided Calvin the theologian with a variety of terms to articulate this doctrine:  the gospel is offered (offertur) to all, propounded (proponitur) to all, set forth (expositum esse) to all, and proclaimed (publicando) to all.  These terms all denoted for Calvin the public preaching of the gospel through the agency of men.  By this agency God invites (invitare) and calls (vocare) all men to salvation.  That “all” means all individual men Calvin indicated by the adverbs indifferenter, promiscue, and sine exceptione which almost always occurred in such statements.

Calvin usually coupled his affirmations of this universal gospel offer with the reminder that only the elect actually receive the gospel.  For the public offer of the gospel comes always with the demand for faith, and only the elect have faith.  So Calvin saw God here operating in two circles of human beings, one the larger circle of all to whom the gospel is publically offered through preaching, and the other smaller circle of those who believe, the elect.  This preached word is a kind of net cast into humanity at large which catches the elect and lets the reprobate slip back through.  So there was in this sense in Calvin’s theology a “twofold will” of God.  [C.f. commentaries on Ezek 18:23, 2 Pet 3:9, Matt 23:37.] … The universal offer of the gospel for Calvin was only and simply the public preaching of the gospel to all men; it was the will of God “which is manifested by the nature of the word, and is merely to invite by the outward voice of  man.”  If asked how such an offer can be made to every individual when God’s saving work and will do not extend to every individual, Calvin would not pretend to know.  It is simply how God reveals himself.

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Now whilst Rainbow does not say everything that can be said in this short section he draws out a number of vital points:

• It is impossible to say the older reformed theologians ment only present/command by offer – look at the actual terms Calvin uses (including invite).
• For Calvin the gospel is a particular offer to every hearer.
• For Calvin it is possible to speak of the (revealed) will of God for the salvation of all.
• Calvin accepts the testimony of scripture and does not reject it because he cannot rationalise it i.e. he understands the finite cannot comprehend the infinite, that is the distinction between archetypal and ectypal theology.

“The Nature and Danger of Heresies”

Obadiah Sedgewick (1599/1600-1658) preached a sermon before parliament with the above title.  This is an interesting work from both a historical (he has a couple of lists of errors troubling the church) and theological (defining heresy etc).  I may post his list of errors as it is enlightening and edifying.  Here is his stirring conclusion on how ministers should respond in the face of heresy:

I have also a word to say to you who are Ministers of the Gospel of Christ: Come you forth from your long silences, neglects and reserves: and help the Church of Christ, in swallowing up the flood which the Serpent hath cast out of his mouth: when Jesus Christ is blasphemed, it is not a time to fear, but to cry out … Men will  say that you are moderate and discreet, but what will Christ say to you, if at such a time you be silent in his cause?  Oh my brethren! you are the husbandmen, take heed that none sow tares in the field, whiles you sleep: you are the builders, O be sure to preserve the foundation safe: you are the shepherds of the flock, O beware of the wolves, lest they break in and destroy the sheep!  … You are the watchmen, O look out, lest the enemy slip in and surprise the city!  You are the fathers, be sure that your children have not a stone given to them instead of bread, or a serpent instead of fish.

You must help with your most fervent prayers: as Alexander once did, and prevailed against Arius: You must help with your counsels, with your watchings, with your preachings … You must … stand for truth, and withstand errors:  You are (in a singular manner) intrusted with truth and souls.  O watch, O pray, O preach, O do all that faithful ministers should do, when a flood breaks in: You read of Elijah’s zeal against the false prophets, and of Paul’s zeal against false Apostles: You have read of the zeal of Athanasius against the Arians: and of the zeal of Cyprian against the Novatians: and of the zeal of Austine against the Manichees, and against the Pelagians: You have read of the zeal of Hierome, of Chrysostome, of Nazianzen, and many others in ancient times: You have read of the zeal of Luther, and Calvin, and others in later times.  Ou have shewed your zeal to the Kingdom in our dangerous times; I say no more, remember your first works, remember your engagements and be zealous: If you who are the Angels of Christ, the Ministers of Christ, the stewards of Christ, if you be drowzie, if you be silent, if you stop your own mouths when mouths are opened against your Christ, whose mouth can we expect should open it self to swallow up the flood?

“this Error of seeking Righteousness by our Works”

One doctrine the 17th century Scottish theologians got right (among many!) was justification.  While England was being troubled by both neonomianism on the one hand and antinomianism on the other the Presbyterian leaders of the Scottish church avoided both extremes.  It was the entrance of the dead faith of moderatism that paved the way for the neonomianism of Baxter to enter the Scottish Church.  It was this the Marrowmen did so much to fight against.  But among the mid 17th Century leaders of the Scottish church all was well.  Here is David Dickson opposing the error of those seeking to add “works righteousness” to justification:

Unto this Error of seeking Righteousness by our Works, after entering in the way of Justification by Grace, we are all naturally inclined; for, the Covenant of Works is so engraven in all Adam’s Children, Do this and live, that hardly can we renounce this way of Justification, and howsoever it be impossible to attain Righteousness this way, yet hardly can we submit our selves to the Righteousness by Faith in Christ, which not only the Expereince of Israel after the Flesh maketh manifest, but also the Experience of the Galatians lets us see; for, they having once outwardly renounced Justification by Works, and embraced the Covenant of gracious Reconciliation by Faith in Jesus, did turn about for a time, to seek Justification by the Works of the Law, and were on the way of falling from Grace and Communion…
David Dickson, Therapeutica Sacra (Edinburgh: Evan Tyler, 1664), 298.

Why is justification a perennial issue for the Christians?  Because we are all by nature inclined to want to add something to our justification.  Dickson’s example of the Galatians gives all a stark warning against this tendency:

…the Galatians, who having begun in the spiritual way of Justification by Faith, sought to be perfected by the fleshly way of Justification by works, and did fall in danger of falling from Grace and excluding themselves from the blessing of the promise through Christ.
Dickson, Thereputica Sacra, 746.

But what of the teaching of James.  Dickson accounts for this well:

…the Gospel doth not teach us to seek the Justification of our Persons before God by Works, but by Faith in Christ, and then teacheth us to seek the Justification of our Faith before Men in our own and others Conscience, by the sincere endeavour of new Obedience…
Dickson, Thereputica Sacra, 315-6

May we all be enabled to hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering (WLC Q&A 70):

What is justification?

Justification is an act of God’s free grace unto sinners, in which he pardons all their sins, accepts and accounts their persons righteous in his sight; not for any thing wrought in them, or done by them, but only for the perfect obedience and full satisfaction of Christ, by God imputed to them, and received by faith alone.

Grace in the Garden?

Following up the discussion at Meet the Puritans Samuel Rutherford explains as follows (note particularly his third point):

In all pactions between the Lord and man, even in a Law-Covenant there is some outbreakings of grace.  It is true, there was no Gospel-Grace, that is a fruit of Christ’s merit in this Covenant.  But yet if grace be taken for undeserved goodness: There are these respects of grace.  1. That God might have given to Adam something inferior to the glorious image of God, that consists in true righteousness, knowledge of God, and holiness, Gen 1:26, Eph 4:24, Col 3:10 … 2. Being and dominion over the creatures is of undeserved goodness … 3. The Covenant of Works itself, that God out of sovereignty does not command, is undeserved condescending; that God bargains for hire, do this and live, whereas he may … [as] Sovereign Lawgiver … charge and command us, is overcoming goodness.  Law is honeyed with love, and hire; it is mercy that for our penny of obedience, so rich a wage as communion with God is given…”
Samuel Rutherford, The Covenant of Life Opened: Or, A Treatise on the Covenant of Grace (Edinburgh: Robert Broun for Andrew Anderson), 35.

Brings a helpful balance to this debate I think.  Whatever the exact view of the word “grace” in reference to the garden of Eden surely the substance of what Rutherford says is correct.

The blog will hopefully be up and running again now.  It has been a very busy time trying to finish off the thesis, work as hectic as ever and the general rush of life!

Coming to a journal near you soon…

The blog will be back soon.  I’m almost done on a brief post on Durham’s view of the Mosaic economy and its relation to the covenant of grace.  Things are very busy at the moment as I’m frantically trying to finish writing things up on the thesis front.  It is going well but today has been frustratingly slow.  Simply too much material, way too much material.

Anyway take a peek at the contents of the 2009 Confessional Presbyterian Journal and you will see that the name of James Durham makes an appearence – http://www.cpjournal.com/.  This is also the second year in a row that there is a substantial article on Rutherford which can only be a good thing!

Durham on Christ and Old Testament Believers

I’m frantically trying to finish off an essay on James Durham and the Song of Solomon for the Confessional Presbyterian Journal (nine thousand words down - a few more to go).  One of the objections he considers to reading the Song through the lens of “Christ and the church” is that it would have been impossible for an OT believer to read the Song like that as, well, Christ had not come yet.  Here is my understanding of what Durham has to say on the matter:

The second objection Durham raises is that some might argue reading the Song as an allegory of Christ’s love to his church is to “make this Song look more like the gospel of the New Testament, than a song of the old.” His answer to this objection is forthright and depends heavily on the underlying unity of the covenant of grace. He states that Old Testament believers had “the same gospel” as New Testament believers and that “their faith and communion with God stood not in outward ceremonies, which were typical; but in the exercise of inward graces, faith, love, &c. which are the same now as then.” He goes on to argue that Christ was the “same” to believers in the Old Testament and in the New. They had “the same [S]pirit, covenant, &c. and so the same cases and experiences … [as] are also applicable to us now.” The fact that Christ had not yet come in the flesh did not mean that Old Testament believers had “another gospel, covenant, faith, yea, nor church; we being grafted in that same stock which they once grew upon, being by faith heirs of the same promises, which some time they possessed.”

Anyway – back to writing the essay!

Christianity and Liberalism (on the Gospel Offer)

Christianity and Liberalism by J. Gresham Machen is one of those books I turn to again and again.  Who is not stirred by passages such as “After listening to the modern tirades against the great creeds of the Church, one receives rather a shock when one turns to the Westminster Confession, for example … and discovers that in doing so one has turned from shallow modern phrases to a ‘dead orthodoxy’ that is pulsating with life in every word.  In such orthodoxy there is life enough to set the whole world aglow with Christian love.”  Who can fail to echo Machen’s prayer “God send us ministers who instead of merely avoiding denying the cross shall be on fire with the cross, whose whole life shall be one burning sacrifice of  gratitude to the blessed Saviour who loved them and gave Himself for them.”  Who does not know from sad experience the truth that “[Under liberalism] the only authority, then, can be individual experience; truth can only be that which ‘helps’ the individual man.  Such an authority is obviously no authority as all; for individual experience is endlessly diverse, and when one truth is regarded only as that which works at any particular time, it ceases to be truth.  The result is an abysmal skepticism.”  The message of Christianity and Liberalism is as needed in our day as it was when Machen wrote it – if not more so!

Reading through my notes on C&L recently I was particularly struck by one sentence “The present is a time not for ease or pleasure, but for earnest and prayerful work.”  In the wealth and freedom of our western reformed Churches, and in my own life, do the scales balance on the side of “ease and pleasure” or on the side of “earnest and prayerful work”?  Anyway, this was a challenge which gave me pause for thought.

To keep this rambling post related to the topic of the thesis here are some quotes from C&L which touch on the proclamation of the free offer of the gospel.

From the beginning Christianity was a campaign of witnessing.

The old theologians recognised … the … doctrine of “common grace.”  There is something in the world even apart from Christianity which restrains the worst manifestations of evil … it is certainly a great principle.

If we really love our fellow-men we shall never be content with binding up their wounds or pouring on oil and wine or rendering them any such lesser service.  We shall indeed do such things for them.  But the main business of our lives will be to bring them to the Saviour of their souls.

Every man who has been truly redeemed from sin longs to carry to others the same blessed gospel through which he himself  has been saved.  The propagation of the gospel is clearly the joy as well as the duty of every Christian man.

Ryken on Puritan Preaching

The Westminster Confession into the 21st Century series has been something of a mixed bag (as multi-author sets tend to be) but here is a good quote from Philip Ryken on the Puritan understanding of preaching:

The way the law leads men to Christ is by showing them that they will surely perish without him.  “Make known to the lost sheep the utter misery of their condition outside of Christ.  No one ever comes to Christ who stands on his own.  The Prodigal does not race back to his father until he has to, lest he perish on his own.”  While the law shows the sheep that they are lost, only the gospel will bring them home, and thus all preaching is to be evangelistic.  The main work of the gospel minister is to preach Christ, who is “the Alpha and Omega of the ministry.”  To preach Christ is to take his person, his work, and his benefits and offer them freely to sinners.
Philip Ryken, ‘Oliver Bowles and the Westminster View of the Gospel Ministry’ in J. Ligon Duncan, ed., The Westminster Confession into the 21st Century, 2:421-2

Ryken here is writing on Oliver Bowles’ De Pastore Evangelico -  a work Durham was familiar with.  We have seen comments similar to Ryken’s before:

The Puritans did not regard evangelistic sermons as a special class of sermons, having their own peculiar style and conventions; the Puritan position was, rather, that, since all Scripture bears witness to Christ, and all sermons should aim to expound and apply what is in the Bible, all proper sermons would of necessity declare Christ and so be to some extent evangelistic. 
‘The Puritan View of Preaching the Gospel’, How Shall They Hear?, Papers Read at the Puritan and Reformed Studies Conference, December 1959, p 11-21, Rept. Tentmaker

Who knows – Ryken and Packer might be right

It’s been a long time…

So I’ve been away from the blog for a long time.  We moved house, twice (kind of), in the past few weeks, then there was a (successful) week long fishing holiday and now I’m in America for work so I have had neither the time, not the ability, to blog.  I’ll get back to posting regularly next week, DV, but for now my only news is that my article ‘James Durham and the Free Offer of the Gospel’ has been accepted for publication in the Puritan Reformed Journal December edition (sadly it was not in early enough to make the June edition).

Durham’s Top Five Theological Opponets

The list below contains what Durham regarded as the top 5 major theological errors if we judge by volume of references in his writing/strength of his language when mentioned (not in descending order):

1) Socinianism

They were “the enemies of Christ’s satisfaction,” “blasphemers” and “wretched.” Indeed so far had they sunk into error that they “are not worthy to be disputed with, nor accounted Christians; but rather to be joined with, and reckoned among, Heathens, or the followers of Mahomet…”

2) Arminians

Arminians were the “enemies of grace” who made conversion dependent not of the sovereignty of God but “on man’s fee will.” Durham felt it was easy to demonstrate “how dangerous and damnable this error is.” Arminians indeed deserved to be listed among “’the most gross heretics of old and of late.” Durham’s opposition to Arminianism arose in part from his belief that Arminian tenets “overthrow the design of grace in the salvation of sinners.”

3) Popery

To cite just two examples:

“… that blasphemous conceit and fancy of the Papists, who account their abominable Mass a propitiatory sacrifice … which … is most horrid blasphemy…”

“… nothing doth more natively breed anxiety and spiritual torment than the principles contained in the Popish Doctrine…”

4) Antinomianism

In some respects an opposite error to Popery, “…the Antinomians … make all sanctification to be justification … the Papists make all justification to be sanctification; therefore we would learn to distinguish these two, yet not so as to separate them.”  They get particluar criticism each time Durham broaches their view of justification.

5) Sects

Particulary “that foolery of Quakers.”  They didn’t hold back in their polemics in these days!