Dr D Martyn Lloyd-Jones on Eph.5:25

Reflecting on what J. J. Murray and I. H. Murray affirmed, I searched the Doctor’s published sermons on Eph.4 where Paul deals with the doctrine of the church, especially her unity.  I was disappointed not to find any reference there to Christ dying for the church in that chapter.  I then read the entire letter of Paul to the Ephesians and there discovered that he dealt with the issue of the atonement within the context of Christian marriage.  The atonement was not his major focus in these expositions, however; his focus was on the Christian understanding of marriage.  This was positioned within the immediate context of the Christian’s responsibilities as a wife, husband, child and employee.[1]  Even when dealing with a subject as practical as marriage, Paul cannot exclude the consideration of doctrine, especially the doctrine of salvation.

Among the very first things he preaches on Eph.5:25-33 is his understanding of the love of God.  He sees it both in particularistic terms and in its universalistic sense.  He writes, “It is the same sort of love wherewith Christ loved the church; indeed, wherewith God loved the world.”[2]  He draws attention to the fact that this is the same Greek root that is used for God’s love (αγαπαω) both in Jn 3:16 and in Eph.5:25.  The love with which Christ loved the church is identical to the love with which God loved the world.  DML-J demonstrates particularism and universalism in his choice of words.  The love with which God loved the world is a love that loved the ugly, the vile, the ungodly, the sinful, the weak, the guilty and condemned.  It was a love that moved outward to another.  This is not a sentimental love, but a love that acted for the good of another/others; it was a love that gave. 

So to teach how husbands are to love their wives, Paul uses the illustration of how Christ loved the church – he gave and gave and gave again.  Christ’s love is a giving love, an outgoing love, a redemptive love.  His love has a particular object – the church.  Christ had already loved the church and had given Himself for her.  God loved the world and gave His only begotten Son for it, indicating that it was precisely the same love each time.  What He did for the world, He did also for the church, and vice versa.  Personalising what He did for the church by giving Himself for her salvation, DML-J proceeds to apply this to the individual, adding, “[Y]es but also ‘for me’, for every one of us as individuals.”[3]  “Every one of us as individuals” is included in Christ’s atoning work on Calvary. 

Bearing in mind that the context here is Christian marriage and the character and quality of the love that a husband ought to show to his wife, DML-J reiterates what he describes as “supreme doctrine ... no higher doctrine.”  A Christian husband is to love his wife sacrificially and without consideration for himself or his welfare.  His love for her is to be exclusive of all others, particular.  I remember hearing Dr John MacArthur[4] translating 1 Tim.3:2 on the qualifications of an elder, that he should be “a one woman man,” more familiarly, “the husband of one wife.”  The relationship is to be exclusive.  DML-J says, “- all that the Lord Jesus Christ did, he did for the church.”  There is no dispute here on either side of the soteriological debate, and DML-J is accurately reflecting what the great apostle Paul had written.  He continues, “He died for the church; He died for nobody else.”[5] 

These are clear and strong words from the Doctor, and, out of their context, they spell out an equally clear particularist understanding of the atonement.  But again his purpose in writing this is to demonstrate from the highest possible source the quality of love with which husbands ought to love their wives.  It is to be a particular love that is focused on their chosen spouses.  Christian men are to choose their love, and then to love their choice – exclusively.  That there is a particularity in God’s and Christ’s love is not disputed, and Paul brings this out here.  By extension, there is also to be a particular love of a husband for his wife.  Election undergirds what the apostle is writing, and election has to do with prior choice. 

It is important to note that when DML-J speaks about Christ dying for the church, he nowhere denies that Christ died only for the church, although the accompanying phrase, “nobody else,” in this sermon context has the potential to point in that direction.  Why, then, did he use this form of words here?  It was to teach these Ephesians, and therefore us, the exclusivity and particularity of marriage love. 

He uses this term in the sense that those whom Christ loved with this particular love and for whom He died effectually received incalculable benefits from that atoning death – they had their sins and guilt atoned for.  Wives also receive great benefits from being loved in that way by their husbands.   

This is not to deny that DML-J believed exclusively in an atonement that benefitted only the elect.  It is the quality of the divine love that is emphasised here.  Husbands are to show quality love to their wives – that’s the Doctor’s focus in these sermons.

But, and returning more directly to the atonement, DML-J had a great place in his evangelist’s heart those who made up the rest of mankind.  He goes on to teach that Christ also had a real, compassionate love for all men, and for these He died sufficiently and made atonement for their sins too.  To enter into the benefits of that atonement, they had to trust the Saviour.  For DML-J, Christ’s death was not a mere commercial transaction, a mere pecuniary act on His part; rather it was essentially forensic in character because it dealt with personal debt and guilt; pecuniary transaction dealt only with the impersonal.  In fact, in the same paragraph, DML-J uses the Lombardian paradigm to explain what he meant by these particularistic remarks.  Let him speak for himself.

His death, as Calvin and other expositors remind us, because it was eternal and because He is the Son of God, is sufficient for the whole world; but it is efficient only for the church. His purpose in dying was to redeem the church. He gave Himself for the church, for all who belong to her when she will be complete and perfect and entire. All was known to God from eternity, and the Son came, and gave Himself for the church.[6]

It was in this sense, and in this sense alone, that “He died for nobody else.”  Paul here safeguards the proper breadth of the Gospel, and DML-J does likewise.  Selective reading of the DML-J corpus is natural to dogma-driven theologians but it is essentially disingenuous and unjust for them to do so.  To infer from this that he believed about the atonement what Owen believed is quite erroneous, if not mischievous.  DML-J’s soteriology is balanced and gives due weight to the particular and universal emphases that are found in the actual text with which he is dealing.  This demonstrates his methodology when expounding the text of Scripture. He sticks to his text and says all it has to say.  And he does this with every text he handles, thus bringing out the due emphasis of that text in proper biblical balance.  It is interesting that J. J. Murray and I. H. Murray could only identify his exposition of two passages that they say indicate that DML-J taught limited atonement, and even this is open to question.  A careful reading of his sermons will demonstrate otherwise.  Great care must always be taken that we do not read into another man’s beliefs what we would wish was there, and isn’t.

It is unfortunate that DML-J went beyond what was written when he made this statement, “He died for nobody else,” a practice against which he constantly warned and a principle which at this point he contravened.  It is at least arguable that he allowed his mind to run off on a tangent, preaching as he did from the scantiest of notes; this does happen to preachers at times, especially those who speak in an extempore manner.  This is the only place that I know of where he has made such an extreme and uncharacteristic statement on the death of Christ, despite DML-J's ubiquitous universalism.[7]

As is well known, one or even two swallows do not make a summer, though the Murray's seem to think they do.  They have tried, unsuccessfully, to create an uncharacteristic DML-J position on the atonement in a way not dissimilar to what Pharaoh did to the Hebrews in Egypt where they were expected to make clay bricks without straw.[8]  The Murray's may have a little bit of clay, but they have no straw and they didn't end up with any bricks, either!

Further, it is of particular note that DML-J sees our salvation as something that God does for us and as something that actually happens to us.  It is experiential in character and is described in this sermon in terms of our being “rescued” and “redeemed.”[9]  Had it not been for the sufficiency of Christ’s death for all and its efficiency for the church, we would still be in our sins.  Once the sinner trusts in Christ’s finished work on Calvary, he experiences God’s gracious salvation.  Because election and predestination[10] are not experiential in nature, it is not these that bring the sinner into possession of the benefits of the redemption purchased by Christ; it is the requirement that God has for faith in Christ that does it.  DML-J believes that it was the “precious blood” of Christ that purchased redemption for the world, but it does not become the possession of the elect automatically.  The salvific benefits of Christ’s blood have to be applied by the Holy Spirit and appropriated by the sinner by faith, which is the conduit for receiving it. 

Given that the vast majority of DML-J material on the atonement points in the universalistic direction, this very rare statement in fact proves the thesis I am presenting, and is the exception that proves the rule.  

Dr Alan C. Clifford, who knew the Doctor quite well for no less than eighteen years, explained why he thought DML-J used this uncharacteristic language (“He died for nobody else.”) in his exposition of Eph.5:25 which was delivered in 1959/1960.  At this time the high orthodox Banner of Truth Trust was just being set up, and DML-J was most keen to avoid any rifts with this new Reformed movement.  In an email to me, Clifford suspects that such caution drove him at this juncture.  “Whatever he published on paper, it remains true that he was 'uncomfortable' with LA [limited atonement]. In short, he didn't really believe it.[11]

So, the two passages alleged by J. J. Murray and I. H. Murray to support the view that DML-J believed and preached limited atonement have been found to prove nothing of the sort.  Taken out of context, it could be argued that this is what he believes and teaches.  But kept firmly within the context of his preaching and of these sermons, it has been shown that there was a breadth and width in DML-J’s soteriology that neither of these men would embrace.  Hence, it is pushing language much too far to claim that they and DML-J are on the same side of this controversy.

---

[1]    Eph.5:22-6:9.

[2]    Selection #107.

[3]    1974:145.

[4]    The meeting was held in Belfast, Northern Ireland in the early 1990s.

[5]    Ibid.

[6]    1974:145, 146.

[7]    Dr Alan C. Clifford in an email dated 17 August 2013.

[8]    Ex.5:18.

[9]    1974:146.

[10]  These undergird and guarantee the success of the Gospel in the world.

[11]  Clifford, dated 27^th July 2013.

Was Lloyd-Jones an Amyraldian?

This post focuses on the preaching ministry of one of British evangelicalism’s greatest twentieth century preachers, Dr David Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981).  It is conducted on the understanding that his commitment to the historic reformed faith is not being questioned, which means that he embraces the biblical doctrines of election and predestination.  Most Christians in the West know of the Doctor’s reformed credentials, and he is accepted as a bona fide reformed minister.  Indeed, he designates his position as “conservative evangelical. 

This post refines its focus to what is not as well known of his theological position, yet is a position that is evident in all his published evangelistic sermons.  DML-J[1] self-designates as a man of prayer and an evangelist.  Evangelism played a major role in his fifty-four years of preaching ministry.  Assumptions have been made as to the particular theology that he held, but these assumptions do not appear to be well grounded.  That DML-J believed and preached the doctrines surrounding the divine sovereignty is all things, especially in salvation, is beyond question.  Salvation is of the Lord, he teaches frequently.  He stresses the divine initiative in salvation, and directs the attention of his hearers to Christ and to Christ alone.

What is less well known of DML-J’s theology is what he believed about salvation, or as the theologians describe it, soteriology.  His soteriology is mis-understood and at times mis-represented by those who claim his as their mentor and they as his disciples.  This  mis-understanding takes the shape of a high Calvinist position in which, because he believes in the divine sovereignty in salvation, he inevitably believed in ‘limited atonement,’ as perceived by the high orthodox.  

DML-J believed that the atonement was limited in its saving effectiveness to those who believe the Gospel and trust Christ as Lord and Saviour, the elect.  In parallel with this clearly revealed Scriptural doctrine he also believed that, as revealed in Scripture, there is a universal aspect to the atonement which means that the Gospel may, indeed must, be preached to all men everywhere in the assurance that there is saving blessings to be had to any and to all who turn from their sins and trust the Saviour.  It is effective for these because it is offered to all men everywhere.  The design of God in the atonement was to make salvation available to the human race, a salvation that is sufficient to save all of humanity, and simultaneously to make that same salvation effective in the lives of those who trust Christ alone.  Provision has been made for the reconciliation of the whole world, and out of that world the elect will infallibly be saved.

As one who has been an avid reader and student of DML-J for some forty years, I have grown in my admiration for the man and his message.  This brings its own challenges because the author must be aware of personal bias in favour of the subject under discussion.  Of course, this is not a biography of DML-J, so the dangers of this happening are lessened and the temptation to write a hagiography are reduced; however, given the subject matter of this study and the author’s commitment to the biblical Gospel, the opposite danger of denigration is thereby omitted.  So an attempt will be made to present an objective a view as possible of the subject of this work.

---

[1]   Throughout this book, the abbreviation, DML-J, will be used for convenience when referring to Dr

    D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones.

No Place Like Rome?

With the process going on to elect a new pope, it is highly advantageous in this ecumenical age to inform ourselves of just how far Rome is from the Christian Church.  This is a man-made religion that has no warrant in the Scriptures, and as the years go by, the deeper her iniquity becomes.

Read these lines again, as supplied by Dr Alan C Clifford, Minister of Norwich Reformed Church.

NO PLACE LIKE ROME? 

Alan C. Clifford

PREPARING FOR

THE QUINCENTENARY OF THE

GLORIOUS PROTESTANT REFORMATION

(1517-2017)

Avoiding Rome’s predictable lies and her inevitable ecumenical deception in the run-up to this event,
we unashamedly issue the following statement:

1. The Pope’s religion is not the Christianity of Jesus Christ.
2. The Pope’s church is not the true Church of Jesus Christ.
So, since the Pope may be identified as ‘antichrist’ (as many Continental and British theologians have cogently argued in past centuries), conversion to the Roman Catholic Church is a retrograde and tragic step. While the apostate condition of many Protestant Churches (including the ‘feminized’ and ‘sodomized’ Church of England) gives sufficient cause for disillusionment, the Roman option cannot provide a safe or satisfying spiritual home. As affirmed in the doctrinal declaration Dominus Iesus (2000), Rome claimed to be the only ‘correct’ church. In a more recent decree (2007), we are told that ‘Christian Communities born out of the Reformation of the sixteenth century’ cannot be ‘called Churches in the proper sense’. However, Rome’s claim could not be more invalid. The proof is as follows:

I The doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church are utterly inconsistent with the plain teaching of the New Testament. The finality of Christ’s unique sacrifice and His priestly intercession (see Hebrews 9: 28; 10: 11-12) rule out the sacrifice of the mass and a human priesthood. The theory of transubstantiation is an absurd philosophical fiction and utterly detrimental to the simple symbolism of the Lord’s Supper - a
memorial of our Saviour’s once-for-all sacrifice. Thus His blood shedding is remembered not repeated, on a
table not an altar (hence ministers are pastors not priests); His real presence is spiritual, not physical, in the
hearts of His people and not in the bread and wine.

II Justification by faith in Christ’s merit alone (see Romans 5: 1-9) and direct access to Him as sole Mediator (see Matthew 11: 28; 1 Timothy 2: 5) rule out the false, idolatrous and pretentious teaching that Mary is Mediatrix, a ‘female mediator’ through whom we approach our Saviour. Calling our Lord’s mother ‘Queen of Heaven’ has turned her into a goddess! The idea that the merits of the faithful are a necessary contribution to their salvation undermines the all-sufficiency of Christ’s merit. Rome’s traditional mistake in making sanctification a part of justification arises from her reliance on the Latin justificare instead of the Greek dikaioo. While the former verb means ‘to make righteous’, the latter means ‘to declare righteous’ by the remission of sins through faith in the blood of Christ (see Romans 4: 5-8; 5: 1, 9). Our pardon is provided by Christ’s sacrificial righteousness alone, imputed to all who trust in Him.
While good works are a necessary and certain fruit of saving faith (see Galatians 5: 6; Ephesians 2: 8-10), their imperfection rules them out from justifying us. Our persons and our performances alike always require
pardon. That said, Christian sainthood is the present status of true though imperfect believers (see Ephesians
1: 1-2) not that of dead believers canonised by the Church of Rome.

III Thus purgatory and prayers for the dead (including requiem masses) have no apostolic warrant. Those who die ‘in Christ’ have no need of our prayers. Those who die otherwise cannot be helped by them.
Besides corrupting Baptism and the Holy Communion, Rome arrogantly added five more supposed sacraments to those commanded by Christ. Her realignment of the Ten Commandments - combining the first two and dividing the tenth - obscure in summary form God’s prohibition of the idolatry of such popular graven images as crucifixes and statues of Mary. Venerating the bones of the saints and other relics breeds superstition. Other distortions of divine truth are no less serious. The Pope’s title ‘Holy Father’ is a blasphemous insult to God the Father (see John 17: 11). His claim to be the ‘vicar of Christ’ is a further insult to the Holy Spirit, Christ’s true representative on earth (see John 14: 16-17). The political claims of a highly fallible Papacy conflict with Christ's words that His kingdom ‘is not of this world’ (John 18: 36). Rome’s entire governmental structure-- pope, cardinals, archbishops, etc--has more in common with ancient imperial Rome than the apostolic Presbyterian order of the New Testament.

Rome’s growing ambition to dominate Europe as in the days of the Holy Roman Empire is a re-emerging tyranny to be resisted by individual Christians and national governments alike. Ever since the Reformation, the Papacy has always been opposed to the independence of the United Kingdom. Her arrogance is at odds with Christ’s liberating truth (see John 8: 32, 36; Galatians 5: 1).

IV In addition to theological objections, the track record of Roman Catholicism does not commend itself. For violent and bloody persecution, no organization can compete with Rome. Since the true Church of Christ is ‘persecuted’ rather than ‘persecutor’, this one consideration alone makes Rome’s claim to
‘correctness’ null and void (see John 15: 20-1; 2 Timothy 3:12). Besides the burnings of the sixteenth-century British reformers, the dreadful cruelties inflicted on the ancient Waldensians, the French Huguenots, the Dutch Protestants and others (including Jews, Muslims and Eastern Orthodox) have never been truly repented of-- since the doctrine directing these atrocities remains in tact. Indeed, under another name--The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Inquisition still exists.

Current persecution of Protestants in Central and South America shows no change in Rome’s methods where she has a free hand. The intrigue and corrupting influence of the Jesuits knows no parallel. Vatican complicity in the rise of Hitler and the Nazi holocaust is well attested. The evils of the confessional and the ‘unholy wedlock’ of supposedly celibate priests refute Rome’s sanctimonious image. While marital failure among protestant pastors is to be lamented, is it any wonder that paedophilia and HIV are rife among sexually-frustrated and homosexual Roman priests?

V Considering the post-reformation dogmas of Mary’s immaculate conception (1854), papal
infallibility (1870) and the Assumption of Mary (1950), the Church of Rome is even more apostate
than she was in Luther and Calvin’s day. Thus any form of ecumenism on Rome’s terms is nothing but
satanic delusion (see 2 Thessalonians 2: 1-12). Especially in the wake of Dominus Iesus, when naïve and gullible evangelicals, charismatics and others try to persuade us that ‘Rome is changing’, ask them which of her antibiblical dogmas has Rome renounced? Indeed, the late Dr D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones was right to say that “The Roman Catholic Church is the devil’s greatest masterpiece.” May all God’s people understand the
‘signs of the times’ and cease not ‘contending earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints’ (Jude 3). Amen!

Dr Alan C. Clifford,
Pastor, Norwich Reformed Church
www.nrchurch.co.nr

Dr Lloyd-Jones - a Personal Appreciation

On the occasion of the passing of Dr D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones into glory, I draw to your attention this book that I wrote which is my personal appreciation of the life and ministry of this great servant of Christ and the Gospel.  Please click here to find out the influence he had on me and on my ministry.

The Saviour of the World

Jn.4:42.

In this verse, we have another universal statement as to the identity and Person of the Saviour.  The context is Jesus’ conversation with the woman at Jacob’s well in Samaria, and the statement is that of those Samaritans who believed in Christ, not just because of the testimony of the woman, but because they had heard Him for themselves during one interview with Him.  As Jews had no dealings[1] with the Samaritans,[2] it is quite amazing that these ‘unclean’ humans were enabled by God’s Spirit to see the truth about Jesus.  Many had believed because of the woman’s testimony and besought Him to remain with them, and Jesus stayed a further two days in that vicinity.[3]  The effectiveness and authenticity of her testimony brought these men not only to where Jesus was, but right into a new saving relationship with Him.  This spiritual re-awakening amongst the Samaritans indicated that Jesus was not only the Saviour for the Jewish people, but also for the Samaritans.  God’s salvation was not confined to any one nation or people, but was sent into the entire world.  Brown is correct when he avers that Christ’s two day stay not only brings over many more to the same faith in Him, but raises that faith to a conviction – never reached by the Jews, and hardly as yet attained by His own disciples – that as the Christ, he was “the Saviour of the world.’”[4]

As “Saviour of the world,” He was to bring “deliverance ... from serious danger.”[5]  What more serious danger is there than to be under the divine wrath on account of our sin; and from this we need deliverance.  This implies that Jesus is more than a perfect example for us to follow.  He is the One Who saves.  The general term “Saviour” is sometimes applied to the Father[6] and also to the Son[7] but is found nowhere else in the New Testament.  To the word “Saviour” John, adds a qualifier, “of the world,” which has the impact of enlarging His role and work.  He is the “Saviour of the world.”  Morris comments that this

elevates the title to one of infinite grandeur.  Jesus is not concerned simply with petty, minor issues.  Nor is He the Saviour of few unimportant individuals.  He is the Saviour of the world.[8]

Calvin comments,

Again, when they proclaim that Jesus is the Saviour of the world and the Christ, they have undoubtedly learned this from hearing Him ... And He declared that the salvation He had brought was common to the whole world, so that they should understand more easily that it belonged to them also. [9]

All exclusivity is hereby ruled out by our Lord.  The salvation that He came to bring transcends all geographical and ethnic barriers.  It is for all men because all are sinners.  God’s love is for “the whole world” because then salvation His Son brought is common to all.[10]

Ryle contends, with Calvin and contra Owen and Hendriksen,[11] that “the singular fullness of the confession” that the Samaritan believers made is significant because it provides the fullest declaration of the Saviour’s office as “the Saviour of the world” that is unequalled in the Gospels.[12] He raises the interesting point as to whether the Samaritans really understood the significance of the term “Saviour” as applied to Jesus was fully understood, and Ryle suggests that it was not.  However, he affirms that whatever deficiencies existed in their understanding of that term, there were none regarding their grasp of the universal scope of what He came to do.  To them, He was the world’s Saviour, not just the Saviour of the Jews.  In Ryle’s language, He came to be “a Redeemer for all mankind.”[13]  The religious Jews did not see this truth despite His being with them for upwards of three years, but these people of mixed race and of semi-heather origin who had only had Jesus with them for two days, grasped the true identity of this Preacher, and affirmed His universal and crucial role for mankind.     

DML-J preached, as he was bringing his sermon on Ac.5:1-13, and upbraided the church for her cowardice.  “The church must stop apologising, stop accommodating, stop taking bits out of the Bible.  We must face the world and proclaim Jesus of Nazareth, Son of God and Saviour of mankind.”[14]  He was already retired from the active Christian ministry for five years by this time, and his universal Gospel preaching was still uppermost in his emphasis.  Regularly, he referred to Jesus Christ as “Son of God, Saviour of the world.”[15]  In answering the question as to the reason for the incarnation, he said, “Why does he do that?  There is only one answer: he has come into the world to save the world.”[16]  When seeking to expound why some men hold tenaciously to the truth of the Gospel, he said, “Here were men who would sooner die than refrain from preaching the glory of the Son of God as the only Saviour of the world.”[17]  That Christ was and is the only truly cosmic Saviour there is, was an emphasis in his preaching that none can gainsay.  He died as the Saviour of the world, which implies that He died for all men without exception.  His death was as much for the unbeliever as it was for the believer.  When sinners reject the only Saviour of mankind, they are rejecting a Saviour Who suits their case perfectly.  Listen to DML-J as he describes those leaders who “[reject] of the Saviour of the world.”[18]  Little did they know but the One they were rejecting was “God’s only begotten Son, Jesus of Nazareth, ... the Saviour of the world.”[19] It was He Who died on the Cross, and the only way sinners have of being reconciled to Him is by believing in and surrendering to, the Saviour of the world.[20]

An examination of these expository comment by the Doctor will confirm that he is well suited to the company of men like Calvin, Baxter, Davenant, Wesley, Ryle, Morris, etc.  His expositions do not fit nearly as well with those of Owen and Hendriksen whose confessionalism determines the meaning of Scripture.

---

[1]    The Geneva Bible 1599 translates this word as “meddle.”  The Geneva Bible notes add, “There is no

         familiarity nor friendship” between these groupings.

[2]    Jn 4:9.

[3]    Jn 4:40, 43.

[4]    Brown, 1684/1969:375.

[5]    Morris, 1972:284.  Brown cites the Greek as “the Saviour of the world, the Christ (p.374).  Cf also Ryle,

         1869/1987:251.

[6]    Lk. 1:47; 1 Tim.1:1; etc.  The LXX uses this term for the Father, and secular Greek writers uses it of a

         multitude of deities.

[7]    1 Jn 4:14

[8]    Morris, 1972:285.

[9]    Comment on Jn 4:42.

[10]    Calvin, comm.. on Jn 4:42.

[11]    Hendriksen, 1954:176.

[12]    Ryle, 1869/1987:251.  He points out that the conversion of these Samaritans can be attributed solely

         to the grace of God, and that while the Jews were hardened under Christ’s preaching, miracles and

         wonderful works, the Samaritans were softened and believed.

[13]    Ibid.

[14]    Selection #358.

[15]    Selection #357.

[16]    Selection #327.

[17]    Selection #236.

[18]    Selection #232.

[19]    Selection #100.

[20]    Selection #99.

God's Universal Gospel

When the apostle John wrote that “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life,”[1] he meant us to take from that statement what the plain and normal meaning of the words taught; God has a special love that embraced the entire world.  High Calvinists, on the other hand, re-interpret this plain yet profound statement to mean something quite different.  They still hold on to Jn.3:16, would not give a thought to denying that Gospel statement, and would quote it occasionally.  “But,” they aver, “God did not love the world as the plain meaning would suggest; what He loved was ‘the elect world.’”  Are these interpretations identical?  No.  The Johannine statement is clearly universal, but the high orthodox re-interpretation of John is restricted.  On what grounds?  Not on biblical grounds but on purely dogmatic grounds.  The Procrustean bed syndrome is clearly at work in this method of interpretation of Scriptural data. 

Or take John the Baptist’s exclamation, also in John’s Gospel, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”[2]  Now, normal interpretative practice would conclude that what Christ, the Lamb of God, did on the Cross had a most significant reference to “the sin of the world” - He took “the sin of the world” “away.”  He dealt decisively with it, the benefits of which become ours when we trust in Christ as our Lord and Saviour.[3]  But there are those who re-interpret the data differently.  They still hold that Christ died “to take away the sin of the world,” but, they opine, this does not mean what it says; it means rather that what He did was for Jews and Gentiles, which is how they understand the term ‘world.’  They also go further and add that that paradigm entails or even demands particularity.  Now it is possible to argue that the inclusive phrase ‘Jews and Gentiles’ takes in the entire world of humanity.  However, the high orthodox use this to refer to particular ‘Jews and Gentiles,’ thus importing restrictive canons of interpretation to arrive at such an unnatural and stretched meaning. 

Paul’s statement in Romans that “Christ died for the ungodly.”[4]  Linking this text with another which states that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”[5] a phrase that is almost impossible to mis-interpret.  If “all have sinned,” all must by definition be “ungodly.”  So if “Christ died for the ungodly,” the straightforward way of understanding this is that since “all” are “ungodly,” “Christ died for all.”[6]  This is the Pauline approach to this subject.  But the re-interpreters of Scripture make this mean that He died for those who know themselves to be ungodly.  He died only for those who feel their guilt and who feel that they are ungodly.  True, these are the only ones who will seek a remedy for their sinfulness, but that remedy is available purely because Christ had died for all.   Whether a sinner feels his guilt or not does not detract from the fact that Christ died for all. 

---

[1]    Jn.3:16.

[2]    Jn.1:29.

[3]    This caveat prevents anyone drawing the unbiblical conclusion that because Jn.1:29 is factually and

       theologically true, salvation is therefore universal – all will in the end be saved.  Jn 3:16 also safeguards

       against the extraction of such an unwarranted, and spiritually dangerous, conclusion.

[4]    Rom.5:6.

[5]    Rom.3:23.

[6]    2 Cor.5:15 reinforces this conclusion.

Ministers Who Are Friends With ‘the enemies of the truth.'

Oh, pity the ministers, and there are not a few of them, who are friends with ‘the enemies of the truth.’  Those who keep in with those whom they know to be in the wrong – colleagues, elders, church members, church leaders, other faiths, etc – have compromised themselves thereby. They keep in with those who can make life difficult for them, possibly even have them removed from the ministry, or from life. These ‘turkeys’ keep in with the ‘enemies of the truth’ because their motivation and mission is self-preservation at all costs.

Calvin could not be more different.  He counsels the five young ministerial students of Lyons who were facing death for the faith in terms not unlike these:

‘But you, my young brother ministers, you are not pursuing your own ideas however lofty they might be. You are pursuing the truths of eternity, the truths of salvation, the truths of God’s glory in the world. Your calling is not a ‘trivial pursuit.’  You are on the most exalted mission and highest calling that any man can receive. You are ministers of the Gospel, no more and no less. That’s who and what you are!  And these ‘enemies of the truth’ are doing this to men Whom God has personally chosen, called, saved and set apart for the Gospel.’ 

And because Calvin is raising the position of the five very high, he is also saying that he would not be in the shoes of the ‘enemies of the truth’ for all the tea in China. They are trifling with things and people they know not of, and with the God Who is Almighty, just, holy and altogether righteous. They know not what they do, or its consequences.

Calvin, Predestination and Salvation.

Hans Boersma views Calvin’s understanding of God’s work of redemption in Christ as a whole, and sees as proof of this the important place Calvin assigns to predestination.[1]  This raises the question, Why, if Calvin assigns an important place to the doctrine of predestination, is it not dealt with in his Institutes until the fourth book?  Clearly for Calvin there are many more important doctrines about which to be taught and concerned.  Boersma sees predestination as “the demonstration of God’s free mercy” and election is “the source of free mercy.”  Truly, He is “the prima causa of salvation.”[2]  And that is a demonstration of sheer unmerited grace.

How, then, does this salvation become the possession of the sinner?  Francois Wendel answers this by affirming that the locus of Calvin’s thought is to be found in faith,[3] not in either election or predestination. Calvin writes,

Wherefore men are being fantastic or fanatical if they look for their salvation or the salvation of others in the labyrinth of predestination instead of keeping to the way of faith which is offered them ... To each one, his faith is a sufficient witness of the eternal predestination of God...[4]

Iain H Murray criticises DML-J for not directing his hearers "with sufficient clarity to faith in Christ as the God-appointed means of relief." (Biography, Vol.1, p191).

Scripture teaching, then, can be understood as it stands without the necessity of delving into the forbidden fruit of God’s secret counsel, and thus complicating the entire hermeneutical exercise and restricting understanding of Scripture to the theologically trained and initiated.[5]  If Scripture is clear only to theological professionals, then, by definition, it is not clear at all.

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[1]    Boersma, Hans, Evangelical Quarterly 64.4 (1992), 333-355.

[2]    Ibid.

[3]    F. Wendel, Calvin, (1963), 270.

[4]    Ibid.

[5]    Calvin is less than complimentary towards those who “draw the line between speculations arising from 

        an impious curiosity and legitimate knowledge of the doctrine of predestination,” p.270.