God's Way of Salvation For All.

For Lloyd-Jones, God’s way of salvation is open to all men everywhere.  There is not one man, woman or child anywhere who needs to remain under the wrath of God.  And “since all have sinned and come short of the glory of God,”[1] all need to be delivered from the consequences of that sin.  And the good news is that God in his great mercy has provided the way for lost guilty sinners to be saved from that judgement. 

Let me mention some other things that Lloyd-Jones has said about that this is his evangelistic sermons, and come from his Authentic Christianity, volume three, 2003.[2]  In these sermons, he speaks about the Jews’ rejection of Christ and “all that he had come to do for the human race.”  In the next paragraph, he speaks of “the great tragedy of the human race.”  He uses phrases such as, “God’s way of saving the human race.”  “The Son of Man came to that which was lost,” the entire human race.  The entire human race is lost, which very thing the Son of Man came to do – that was his design in coming into the world and dying for it.  He spoke of “God acting for the salvation of humanity,” and in the next paragraph, he quotes Jn.3:16.  The Doctor obviously equates “the world” with “the human race” and “humanity,” and in his Philippians’ sermons, he equates it with “mankind.”  So there is a basis there for preaching evangelistically that acknowledges that God is sovereign in salvation, but it also takes with equal seriousness the awful plight that the human race is in because of sin.  The Gospel preacher, then, can say to anyone, indeed, to everyone, that atonement has been made for you in the death of Christ, he has died to save you on condition that you repent of your sin, and trust the only Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.  We can say that to people.  If you come penitently and believingly to Christ, he will receive you, he will save you, he will make you his very own.  And when you come believing that he has paid the price for your ransom,[3] then when you stand back and examine that, there is no reason for you not to come.  There is every reason in the world why you should come to him, because everything has been done that needs to be done for you to come and be accepted by the God who is demonstrating his love for you in the fact that Christ did come and die, and in the fact you are hearing this kind of message from a human being’s lips.  

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[1]    Rom.3:23.

[2]   D. M. Lloyd-Jones (2003:39, 42, 43, 44).

[3]    1 Tim.2:6.

LLoyd-Jones and Baxter

Richard Baxter writes:

For all men are sinners, and therefore have come short of obtaining the Glory which God had appointed for the Innocent that never brake his Law; and cannot be saved or justified by the Law that they have broken; but must be justified by his free Grace, forgiving their sin, and giving and accepting their sincere Faith and Repentance through the Redemption of lost sinners, which Jesus Christ has wrought for them and in them.[1]

Now, let me ask this question: To whom do these words apply?  To the elect?  Yes, they do; they apply to the elect.  To all mankind?  Yes, they do; they also apply to all mankind.  Since all mankind includes the elect, all are therefore lost in sin and are under the wrath and curse of God for sin.  “There is none righteous, no not one,” says Paul.[2]  This forms the basis of true biblical universalism.  This is proper inclusivity.   There are no exceptions to this.  There is not a man or woman to whom you preach the everlasting Gospel who does not match this description.[3]  There will never be anyone in your congregation who does not match this description.  The world is full of people who are in this position and condition.  And only the Gospel of God can save their souls.  Like all men, they too have broken God’s holy Law; they have offended his Majesty, insulted his dear Son, have lived in defiance of his Word, have spat upon Christ, insulted the Spirit of grace, and trampled under foot the precious blood of Christ.[4]  That is true of everybody.  The whole world is corrupt, fallen, depraved totally, and as a consequence, the whole world is under the wrath of God.  There are no exceptions to this anywhere.  No one has loved God with all his heart, mind, soul and strength, and nobody has loved his neighbour as he loved himself.[5] 

Some people, and indeed all theological liberals, object to this teaching on “the wrath of God.”  But when we listen to these wise words again from Lloyd-Jones in his lecture on the wrath of God in his book, The Plight of Man and the Power of God, here’s what he says,…there is no real ground at all for the objection to this teaching concerning “the wrath of God.”   For the way of escape is wide open.  There is no need for anyone [emphasis mine] to remain under the wrath of God.  And surely that fact settles the matter.  Were there no escape, the position would be very different. But what can happen to anyone [emphasis mine] who deliberately refuses to accept that offer of salvation, save to suffer the consequences of that refusal?  And that is the explanation of the note of urgency in the preaching of Paul and the other Apostles, and of all the greatest preachers ever since.  That is why the gospel is good news.  The wrath of God (has) already (been) revealed.  But now the way to escape that wrath is also revealed in the gospel of Christ.’[6]

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[1]    R. Baxter’s paraphrase on the New Testament.

[2]    Rom.3:10ff.

[3]    J. Davenant (1627/2006:25).

[4]    Heb.10:29.

[5]    Mt.22:37-40.

[6]    D. M. Lloyd-Jones (1942:72).

Evangelistic Liberty!

For many years, I found myself in bondage when it came to preaching evangelistically and offering Christ in his death and resurrection to my hearers as the only hope of the world.  If Christ died only for the elect, I reasoned, what is the point of offering him to people who might not be the elect?  In fact, what is the point in evangelising at all, if God has the whole thing sown up nicely?  Or, why be involved in mission at all?  After all, God “will save his people from their sins”[1] in his own way and in his own time![2]  Indeed, why bother about ministry?  Just go on teaching the saved, and hope that the unsaved will get some “crumbs from off the masters’ table.”[3]

But all along, I was aware of what I can now only describe as suppressing God-given, Bible-based urges to tell my congregations that God loves them and that Christ died for them.  My real fear was of drifting into evangelical Arminianism.  Consequently, I withheld from my hearers, to some extent, God’s remedy for his own wrath against every man’s sin!  I was so afraid of this.  In fact, I was so conscious of this at times that I felt that I was disobeying my conscience every time I preached evangelistically, which is a thing that my ordination vows prohibited.  I came so close at times to saying to my congregations that “you are so depraved and helpless that you could not come to Christ even if you wanted to.”  What a travesty of my dear Saviour’s Gospel!  What a travesty of what he suffered for the world on the Cross!  A real tragedy.

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[1]   Mt.1:21.

[2]   Compare and contrast James Denney (1892:349)

[3]   Mt.15:27.

The Wonderful Gospel.

And what a message that is, men and women!  What an appeal that is to people who are without hope and without God?[1]  We can say to our hearers, “There is no insincerity whatever in this call, and in this offer to you.  There is something on offer for you, something real, something you need very badly and very urgently.”  We can tell them that with confidence.  This message is absolutely urgent.  We can press on their consciences the need for sinners, for all men, everyone, to close with Christ’s offer of grace and forgiveness.  We know that God’s sovereign grace will be given to all who repent and believe in Christ, for without it, they simply will not respond in faith to the Gospel call.

There is a distinction to be drawn here between moral inability and human inability, an issue already highlighted.   Calvin, Amyraut, Davenant, Baxter and Ryle taught the former, whereas the high orthodox, such as, Owen, Gill, Smeaton, etc, taught the latter.  What is it that prevents men entering into God’s rest?  Hebrews answers that question for us.  It is their unbelief that shows itself in disobedience.[2]  Disobedience is not a human inability – it is a moral inability, it is a choice that sinners make when they hear the appeal of the gospel in their ears and in their hearts.  They say with those of old, “We will not have this man to reign over us!”[3]  Refusing to come to Christ and to believe in him is a definite act of the will.  As Jesus himself lamented, “You will not come to me that you might have life.”[4]

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[1]    Eph.2:12.

[2]    Heb.3:18, 19; 4:6; 2Thes.2:10.

[3]    Lk.19:14, cf. Ex.2:14.

[4]    Jn.5:40.

Repent and Believe the Gospel

I must say something here that is often forgotten.  The call of the Gospel is to repent and believe because of who Christ is, and that one day we will meet him as Judge.  That’s already agreed.  It is not “repent and believe in case you meet him someday and you’ll not be ready.”  Rather, we proclaim that the “divine judgement of all mankind is a Gospel given, a fact, a certainty, and it cannot be avoided.  The Day has been set and the Judge appointed by God.  That’s a tremendous reason for you, we can say to our people, to turn away from your sins and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.  This is going to happen, you are going in that direction, nothing can stop that; therefore repent of your sins and trust the Lord Jesus Christ who alone can save you.”  That is the thrust of our message.