2nd. Semipelagian.-(a.) Man’s nature has been so far weakened by the fall that it cannot act aright in spiritual matters without divine assistance. (b.) This weakened moral state which infants inherit from their parents is the cause of sin, but not itself sin in the sense of deserving the wrath of God. (c.) Man must strive to do his whole duty, when God meets him with co-operative grace, and renders his efforts successful. (d.) Man is not responsible for the sins he commits until after he has enjoyed and abused the influences of grace.
– A.A. Hodge
In the last BLOG we looked at two Semi-Pelagian (Arminian) statements of faith on this issue and how they agreed with statement (b) above. We closed with a look at but not much comment on the 1689 Baptist Confession. Here it is again:
As Adam and Eve stood in the room and stead of all mankind, the guilt of their sin was reckoned by God’s appointment to the account of all their posterity, who also from birth derived from them a polluted nature. Conceived in sin and by nature children subject to God’s anger, the servants of sin and the subjects of death, all men are now given up to unspeakable miseries, spiritual, temporal and eternal, unless the Lord Jesus Christ sets them free…The actual sins that men commit are the fruit of the corrupt nature transmitted to them by our first parents (1689 Baptist Confession of Faith).
What we see in the 1689 Baptist Confession is virtually the exact opposite of the Semi-Pelagian view and one that is in line with the Gospel of the glory of God which is the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Gospel of grace alone through faith alone. Man does not just have a weakened nature by the fall, and it is not just a weakened moral state that infants inherit from their parents, but all human beings are conceived in sin and in line with Ephesians 2:3 (by nature we are children of wrath) children are subject to God’s anger by their nature. Instead of having a nature weakened by the fall, we all have natures that make us servants of sin and the subjects of death. Jesus taught us that he who sins is a slave to sin (John 8:34). Man is not just some hindered, but instead he is dead in sin and is under the power of darkness. Man does not just need someone to free him from what hinders him, but must be freed from the power of the evil one and a corrupt nature and then delivered into the kingdom of the beloved Son (Col 1:13). We must resist the doctrine of the Semi-Pelagians in this matter as strongly as we resist the Pelagian view if we are to stand firmly against error and for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The error of the Semi-Pelagian view continues in (c) as well, and is in fact an outworking of the view of how man comes into the world as an infant. If man is not dead in his sins and trespasses and is not a child of wrath by nature (Eph 2:1-3), then man is able to cooperate with God in salvation and obedience. This once again requires careful thinking. The Augustinian view does not relegate man to being a robot, but with Augustinianism the grace of God does not just help man finish what he can’t quite do himself. Grace is what works in man the desire to be holy and then works in man to live for holiness. Man would never have any desires for holiness unless it was worked in him by God. But in the Semi-Pelagian view it appears that man is able to start and pursue holiness and then God comes along to help him.
Here we see the Semi-Pelagian view of the nature of the infant coming out once again. If man is not truly dead in sins and by nature a child of wrath, then instead of a radical work of God in the soul, what man needs is some grace to help him be successful in doing what he could not do on his own. This does not deny the grace of God absolutely, but it denies that man needs absolute grace. Does man have a nature that is weakened by sin and yet does all he can and then God finishes with grace so man can be successful in holiness? Who gets the honor in that situation? Instead of God setting up His temple in man we have man being mostly in control of himself and his own destiny. The Semi-Pelagian view leaves man mostly in control and able to almost do what God requires, needing some grace of God. We will continue this in the next BLOG.
God Loves... Himself 
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