Recently in the News,
I have been explaining the truth of God’s irresistible grace (vol. XV,
issues 3-4) in response to a brother who wanted assistance in his
discussions with an Arminian. The Arminian claimed that grace can be
resisted. This error leads to another error: all men receive grace to
accept Christ. This, in turn, leads to another error: Christ died for
everybody, head for head.
The brother wrote, “The argument of the Arminian in
connection with John 12:47 is ‘Grace is not irresistible, because otherwise the
whole world would be saved ... This text is good [i.e., proves the point]
because it gives no chance to the Calvinist to say that the word “world” means
“world of the elect ...” The text cannot be talking about the internal or
external call. The text says that Jesus came to save the world.’”
The question we face, therefore, is whether or not the
Scriptures teach that Christ died for every person, head for head, so that by
His death Christ made salvation available to every person who ever lives. This,
according to those who claim that Christ did die for every human being, is
taught by Scripture’s use of the words “world” and “all” when they are used in
connection with His cross. The main texts to which appeal is made are John
3:16, I Timothy 2:4, I John 2:2 and such like verses.
It is interesting that these passages have all been quoted
by those who make salvation dependent upon the will of man. This has been the
case since the early history of the church. The Semi-Pelagians were guilty of
this. Roman Catholicism taught and teaches this doctrine. Although none of the
Reformers taught any such thing, the Arminians and Amyraldians taught it. As
Arminianism swept Europe and America, the same doctrine became the common view
of a church that was falling away from the truth.
But the historical fact is that the Reformers, the great
synods of Dordt (1618-1619) and Westminster in the 1640s, and the best
theologians in the Reformed and Presbyterian traditions rejected such
perversions of the truth. With one accord, they explained the texts in question
in a way agreeable to the whole of Scripture and in keeping with the truth of
God’s sovereignty. The interpretations of the words “world” and “all” have
always been the interpretations of heretics and Roman Catholics with their
perverted religion of salvation by the will and works of man.
The word “all” that is found in such passages as I Timothy
2:4 has consistently been understood as referring to all classes and all kinds
of people, and not everyone head for head. This interpretation is in keeping
with the whole of Scripture and makes most sense in the immediate context. It
defines the church as truly catholic, that is, gathered from the entire world.
We use the word “all” in the same sense. I read an article in a local newspaper
which described a bad fire and remarked, “All of the city were at the fire.”
People from hospitals? New-born babies? Aged folk who are bed-ridden? Obviously
not. The statement meant: “People from all parts of the city.”
In many places, the word “world” has been interpreted
correctly as referring to believers: the world of believers. This is the
context of the verses themselves, as anyone who reads John 3:16 can learn by
himself. The text needs no interpretation if one explains God’s Word by the
well-known rule: Scripture interprets Scripture. Spurgeon has well said, “There
is nowhere in the Bible where the word ‘world’ means all men head for head.”
You can find quotations from a long list of theologians who
held firmly to the Scriptures and did not try to twist it to suit their own fancies
on the website of the Covenant Protestant Reformed Church
(www.cprf.co.uk/calvinismresources.htm). That web page also contains a link to
a manuscript that I wrote (The History of the Free Offer) that will, in revised
form, soon be published, DV. It provides quotations, beginning with Augustine
(354-430) and throughout the whole history of the church, that reject the
interpretation that Christ died for all men absolutely.
The true meaning of the word “world,” when used positively
of mankind, is, as Scripture teaches, the world of eternal election and
sovereign salvation: the universal church of all believers. God chose us
individually so that our names are written in the book of life. God gave us to
Christ who died for us (read the whole of John 17 for it is powerful). We are
brought into the church by the work of the ascended Christ, through His Spirit,
who gathers, defends, preserves and saves to the uttermost those given Him of
His Father. We are the true world. We are called that because we are redeemed
and saved from every nation, tribe, country, race and people in the world. We
are destined to live with Christ forever.
Furthermore, the word “world” reminds us that God saves the
entire cosmos, the universe, the whole creation. He created it; He loves it as
His own work; He will not let Satan and the wicked world take it from Him; He
will glorify it along with His people. That is the “cosmos,” the cosmos of
God’s eternal purpose (Rom. 8:19-23; Gen. 9:8-17; Col. 1:13-20).
But there is more. Those who claim that Christ died for all
men destroy the cross. That is a terrible sin.
Consider: If the Arminian is right, Christ shed His precious
blood for people who are never saved. If Christ’s blood, shed on Calvary,
cannot save those for whom He died, it can save no one. It has been well said,
“A Christ for everyone is a Christ for no one.” Those who teach this must be
careful that they do not crucify the Son of God afresh, because for them there
is no repentance (Heb. 6:4-6).
Consider: If only those are saved who by their own free will
agree to be saved by believing in Christ, then salvation is dependent on us and
God cannot do anything without our consent and help. Such subtracts from the
infinitely powerful One who does all His good pleasure (Ps. 115:3; 135:6). It
is not the true God revealed in the Scriptures, but a god of man’s imagination,
an idol.
Consider that the one and only God of all glory now shares
His glory with puny, sinful, wicked man because God can do nothing without
man’s help (Eph. 2:8-10)!
Consider: Such terrible views of God make the church a
motley throng, a mob, a mass of people, a crowd of those who happen to decide
to believe in Christ; when, in fact, the church is a glorious temple in which
each elect saint has his own eternally prepared place (Eph. 2:20-22; I Pet.
2:4-8).
Consider: When all the nations of the earth are as
grasshoppers in God’s sight (Isa. 40:22), less than a speck of dust in the
balance or a drop hanging on the outside rim of a bucket (15)—and totally
depraved as well—that the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth
(28), the Wholly Other, the God of infinite perfection, the God of glory
greater than all the universe, is dependent on me. It makes me shiver in horror
to write it.
Let every Arminian remember that he must stand before the
judgment seat of Christ and answer especially this one question: What did you
do with Christ? Do you want to be among those who say, “I made Christ an
ineffectual Saviour who depended on human help?” I for one have no need of such
a Saviour. I need one who can save by power that is divine.
Prof. Herman Hanko
Canons of Dordt II, Of the Death of Christ and the
Redemption of Men Thereby
Article 8. For this was the sovereign counsel and most
gracious will and purpose of God the Father, that the quickening and saving
efficacy of the most precious death of His Son should extend to all the elect,
for bestowing upon them alone the gift of justifying faith, thereby to bring
them infallibly to salvation; that is, it was the will of God that Christ by
the blood of the cross, whereby He confirmed the new covenant, should
effectually redeem out of every people, tribe, nation, and language all those,
and those only, who were from eternity chosen to salvation and given to Him by
the Father; that He should confer upon them faith, which, together with all the
other saving gifts of the Holy Spirit, He purchased for them by His death;
should purge them from all sin, both original and actual, whether committed
before or after believing; and, having faithfully preserved them even to the
end, should at last bring them free from every spot and blemish to the
enjoyment of glory in His own presence forever.
Article 9. This purpose, proceeding from everlasting love
towards the elect, has from the beginning of the world to this day been
powerfully accomplished, and will henceforward still continue to be
accomplished, notwithstanding all the ineffectual opposition of the gates of
hell, so that the elect in due time may be gathered together into one, and that
there never may be wanting a church composed of believers, the foundation of
which is laid in the blood of Christ, which may steadfastly love and faithfully
serve Him as their Saviour, who as a bridegroom for His bride, laid down His
life for them upon the cross, and which may celebrate His praises here and
through all eternity.
Covenant Reformed News
October 2014, Volume XV, Issue 6
http://www.cprf.co.uk/crnews/crnoctober2014.html#Christdie
www.cprc.co.uk www.facebook.com/CovenantPRC
Probably you have been told at some time or other
that God loves you and that Christ died for you. You may then have even
decided that things cannot be so bad. True, the Bible talks about
punishment for all those who do not believe in Christ, but if God loves
everyone and if Christ died for everyone, then there really is no need
to worry, is there?
