THE FIVE POINTS CALVINISM (CONTINUED, PART 4)
by R.L. Dabney
Others urge this captious objection: that this doctrine of election places a fatal obstacle between the anxious sinner and saving faith. They ask, How can I exercise a sincere, appropriating faith, unless I have ascertained that I am elected? For the reprobate soul is not entitled to believe that Christ died for him, and as his salvation is impossible, the truest faith could not save him even if he felt it. But how can man as certain God's secret purpose of election toward him?
This cavil expressly falsifies God's teachings concerning salvation by faith. As concerning his election the sinner is neither commanded nor invited to embrace as the object of his faith the proposition "I am elected." There is no such command in the Bible. The proposition he is invited and commanded to embrace is this: "Whosoever believes shall be saved." (Rom. x. 11.) God has told this caviler expressly, "Secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to you and your children, that ye may do all the words of this law." (Deut. xxix. 29.) Let us not cavil, but obey. God's promises also assure us "that whosoever cometh unto God through Christ, he will in no wise cast off" (John vi. 37). So that it is impossible that any sinner really wishing to be saved can be kept from salvation by uncertainty about his own election. When we add that God's decree in no wise infringes man's free agency, our answer is complete. Confession, Chapter III., Section 1., by this decree, "No violence is offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established."
But it is stubbornly objected that those who are subject to a sovereign, immutable decree cannot be free agents; that the two propositions are contradictory, and the assertion of both an insult to reason. We explained that there are various means by which we see free agents prompted to action, which are not compulsory, and yet certain of effect, and that our God is a God of infinite wisdom and resources. God tells them that in governing his rational creatures according to his eternal purpose, he uses only such means as are consistent with their freedom. Still, the arrogant objectors are positive that it cannot be done, even by an infinite God! that if there is predestination, there cannot be free-agency. Surely the man who makes this denial should be himself infinite!
But, perhaps, the best answer to this folly is this: Mr. Arminian, you, a puny mortal, are actually doing, and that often, the very thing you say an almighty God cannot do! Predestining the acts of free-agents, certainly and efficiently, without their freedom. For instance : Mr. Arminian invites me to dine with him at one o'clock P.M. I reply, yes, provided dinner is punctual and certain, because I have to take a railroad train at two P.M. He promises positively that dinner shall be ready at one P.M. How so, will he cook it himself? Oh, no! But he employs a steady cook, named Gretchen, and he has already instructed her that one P.M. must be the dinner hour.
That is predestination he tells me, certain and efficacious.
I now take up Mr. Arminian's argument, and apply it to Gretchen thus: He says predestination and free-agency are contradictory. He predestinated you, Gretchen, to prepare dinner for one o'clock, therefore you were not a free agent in getting dinner. Moreover, as there can be no moral desert where there is no freedom, you have not deserved your promised wages for cooking, and Mr. Arminian thinks he is not at all bound to pay you.
Gretchen's common sense replies thus: I know I am a free agent; I am no slave, no machine, but a free woman, and an honest woman, who got dinner at one o'clock because I chose to keep my word; and if Mr. Arminian robs me of my wages on this nasty pretext, I will know he is a rogue.
Gretchen's logic is perfectly good.
My argument is, that men are perpetually predestinating and efficiently procuring free acts of free agents. How much more may an infinite God do likewise. But this reasoning need not, and does not, imply that God's ways of doing it are the same as ours.
His resources of wisdom and power are manifold, infinite. Thus this popular cavil is shown to be as silly and superficial as it is common. It is men's sinful pride of will which makes them repeat such shallow stuff:
Having exploded objections, I now close this argument for election with the strongest of all the testimonies, the Scriptures. The Bible is full of it; all of God's prophecies imply predestination, because, unless he had foreordained the predicted events, he could not be certain they would come to pass. The Bible doctrine of God's providence proves predestination, because the Bible says providence extends to everything, and is certain and omnipotent, and it only executes what predestination plans. Here are a few express texts among a hundred: Ps. xxxiii. 11: "The counsel of the Lord standeth forever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations." Is. xlvi.10: God declareth "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." God's election of Israel was unconditional. See Ezek. xvi. 6: "And when I passed by thee and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live." Acts xiii. 48: "When the Gentiles heard this... as many as were ordained to eternal life believed." Rom. viii. 29, 30: "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate... Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called, and whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified." Eph. I. 4-7: "He hath chosen us in him (Christ) before the foundation of the world," etc. I Thess. I. 4: "Knowing, brethren, beloved, your election of God." Rev. xxi. 27 "....They that are written in the Lamb's book of life."
Silly people try to say that election is the doctrine of that harsh apostle Paul. But the loving Savior teaches it more expressly if possible than Paul does. See, again, John xv. 16: "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you," etc. John vi. 37: "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me," etc.; see also verses 39, 44; Matt. xxiv. 22; Luke xviii. 7; John x. 14, 28; Mark xiii. 22; Matt. xx. 16.IV. PARTICULAR REDEMPTION
"Did Christ die for the elect only, or for all men?" The answer has been much prejudiced by ambiguous terms, such as "particular atonement," "limited atonement," or "general atonement," "unlimited atonement," "indefinite atonement." What do they mean by atonement? The word (at-one-ment) is used but once in the New Testament (Rom. v. 11), and there it means expressly and exactly reconciliation. This is proved thus: the same Greek word in the next verse, carrying the very same meaning, is translated reconciliation. Now, people continually mix two ideas when they say atonement: One is, that of the expiation for guilt provided in Christ's sacrifice. The other is, the individual reconciliation of a believer with his God, grounded on that sacrifice made by Christ once for all, but actually effectuated only when the sinner believes and by faith. The last is the true meaning of atonement, and in that sense every atonement (at-one-ment). Reconciliation, must be individual, particular, and limited to this sinner who now believes. There have already been just as many atonements as there are true believers in heaven and earth, each one individual.
But sacrifice, expiation, is one--the single, glorious, indivisible act of the divine Redeemer, infinite and inexhaustible in merit. Had there been but one sinner, Seth, elected of God, this whole divine sacrifice would have been needed to expiate his guilt. Had every sinner of Adam's race been elected, the same one sacrifice would be sufficient for all. We must absolutely get rid of the mistake that expiation is an aggregate of gifts to be divided and distributed out, one piece to each receiver, like pieces of money out of a bag to a multitude of paupers. Were the crowd of paupers greater, the bottom of the bag would be reached before every pauper got his alms, and more money would have to be provided. I repeat, this notion is utterly false as applied to Christ's expiation, because it is a divine act. It is indivisible, inexhaustible, sufficient in itself to cover the guilt of all the sins that will ever be committed on earth. This is the blessed sense in which the Apostle John says (1st Epistle ii. 2): "Christ is the propitiation (the same word as expiation) for the sins of the whole world."
But the question will be pressed, "Is Christ's sacrifice limited by the purpose and design of the Trinity"? The best answer for Presbyterians to make is this: In the purpose and design of the Godhead, Christ's sacrifice was intended to effect just the results, and all the results, which would be found flowing from it in the history of redemption. I say this is exactly the answer for us Presbyterians to make, because we believe in God's universal predestination as certain and efficacious; so that the whole final outcome of his plan must be the exact interpretation of what his plan was at first. And this statement the Arminian also is bound to adopt, unless he means to charge God with ignorance, weakness, or fickleness. Search and see.
Well, then, the realized results of Christ's sacrifice are not one, but many and various:- 1. It makes a display of God's general benevolence and pity towards all lost sinners, to the glory of his infinite grace. For, blessed be his name, he says, "I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth."
- 2. Christ's sacrifice has certainly purchased for the whole human race a merciful postponement of the doom incurred by our sins, including all the temporal blessings of our earthly life, all the gospel restraints upon human depravity, and the sincere offer of heaven to all. For, but for Christ, man's doom would have followed instantly after his sin, as that of the fallen angels did.
- 3. Christ's sacrifice, willfully rejected by men, sets the stubbornness, wickedness and guilt of their nature in a much stronger light, to the glory of God's final justice.
- 4. Christ's sacrifice has purchased and provided for the effectual calling of the elect, with all the graces which insure their faith, repentance, justification, perseverance, and glorification. Now, since the sacrifice actually results in all these different consequences, they are all included in God's design. This view satisfies all those texts quoted against us.
But we cannot admit that Christ died as fully and in the same sense for Judas as he did for Saul of Tarsus. Here we are bound to assert that, while the expiation is infinite, redemption is particular. The irrefragable grounds on which we prove that the redemption is particular are these: From the doctrines of unconditional election, and the covenant of grace. (The argument is one, for the covenant of grace is but one aspect of election.) The Scriptures tell us that those who are to be saved in Christ are a number definitely elected and given to him from eternity to be Redeemed by his mediation. How can anything be plainer from this than that there was a purpose in God's expiation, as to them, other than that it was as to the rest of mankind? See Scriptures. The immutability of God's purposes. (Isa. xlvi. 10; 2 Tim. ii. 19.) If God ever intended to save any soul in Christ (and he has a definite intention to save or not to save towards souls), that soul will certainly be saved (John x. 27, 28; vi. 37-40). Hence, all whom God ever intended to save in Christ will be saved. But some souls will never be saved; therefore some souls God never intended to be saved by Christ's atonement. The strength of this argument can scarcely be overrated. Here it is seen that a limit as to the intention of the expiation must he asserted to rescue God's power, purpose, and wisdom. The same fact is proved by this, that Christ's intercession is limited (See John xvii. 9, 20). We know that Christ's intercession is always prevalent (Rom. viii. 34; Jn xi. 42). If he interceded for all, all would be saved. But all will not be saved. Hence, there are some for whom he does not plead the merit of his expiation. But he is the "same yesterday and to-day and forever." Hence, there were some for whom, when he made expiation, he did not intend to plead it. Some sinners (i.e., elect) receive from God gifts of conviction, regeneration, faith, persuading and enabling them to embrace Christ, and thus make his expiation effectual to themselves, while other sinners do not. But these graces are a part of the purchased redemption, and bestowed through Christ. Hence his redemption was intended to effect some as it did not others. (See above.)
Experience proves the same. A large part of the human race were already in hell before the expiation was made. Another large part never hear of it. But "faith cometh by hearing" (Rom. x.), and faith is the condition of its application. Since their condition is determined intentionally by God's providence, it could not be his intention that the expiation should avail for them equally with those who hear and believe. This view is destructive, particularly of the Arminian scheme.
"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." But the greater includes the less, whence it follows. That if God the Father and Christ cherished for a given soul the definite electing love which was strong enough to pay the sacrifice of Calvary, it is not credible that this love would then refuse the less costly gifts of effectual calling and sustaining grace. This is the very argument of Rom. v. 10, and viii. 31-39. This inference would not be conclusive if drawn merely from the benevolence of God's nature, sometimes called in Scripture "his love," but in every case of his definite, electing love it is demonstrative.
Hence, it is absolutely impossible for us to retain the dogma that Christ in design died equally for all. We are compelled to hold that he died for Peter and Paul in some sense in which he did not for Judas. No consistent mind can hold the Calvinistic creed as to man's total depravity towards God, his inability of will, God's decree, God's immutable attributes of sovereignty and omnipotence over free agents, omniscience and wisdom, and stops short of this conclusion. So much every intelligent opponent admits, and in disputing particular redemption, to this extent at least, he always attacks these connected truths as falling along with the other.
In a word, Christ's work or the elect does not merely put them in a salvable state, but purchases for them a complete and assured salvation. To him who knows the depravity and bondage of his own heart, any lees redemption than this would bring no comfort.V. PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS
Our Confession, in Chapter XVII., Sections i and ii., states this doctrine thus: "They whom God hath accepted in his beloved, effectually called and sanctified by his Spirit, can neither totally nor finally fall away from the state of grace, but shall certainly persevere therein to the end, and be eternally saved." "This perseverance of the saints depends not upon their own their own will, but upon the immutability of the decree of election, flowing from the free and unchangeable love of God the Father; upon the efficacy of the merit and intercession of Jesus Christ; the abiding of the Spirit and of the seed of God within them; and the nature of the covenant of grace from all which ariseth also the certainty and infallibility thereof."
I beg the reader to weigh these statements with candor and close attention. He will find that we do not ascribe this stability of grace in the believer to any excellence in his own soul, even regenerate, as source and cause, but we ascribe it to the unchangeable purpose and efficacious grace of God dwelling and operating in them. All the angels, and Adam, received from their Creator holy natures; yet our first father and the fallen angels show that they could totally fall away into sin. No one in himself is absolutely incapable of sinning, except the unchangeable God. Converted men, who still have indwelling sin, must certainly be as capable of falling as Adam, who had none. We believe that the saints will certainly stand, because the God who chose them will certainly hold them up.
We do not believe that all professed believers and church members will certainly preserve and reach heaven. It is to be feared that many such, even plausible pretenders, "have but a name to have while they are dead." They fall fatally be cause they never had true grace to fall from.
We do not teach that any man is entitled to believe that he is justified, and therefore shall not come again in condemnation on the proposition "once in grace always in grace," although he be now living in intentional, willful sin. This falsehood of Satan we abhor. We say, the fact that this deluded man can live in willful sin is the strongest possible proof that he never was justified, and never had any grace to fall from. And, once for all, no intelligent believer can possibly abuse this doctrine into a pretext for carnal security. It promises to true believers a perseverance in holiness. Who, except an idiot, could in infer from that promise the privilege to be unholy?
Once more. We do not teach that genuine believers are secure from backsliding, but if they become unwatchful and prayerless, they may fall for a time into temptations, sins, and loss of hope and comfort, which may cause them much misery and shame, and out of which a covenant-keeping God will recover them by sharp chastisements and deep contrition. Hence, so far as lawful self-interests can be a proper motive for Christian effort, this will operate on the Presbyterian under this doctrinal perseverance, more than on the Arminian with his doctrine of falling from grace. The former cannot say, I need not be alarmed though I be backslidden; for if he is a true believer he has to be brought back by grievous and perhaps by terrible afflictions; he had better be alarm at these! But further, an enlightened self-love will alarm him more pungently than the Arminians' will. Here is an Arminian who finds himself backslidden. Does he feel a wholesome alarm, saying to himself, "Ah, me, I was in the right road to heaven, but I have gotten out of it; I must get back in to it?" Well, the Presbyterian similarly backslidden is taught by his doctrine to say: I thought I was in the right road to heaven, but now I see I was mistaken all the time, because God says, that if I had really been in that right road I could never have left it. Alas! therefore, I must either perish or get back; not to that old deceitful road in which I was, but into a new one, essentially different, narrower and straighter. Which of the two men has the more pungent motive to strive?
As I have taken the definition of the doctrine from our Confession, I will take thence the heads of its Proofs:- (a) The immutability of God's election proves it. How came this given sinner to be now truly converted? Because God had elected him to salvation. But God says, "my purpose shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure." Since God is changeless and almighty, this purpose to save him must certainly succeed. But no man can be saved in his sins, therefore this man will certainly be made to persevere in grace.
- (b) The doctrine follows from the fact that God's election is sovereign and unconditional, not grounded in any foreseen merit in the sinner elected. God knew there was none in him to foresee. But God did foresee all the disobedience, unthankfulness, and provocation which that unworthy sinner was ever to perpetrate. Therefore, the future disclosure of this unthankfulness, disobedience, and provocation by this poor sinner, cannot become a motive with God to revoke his election of him. God knew all about it just as well when he first elected him, and yet, moved by his own motives of love, mercy, and wisdom, he did elect him, foreknowing all his possible meanness.
- (c) The same conclusion follows from God's covenant of redemption with his Son the Messiah. This was a compact made from eternity between the Father and the Son. In this the Son freely bound himself to die for the sins of the world and to fulfill his other offices as Mediator for the redemption of God's people. God covenanted on this condition to give his Son this redeemed people as his recompense. In this covenant of redemption Christ furnished and fulfilled the whole conditions; his redeemed people none. So, when Christ died, saying "It is finished," the compact was finally closed; there is no room, without unfaithfulness in the Father, for the final falling away of a single star out of our Savior's purchased crown; read John xvii. It is "an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and is sure." (2 Sam. xxiii. 5.)
- (d) We must infer the same blessed truth from Christ's love in dying for his people while sinners, from the supreme merits of his imputed righteousness, and the power of his intercession: "God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life." (Rom. v. 8-10.) "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" (Rom. viii. 32.) Of Christ, the Intercessor, it is said: "Him the Father heareth always." But see John xvii. 20: "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word." If the all-prevailing High Priest prays for all believers, all of them will receive what he asks for. But what and how much does he for them? Some temporary, contingent and mutable grace, contingent on the changeable and fallible human will? See John xvii. 24: "Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given Me be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given Me."
- (e) If any man is converted, it is because the Holy Ghost is come into him ; if any sinner lives for a time the divine life, it is because the Holy Ghost is dwelling in him. But the Bible assures us that this Holy Ghost is the abiding seed of spiritual life, the earnest of heaven, and the seal of our redemption. Believers are "born by the word of God, of a living and incorruptible seed, which abideth and liveth forever," The Apostle Paul declares that they receive the earnest of the Spirit, and that his indwelling is "the earnest of the purchased possession." The same apostle says (Eph. iv. 30): "Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption." (See 1 Jn. 3.9).
An earnest, or earnest-money, is a smaller sum paid in cash when a contract is finally closed, as an unchangeable pledge that the future payments shall also be made in their due time. A seal is the final imprint added by the contracting parties to their names to signify that the contract is closed and binding. Such is the sanctifying presence of the Holy Spirit in every genuine believer; a deathless principle of perseverance therein, God's advanced pledge of his purpose to give heaven also, God's seal affixed to his covenant of grace. This, then, is the blessed assurance of hope which the true believer is privileged to attain: not only that God is pledged conditionally to give me heaven, provided I continue to stick to my gospel duty in the exercise of my weak, changeable, fallible will. A wretched consolation that to the believer who knows his own heart ! But the full assurance of hope is this: Let the Holy Spirit once touch this dead heart of mine with his quickening light, so that I embrace Christ with a real penitent faith; then I have the blessed certainty that "this God who hath begun the good work in me, will perfect it unto the day of Jesus Christ" (his judgment day), (See Phil. 1.6) that the same divine love will infallibly continue with me notwithstanding subsequent sins and provocations, will chastise, restore, and uphold me, and give me the final victory over sin and death. This is the hope inexpressible and full of glory, a thousand-fold better adapted to stimulate in me obedience, the prayer, the watchfulness, the striving, which are the means of my victory, than the chilling doubts of possible falling from grace. Again, the Scriptures are our best argument. I append a few texts among many: See Jer. xxxii. 40: My Sheep never perish, and none shall pluck them out of my hand (Jn.10.27 ff). 2 Tim. ii. 19: "The foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are his." Christ himself implies that it is not possible to deceive his elect. 1 Peter I. 5: Believers "are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation." The same apostle thus explains the apostasy of final backsliders. 2 Peter ii. 22: "The sow that was washed returns to her wallowing in the mire." She is a sow still in her nature, though with the outer surface washed, but never changed into a lamb; for if she had been, she would never have chosen the mire.
The apostle (1 John ii. 19) explains final back slidings in the same way, and in words which simply close the debate: "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us."
My affirmative argument virtually refutes all objections. But there are two to which I will give a word. Arminians urge always an objection drawn from their false philosophy. They say that if God's grace in regeneration were efficient, certainly determining the convert's will away from sin to gospel duty, it would destroy his free agency. Then there would be no moral nor deserving quality in his subsequent evangelical obedience to please God, any more than in the natural color of his hair, which he could not help. My answer is, that their philosophy is false. The presence and operation of a right principle in a man, certainly determining him to right feelings and actions, does not infringe his free-agency but rather is essential to all right free-agency. My proofs are, that if this spurious philosophy were true, the saints and elect angels in heaven could not have any free-agency or praise-worthy character or conduct. For they are certain and forever determined to holiness. The man Jesus could not have had any free-agency or merit, for his human will was absolutely determined to holiness. God himself could not have had any freedom or praiseworthy holiness. He least of all! for his will is eternally, unchangeably, and necessarily determined to absolute holiness, If there is anything approaching blasphemy in this, take notice, it is not mine. I put this kind of philosophy from me with abhorrence.
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