God Loves… Himself

In the last two BLOGs we looked at the teaching of the Trinity in order to show that the Gospel is fully Trinitarian and must be applied by grace in order to be fully of grace. I quoted George Smeaton regarding the Trinity and will do so again: “And as to the divine works, the Father is the source FROM WHICH every operation emanates (ex ou), the Son is the medium THROUGH WHICH (di ou) it is performed, and the Holy Ghost is the EXECUTIVE BY WHICH (en wi) it is carried into effect.” This sets out for us the economical Trinity which is the distribution of the work of the Trinity. The ontological Trinity (what it is in and of itself) and the economical Trinity (distribution of work) must never be allowed to divide the Persons of the Trinity. We must also never allow the teachings of the Persons of the Godhead to be so divided that we forget the essential oneness of God. The Gospel of grace, then, must always show the oneness of God and yet the work of each Person. The Gospel proclaims a salvation planned by the Father and earned by the Son. But where is the Holy Spirit in this? Indeed the Son was baptized with the Spirit who gave His fleshly body the strength to carry out the will of the Father, but how is this Gospel of grace applied? If not by the Spirit, then where is the Trinity in the Gospel? The Holy Spirit applies the salvation that was planned by the Father and earned by the Son. It is there we see the Trinity in the Gospel.

In this BLOG we want to look at how the Gospel of grace by all the Persons of the Trinity as one God must determine our methods in evangelism if we are to present the Gospel of grace in truth. The first thing that we must notice is that the person we are dealing with is either dead or s/he is not. If the person is dead, then we have to approach the person in a way that reflects that as a true belief. If the person is sick and even very sick, then our approach must be to determine that reality. If the Father has chosen to save sinners based on Himself, then we can know that evangelism done with His methods and centered upon Him can be done in confidence.

Another point to consider is that God saves sinners for His own glory. God’s very holiness is that He loves Himself (within the Trinity) and will never do anything that is not out of love for Himself which is what our Great Commandment to love God is built upon. Sinners love themselves and do not love God with any of their being and that is why they are at enmity with Him. He makes demands of them to love Him and they want to love themselves. True conversion, therefore, is when a person repents from loving him or herself and trusting in him or herself to loving and trusting God in and through Christ.

Approaching lost men and women, therefore, is something far different than just telling them a message of Christ and leaving it up to them to choose Christ or not. People always love themselves and love things that are in accordance with their chief love and will never turn away from that until they are turned from that by the work of God. In John 6 there were crowds of people seeking after Jesus, but only to get free food: “Jesus answered them and said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled” (v. 26). If we go out teaching people things that are in accordance with their self-love and consuming desire to be focused on themselves, then those people may become very religious but they will never be turned from the love of self to the love of God. Instead we must teach them that they are their own idols and they serve themselves. We can get people to make decisions based on self-love, but that is what they must be turned from. We have to go out knowing that it is the Spirit alone who can truly convict of sin. We must teach the truth of God and expect the Spirit to do His work rather than change the Gospel into a man-centered message.

We must also not throw human beings upon their own power and wisdom to make a choice for Christ as Arminian theology does. They must not have any hope left in themselves and all of their hope must be in God. They must see that it is the work of Christ in His life, cross, resurrection and even now that alone can save, but they must not be told to trust in their own choice in order to apply that. It is the work of the Spirit to prepare the soul for Christ. It is the Spirit that opens the eyes that are in darkness and gives light. It is the Spirit that instructs and illumines people to their sin and to the reality of Christ. It is also the Spirit who gives life itself and applies the work of Christ. It is not the choice of man that brings regeneration, but it is the choice of God carried out by the work of the Spirit. The good news of the Gospel is not that Christ has done everything needed for people to be saved and now it is all up to them, but it is that God saves sinners from start to finish. It is God who alone can break the proud hearts of sinners so that as humbled sinners they may receive grace. It is God alone who can open the heart of a person and pour the Spirit in who regenerates and renews that person and pours out the love of God in that soul. Our evangelism must be all about God and the hope that there is in God rather than man. That is a full Gospel.

In the last BLOG we looked at the teaching of the Trinity a little bit in order to show that Arminian theology and modern Calvinistic theology (some) alike dishonor the Holy Spirit in their teachings of salvation and the application of that salvation. I quoted George Smeaton a Scottish theologian of great eminence and will do so again: “And as to the divine works, the Father is the source FROM WHICH every operation emanates (ex ou), the Son is the medium THROUGH WHICH (di ou) it is performed, and the Holy Ghost is the EXECUTIVE BY WHICH (en wi) it is carried into effect.” I then added the following few sentences and will simply repeat them from the last Blog. In one sense here is the Gospel declared to us in a beautiful form. While there is a distinction in theology between the ontological Trinity (what it is in and of itself) and the economical Trinity (distribution of work), we must never allow the teaching of God to be divided from who He is. We must also never allow the teachings of the Persons of the Godhead to be so divided that we forget the essential oneness of God.

The design of this BLOG is to examine one passage of Scripture in light of the previous BLOGS and the above paragraph. Titus 3:4: “But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, 5 He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”
What we see in verse 4 is the appearance of the kindness and love of God. The Lord Jesus Christ was sent by the Father (John 3:16) and He came to put God on display and set out who the Father really is (John 1:18). The Lord Jesus Christ was the very tabernacle of God and to see Christ was to see the very glory of God as it consisted in grace and truth (John 1:14). He was the very outshining of the glory of God (Hebrews 1:3). Jesus Christ was and is the perfect image of God in His divine nature (Colossians 1:15) and the Father sees Himself in the Son and if human beings want to see the Father they must go through the Son who is the only Way (John 14:6). Jesus Christ was indeed the very kindness and love of God in human flesh.

The Lord Jesus saved sinners, not on the basis of any of the deeds (not even the choice of a free-will) they have done, but simply in accordance with His mercy. Notice, however, that the text goes in a different direction than most evangelicals would go. Christ saves according to His mercy, but that mercy is carried out by the washing of regeneration and renewing (take note) by the Holy Spirit. The work of Christ must not be separated from the applying work of the Spirit because that which Christ earned is applied by the Spirit. What Christ did on earth was to purchase for His people the Holy Spirit and that is the heart of the New Covenant. But if the Holy Spirit was never applied, then the work of Christ would not have accomplished anything. God’s mercy comes to His people through Christ but by the work of the Holy Spirit. Then the text goes on in verse 6 to show that the Father poured out the Spirit upon us through Jesus Christ. Why did He do that? Verse 7 shows that He did that so that sinners would be justified by His grace and as a result of that they would be heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

In light of our overall purpose, we must see the application of this to the Gospel. It is not just theological speculation that I have been engaging in when I started talking about the application of redemption being part of the Gospel several BLOGS ago. It is straight from Holy Writ. The causal links that are given within Titus 3:4-7 link justification by grace alone with the acts of the Holy Spirit in the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit. Christ is said to save sinners according to His mercy and yet that mercy is seen in the work of the Spirit in regenerating and renewing sinners. It is only when Christ saves and the Spirit applies is it said that sinners are justified by grace. We must learn to think of justification as forensic, yes, but also as applied by the Spirit. Not only did Christ earn salvation, but the salvation He earned is sufficient to be applied as well. In other words, part of the Gospel is that the death of Christ merited the application of salvation too. Christ did not earn salvation and then leave it up to the sinner to apply it or do something that God would then apply it, but Christ earned salvation from beginning to end so that the application is all of His work and totally of grace as well.

There is another distinction that we need to make at this point as well and I will get at it with a question. What is the difference between believing the doctrine of justification by faith alone and actually being justified by faith alone? One way to look at this is to say that one can intellectually believe in the facts of justification by faith alone and that would be a form of believing it. But in order to be justified by faith alone one has to have the Holy Spirit actually apply those things to the soul. Satan believes that sinners are justified by faith alone and yet he is not and never will be converted. The Holy Spirit will never apply the work of God to him. Arminian theology rightly has the work of Christ in one sense at the center of it all, but it leaves the application of the work of Christ to the human being as a work of the free-will. Many modern Reformed people also do the same thing though they give lip service to a little more, and yet the intellectual aspect of Reformed theology thinks that a mere intellectual belief is all that is needed. Scripture, however, tells us something far more. The true Gospel is grace in its conception of the Father and grace in earning the merits of salvation. It is then grace by the Spirit in applying it.

The Holy Spirit is vital in the work of the Gospel and of justification. Both Arminianism and some forms of Calvinism have a Gospel that falls short of the Gospel of Scripture because Scripture sets out the Holy Spirit applying the Gospel to sinners. We fall far short of a Trinitarian Gospel when we rule out the Holy Spirit or leave the application of salvation to sinners themselves. The Gospel of justification by grace alone through faith alone is the work of the one God in three Persons. The Father is the source from whom the Gospel came from. The Son is the medium through whom the Gospel comes and is earned. The Holy Spirit is the executive by which the Gospel is applied. Arminianism does not have the Gospel applied by grace alone and instead leaves that in the hands of the will of man. Many in the Reformed community leave the application to the intellect of man and sometimes as the Arminians do leave the application up to the will of man. Both fall short of a Gospel that is of the pure grace of the triune God.

The work of salvation in light of the sinner being dead in trespasses and sin and being unable to do one spiritual good is an astonishing but ignored fact of Scripture in many corners. There are many who think that an intellectual agreement is all that is needed for the sinner to be converted. Others think that an act by a minister in baptizing a baby is all that is needed to bring a child into the covenant. Still others think that what is needed is an act of the human will to let God save him or that act is the faith that is needed to be justified by faith. But what is actually needed is for the God who is triune to act and save sinners. When we say salvation is of the Lord, we don’t speak with accuracy unless we mean that the One God who subsists in three Persons saves sinners. Salvation is not just an act of one Person in the Godhead, but instead it is all three Persons.

In this BLOG I would like to look at the teaching of the Trinity (some) in order to show that Arminian theology and modern Calvinistic theology (some) alike do dishonor to the Holy Spirit in their teachings of salvation. Here is a quote by George Smeaton the Scottish theologian of great eminence: “And as to the divine works, the Father is the source FROM WHICH every operation emanates (ex ou), the Son is the medium THROUGH WHICH (di ou) it is performed, and the Holy Ghost is the EXECUTIVE BY WHICH (en wi) it is carried into effect.” In one sense the Gospel is declared to us in a beautiful form. While there is a distinction in theology between the ontological Trinity (what it is in and of itself) and the economical Trinity (distribution of work), we must never allow the teaching of God to be divided from who He is. We must also never allow the teachings of the Persons of the Godhead to be so divided that we forget the essential oneness of God. Hear Smeaton again:

1. That there is one God or divine essence
2. That the same numerical divine essence is common to three truly divine Persons, who are
   designated Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
3. That between these three divine Persons there obtains a natural order of subsistence and
   operation; that the first Person hath life in Himself (John 5:26); and that the second and
   third Persons subsist and act from the first.
4. That this order of the divine Persons belongs to the divine essence prior to, and irrespective
   of, the covenant of grace.
5. That this natural order of subsistence and action is the ground and reason of the several names,
   Father, Son, and Spirit; the Son being begotten of the Father, and the Spirit by spiration
   proceeding from both.

What we have to see from this is that the Gospel of God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ is not just a message of something that is not intelligible, but it is the Gospel of the triune God that saves sinners. Justification by faith alone is a message of what God in three Persons has done and does to save sinners. The Father planned and sent the Son, yet the Son came and also with the Father breathed forth the Spirit. The Son came and carried out the plan of salvation, yet it is the Holy Spirit that applies it. The Gospel is not just about Christ, it is about the triune God saving sinners. The Father is the source of creation, all things were created through the Son, yet the Spirit effected creation. In the same way the Father is the source of the Gospel, the Son carried out the purchase of sinners and so the Gospel is through Him, but it is the Holy Spirit which carries it into effect and applies it. The Gospel is all of God, yet it is the One God in three Persons. When we say that the sinners are saved by grace alone, we are really saying that sinners are saved by the one God subsisting in three Persons and the One God does through each Person what each does and it is all by grace. The Father elects and is the source of salvation by grace alone. The Son purchases sinners and it is through Him that the one God carries out the Gospel, yet it is by the work and power of the Holy Spirit that the one God effects the Gospel in the hearts of sinners.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ must never be limited to the actions of Christ alone. Indeed salvation was planned by the Father alone and carried out by Christ alone, but it is applied by the Spirit alone. Justification by grace alone through faith alone encompasses the work of the Trinity in relation to the Gospel. Sinners are rescued by the One God in three Persons (ontological Trinity) with each doing His own work (economical Trinity). God predestined according to grace apart from worthiness and righteousness in the sinner. The Son earned a perfect righteousness in life and died on the cross for sinners because of grace alone. The Holy Spirit convicts sinners of sin, judgment and righteousness and regenerates and works faith in them by grace alone. Thus the sinner is justified by grace alone and that comes through faith alone. Indeed justification is earned and accomplished by Christ alone, but it is also applied by the Spirit alone. The Arminian scheme has Christ saving sinners by grace in one aspect of their theory, but their thought on free-will does not allow for the application of the work of Christ to be by grace alone.

If anyone did add to the work of Christ in the conservative Christian world we would hear screams of bloody murder, though perhaps not in our politically correct and overly winsome day. But there would at least be a whisper of concern that maybe a person just might be off a bit in the Gospel if s/he started teaching that salvation was by something other than Christ alone. But why do we (fewer and fewer these days) so desire to defend the work of Christ and not defend the work of the Holy Spirit in applying the Gospel? For the Gospel to be by grace alone it must be applied by grace alone too. Where are the cries from the Reformed ranks when the Arminian teaching does exactly that?

We continue to think about the real issue between Calvinism and Arminianism, as stated by Edward Griffin, and that is between divine efficiency and a self-determining power. Calvinism stresses that Scripture teaches that God alone is the power or efficient in salvation and Arminianism by necessity of it belief in a free-will holds to some form of self-determining power. If divine efficiency is true, then salvation is by grace and grace alone. If human beings have a self-determining power of any kind, even to the smallest degree, and it is involved in salvation, the salvation is not by grace alone.

In the original introduction of Thomas Hooker’s seventh century work entitled The Application of Redemption (will be published by International Outreach soon), Thomas Goodwin sets out what for our day would be new thinking. Yet it was the accepted teaching of Reformed theology in his day:

And for the Arminian doctrine, how low doth that run in this great article? This we may say without breach of charity say of it-that if they or their followers have no further or deeper work upon their hearts, than what their doctrine in hat point calls for, they would fall short of heaven. Though those other great truths they together therewith teach, God may and doth savingly bless unto true conversion, he breaking through those errors into some of their hearts. And how much our reformed writers abroad, living in continual wrangling and disputes with the adversaries of grace, have omitted in a practical and experimental way to lay open and anatomize the inwards of this great work, for the comfort and settlement of poor souls, many of themselves do greatly bewail.

Goodwin goes on to bemoan the fact that the will is discussed philosophically and so on rather than to be dealt with biblically and experimentally. His words are to be understood in the context in which he gives them and that is an introduction and commendation of the book he is writing about. It is, again, The Application of Redemption. The title of that book is of immense importance in the way that older theologians thought of redemption being applied. It has to do with the grace of God applying salvation to the soul by breaking the soul from all hope in itself and from all trust in its own power. Another way to put it is that the book is on how the soul must be broken from all trust in its own righteousness and works in order that the soul would trust in Christ. The author of that book thinks of salvation as being applied by grace and breaking the soul from all that it trusts in so that Christ would be trusted in alone. But again, the application of redemption is also by grace alone and nothing can be attributed to the powers of the will in the application or it is not a salvation that is by grace alone.

Goodwin also addresses the Arminian situation. In the context of the book and in the discussion of these BLOGS, it would appear that he would agree with Griffin and Owen. The Arminian evangelist looks to convince the will of the other person to make a choice rather than to lead the person in a deep and experimental breaking of the heart from self and its own will. Goodwin desires for people to be broken in their heart and have a deep work of God in the heart. While he seems to appreciate some of the doctrines that some of them taught, he seems troubled that many of them were unconverted because they did not have this work in their heart. However, he also seemed to think that the Lord had converted some of them and broke through their false doctrine to do so. That is probably the safest position that one could take. It appears that the Lord converts some despite their faulty theology. Yet that does not give us an excuse for not teaching the truth. What the Lord may do does not negate the obligation of His people to set out the truth and lead people into a deep work in the soul.

As we think through this, we can immediately see the impact this has on evangelism. As we have seen in other BLOGS, the evangelist must work with the unregenerate person to see that s/he has no power to apply redemption to him or herself. What sinners need is not a message of how much God loves them and just wants them to make a choice for Him, but they need to see that they are rebellious sinners who are opposed to God and that they must be broken from all of their own righteousness and strength. They must see that God is not obligated to save them because of their worth, works or choices. They must see, in accordance with Romans 3:24-4:6 that God saves according to grace in such a way that leaves them no room for boasting. They must see in accordance with Romans 9:16 that it is not according to their willing or their running, but on God alone who has mercy. It matters not of if we claim to be Reformed or not, if we evangelize in a way where the sinner is thrown upon his own strength and will, we have evangelized in a way that is in direct violation of Scripture.

Surely some of the major issues are clear at this point. In history the theologians and pastors used by God in a great way were those who stressed that redemption must be applied by grace and not just provided by grace. They taught that the sinner must be broken from his own willing and running in order to trust in the grace and mercy of God alone. They taught that not only did Christ provide grace, but that He also purchased the application of that grace by the Holy Spirit who convicts of sin and regenerates as He pleases. They taught that for the Gospel to be taught in its purity it must be taught where the application of the Gospel was of grace too. Virtually all of the older Reformed writers had a high level of distaste and even disgust for Arminian teachings because it does not teach a deep brokenness in the heart as the way that God applied the grace of salvation. But at least some of them did not think that all Arminians were lost. We don’t have to think that all Arminians are lost to believe that their teaching is false and destructive to the Gospel itself. God saves some sinners despite their at least outwardly holding teachings that are contrary to the application of the Gospel.

We continue to think about the real issue between Calvinism and Arminianism, as stated by Edward Griffin, and that is the difference between divine efficiency and of a self-determining power. Calvinism stresses that Scripture teaches that God alone is the power or efficient in salvation and Arminianism by necessity of its belief in a free-will holds to some form of self-determining power. If divine efficiency is true, then salvation is by grace and grace alone. If human beings have a self-determining power of any kind, even to the smallest degree, and it is involved in salvation, then salvation is not by grace alone.

It is in light of the distinction given to us by Edward Griffin that the words of John Owen hit us with even more relevance and power. We saw several BLOGS ago that Owen referred to free-will as an idol. This certainly sounds puzzling to many ears, but when we see that the real issue between Calvinism and Arminianism is over which power the sinner is to trust in to be saved, we see that Owen does indeed have ground to stand on when he makes that assertion. If we do not see that a human being must trust in grace alone by grace alone to be saved or to trust in grace by his own self-determining power, we might miss what John Owen is saying. It is from this position that we can also see that the character of God is also drastically changed as one goes between these positions. It is also easy to see that the evangelism practiced, whether by a professing Arminian or a professing Calvinist, of necessity would be changed as well. The Arminian will declare many things that are true, but according to the system, the evangelist must press upon the sinner to make a choice and accept the proffered grace. The Reformed system, at least as understood by those in previous centuries, was to press upon the sinner to give up all hope in himself and his own will and power. As we have seen earlier, Martin Luther wrote that a person must give up all hope in his own power in order to be saved. Things have changed drastically in our day.

A Baptist theologian from the 1800’s (Alexander Carson) writes about the sovereignty of God using strong language. Speaking of Scripture, he says, “The style of it is indeed truly in wisdom, but it is in sovereign wisdom. It strikes continually at the pride of man. God sends the message of mercy in such a way that many cry out that they will rather expose themselves to his wrath than receive such a forgiveness.” The Gospel does not offer mercy to the proud or those who trust in themselves or in their own power, but it is to the humbled. The Gospel is an offer to those that are broken from trust in themselves. Christ told those who were weary and heavy-laden to come to Him. He came to save sinners, not the righteous. Let us continue on with some more words of Carson:

“Even the rejection of revelation will not relieve from the evidence the sovereignty of God. The way of the God of Providence are in sovereignty as well as those of the God of the Bible. It is impossible to deny sovereignty, consistently with the admission of perfect power and wisdom in the Ruler of the world…The sovereignty of God is most illustriously displayed in the gospel. It meets us at the very threshold, in the fact that Christ interposed for man and not for fallen angels…In the redemption of sinners, sovereignty offends human wisdom with respect to its extent. Why are not all men saved from hell? The sovereignty of God is so offensive to the proud heart of man, that every expedient of artifice has been employed to banish it from the Bible…Nothing more strongly shows the enmity of the human heart to this part of the divine character, than the forced attempts of learning and ingenuity to expel it from the ninth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. Every engine of torture has been employed to make the apostle retract, prevaricate, or soften. But all in vain. The obstinate witness, after every sinew is cracked, after every joint is dislocated, still cries, “Sovereignty, sovereignty, not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God who showeth mercy.”

Here we see one huge difference between the systems of thought. Calvinism looks to Romans 9 and bows to the God who tells us that it is not of him that wills or runs, but of God who shows mercy. When the text tells us that it is not of him that wills but is of God who shows mercy, we should understand that a person is not saved because of a free-will but solely because of the mercy of God. In terms of the efficient of salvation, it is the will and mercy of God and not the will of man. The text tells us what the efficient is and what it is not. We can see why Owen says it is an idol to trust in our own free-will as that which is able to apply grace to ourselves since God alone can show grace. We see in the words of Carson why people resist this so much. It is because they are offended at the sovereignty of God and want to rule themselves. They are offended at His sufficiency in His sovereignty and want to be at least partly sufficient in themselves. Are you offended or ashamed of His sovereignty in evangelism?

As we saw in the last BLOG in the writings of Edward Griffin, the real issue between Calvinism and Arminianism is that between divine efficiency and of a self-determining power. Calvinism stresses that Scripture teaches that God alone is the power or efficient in salvation and Arminianism by necessity of its belief in a free-will holds to some form of self-determining power. If divine efficiency is true, then salvation is by grace and grace alone. If human beings have a self-determining power of any kind, even to the smallest degree, and it is involved in salvation, then salvation is not by grace alone. Here is what Jonathan Edwards says about grace:

Hence we learn how they dishonor God and the gospel who depend on anything else but mere grace. The gospel is by far the most glorious manifestation of God’s glory that ever was made to man, and the glory of the gospel is free grace and mere mercy. Now those who will not depend on this free grace do what they can to deprive the gospel of this glory, and sully the glory of God therein shining forth; they take away the praise, glory, and honor that is due to God by His free grace and mercy to men, and set up themselves as the objects of it, as if their salvation at least partly was owing to what they have done.

This must be very provoking and highly affronting to God; for miserable sinners, after they are fallen into such a miserable estate that it is impossible they should be saved by any other means than pure grace, and God is so gloriously rich in his goodness as to offer this free grace unto them out of pity to them, how provoking must it be to God for these miserable, helpless wretches to attribute any of their salvation to themselves! It is not an opportunity to buy and procure our own salvation that God offers, but an opportunity to lay hold on that salvation that is already bought and procured for us. Neither are we able to do this ourselves; it is the gift of God.” (Sermons on the Lord’s Supper).

Notice the emphasis that Edwards puts on grace and how it is the glory of God in salvation. He sees it as a terrible thing for people to try to procure salvation (free-will is an effort to procure salvation for self rather than trust in grace alone) rather than to trust in a procured salvation. We must also be careful to make some distinctions at this point in order to make clear what is meant. The Gospel is all of grace and nothing but grace. Virtually all will give some form of assent to those words. However, the application of those words is where people differ greatly. Roman Catholicism affirms that salvation is all of grace, but what they mean is different than what Reformed people think the Bible teaches. Roman Catholics mean that God gives grace in the forms of the sacraments and so forth to work in people to do good works. That is why Roman Catholics are accused of teaching salvation by works, but it is also why they deny it. They teach that a person is justified by grace, but is a grace that a person receives by the sacraments and that works in a person to do good works which results in justification.

Arminianism teaches that a person is justified by grace as well. They teach that all a person has to do is of his or her own free-will make a choice to ask Jesus into his or her own heart or to choose to receive Christ. That sounds better than Roman Catholicism, but it is still based on the same principle. Both Roman Catholicism and Arminianism operate on much the same principle. In fact, as argued in an earlier BLOG, Roman Catholicism is one form of Arminianism. The principle that Protestant Arminians have with Roman Catholic Arminians is that both believe in some way that grace is applied through or by the free-will of the human being. In other words, it is up to the human being to take grace and apply it. If you will think through this carefully, you will see that what moves God in this situation is the act of man and not Himself. If God gives grace based on the will of the creature, then God’s giving grace is based on something other than grace. This is totally opposed to the character of God who only shows grace based on Himself and is against the Gospel of grace alone as taught in Scripture.

What is said here will be hard for some to read, but it will be even harder to show it to be in error. The Gospel of grace alone must be moved and applied by grace alone (grace is based on the character of God alone) or it is not a Gospel of grace alone. The issue of the application of the Gospel is vital to protect the character of God who saves sinners in order to manifest the glory of His grace. Anything else is not the Gospel of grace alone.

The last BLOG was devoted to looking at how the issue of “free-will,” which goes to the heart of justification by faith alone, reaches into and has terrible effects in evangelism as well. As we look back over some of the major writers on these issues, we can begin to see just how vital it really is and some of the real issues with free-will. It also begins to shed light on the nature of Reformed theology in the Reformation and in our day. Regardless of the creeds people hold to with the intellect and espouse with their mouths and pens, this is the heart of Reformed teaching regarding the extent of depravity and of the heart of justification by faith alone that is to the glory of God alone through Jesus Christ alone. If a person holds to the Arminian teaching of free-will, while that may not seem like such an enormous thing to many people, it reaches to the very heart of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the glory of God in the Gospel. It has an enormous impact on the way evangelism is done.

In past BLOGS we noted how William Cunningham (in Historical Theology) set out for us how this teaching reaches to the very heart of justification by faith alone. The Council of Trent (Roman Catholic) dealt with the issue of free-will in its section on justification. How a person deals with this issue determines in a large measure where s/he will end up on justification. If the will is indeed free, that is, if it has a power to act in a spiritual way apart from grace alone moving it, then salvation is at least partially the act of the will of man. We saw how Martin Luther sets out that man must give up all hope in himself and despair of anything he can do in order to be converted. Instead of trusting in our own will to do the slightest thing, we are to trust entirely in the will of God.

God has surely promised His grace to the humbled: that is, to those who mourn over and despair of themselves. But a man cannot be thoroughly humbled till he realizes that his salvation is utterly beyond his own powers, counsels, efforts, will and works, and depends absolutely on the will, counsel, pleasure and work of Another-God alone. As long as he is persuaded that he can make even the smallest contribution to his salvation, he remains self-confident and does not utterly despair of himself, and so is not humbled before God; but plans out for himself (or at least hopes and longs for) a position, an occasion, a work, which shall bring him final salvation. But he who is out of doubt that his destiny depends entirely on the will of God despairs entirely of himself, chooses nothing for himself, but waits for God to work in him; and such a man is very near to grace for his salvation.

Edward Griffin (powerful preacher and theologian of the Second Great Awakening) puts it like this: “The real question lies between the Calvinistic doctrine of divine efficiency and the Arminian self-determining power.” He goes on to quote some writings by David Brainerd regarding his conversion: “I at once saw that all of my contrivances and projects to procure deliverance and salvation for myself, were utterly in vain. I was brought quite to a stand, as finding myself utterly lost. I saw that it was forever impossible for me to do any thing towards helping or delivering myself. I saw that, let me have done what I would, it would not more have tended to my helping myself than what I had done.” In other words, his striving after righteousness by his actions did not save him any more than his sinful ones. The writer that published those words said this: “It was when he had thus given up all expectations of relief from his own efforts; when he was brought to see himself lost and helpless; when his former feelings were gone and he had left off all his selfish and resolute endeavors to bring himself into a better state; it was then-that unspeakable divine glory seemed to open to the view of his soul.” Edward Griffin then adds: “This was unlike the present plan of throwing sinners upon their own resources.”

Evangelism must have a goal in mind and a means of obtaining that goal. To obtain the goal it must have a view of the object that will be moved to where the goal is. The sinner being evangelized is the object that must be moved. How does the evangelist go to the sinner and what means does s/he propose to the sinner to get the sinner to the goal? Do we approach the sinner as dead in sins and trespasses or do we approach the sinner as having some power to obtain the goal him or herself? Do we approach the sinner as just needing to convince the sinner of certain things so that s/he will be convinced and make a decision or choice and so be saved? If so, we are throwing sinners upon their own resources. Do we leave anything for the sinner to do in his or her own power? If so, we are throwing them upon their own resources. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is that sinners are saved by grace alone and of nothing that they can do of themselves. In our very evangelism we can be deceiving sinners. In teaching justification by faith alone it is possible to teach faith in such a way that the sinner is looking to self. That is not what Luther meant by justification by faith alone and it is not what Scripture teaches either.

At this point it might be of interest to point out the difference this makes in evangelism. The Puritans practiced evangelism a lot differently than people today, even Reformed people. Why is that the case? One reason is because of the doctrine of the will. One may hold to the teaching of the total depravity of man in some way and yet not see how far that reaches in evangelism. In the last BLOG, the point I was trying to set out was that the doctrine of free-will of necessity changes the doctrine of justification by faith alone because it is not consistent in any way with a Gospel that is all of grace or of grace alone. We can use a couple of illustrations to make this point. No matter how great a mathematical number is, if it is not infinite then it is not an infinite number. Anything less than infinite is still finite and the difference is huge. Christ was a sinless sacrifice and only as a sinless sacrifice could He have been the Lamb of God that paid for the sins of sinners. If He would have sinned one time, no matter the degree of the sin, He would not have been completely sinless. Salvation is to be by the infinite grace of God in Christ. Any act of the human will, regardless of however small the contribution may be, means that salvation is not solely of the infinite grace of God and so not of grace alone. It is that serious because it is an infinite difference.

The evangelism based on a total work of grace will differ from the evangelism that is based on a work of the human will, even if that work of the human will is just slightly different. Jesus told people that “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:44). John told people that “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12-13). Jesus went on to say “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” and “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. 6 “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:3, 5-6). When these texts are taken together, we do not see acts of the human will taught as needed for regeneration, but rather an act of the will of God.

If, as we have seen in the last few BLOGS where some teach that an act of the so-called “free-will” of man is needed to cooperate with the grace of God to be saved, which denies the Gospel of grace alone, then something must change. A way of evangelism that focuses on man’s need to cooperate with God by an act of the will is teaching man to do something apart from the Gospel of grace alone and justification by faith alone. Evangelism that is consistent with the Reformation teaching (and more importantly, the Scriptural teaching) of grace alone received by faith alone is one that will stress the need of the human to be delivered from any hope in his own act of the will. It is in this light that Luther’s writings make sense:

God has surely promised His grace to the humbled: that is, to those who mourn over and despair of themselves. But a man cannot be thoroughly humbled till he realizes that his salvation is utterly beyond his own powers, counsels, efforts, will and works, and depends absolutely on the will, counsel, pleasure and work of Another-God alone. As long as he is persuaded that he can make even the smallest contribution to his salvation, he remains self-confident and does not utterly despair of himself, and so is not humbled before God; but plans out for himself (or at least hopes and longs for) a position, an occasion, a work, which shall bring him final salvation. But he who is out of doubt that his destiny depends entirely on the will of God despairs entirely of himself, chooses nothing for himself, but waits for God to work in him; and such a man is very near to grace for his salvation.

So these truths are published for the sake of the elect, that they may be humbled and brought down to nothing, and so saved. The rest of men resist this humiliation; indeed, they condemn the teaching of self-despair; they want a little something left that they can do for themselves. Secretly they continue proud, and enemies of the grace of God. (The Bondage of the Will, p. 100)

This tiny act of the will should be seen as something that is not tiny at all. It is at the center of the Gospel and of evangelism. It has a lot to say about the character of God. In evangelism, therefore, if we strive to get men to make a decision based on an act of the will, we are trying to get them to do something that is not in accordance with the Gospel of grace alone. Instead we are to teach men to seek God to be broken from their own efforts and actions. We are to teach them to seek to be humbled and broken from all efforts, works, power and will and that salvation depends absolutely on God and His grace alone. It is only when a person reaches that brokenness that they can have true faith in grace alone and so be saved in accordance with faith alone. John 1:12-13 shows us that faith receives, not that faith grasps something and holds on of its own power and strength. In order for the sinner to receive grace alone, that sinner must be broken from all hope in self and in the strength of what self can do. This should remind us of Matthew 18:3 which tells us that we must be turned and become like little children in order to be converted. This should also bring to mind the teachings of Christ in Matthew 11:27-30: “All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. 28 “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. 29 “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. 30 “For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

I Peter 5:5 and James 4:6 teach us that God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Instead of trying to convince people to the point that they will make a choice based on their own free-will, we need to be making efforts to convince people that they cannot do anything of themselves and that they need to be broken from what they think is their free-will. Christ only calls those who are weary and heavy-laden. God gives grace only to the humble. People must be humbled and broken from anything they can do in order to receive the Gospel of grace alone. If they still trust in an act of their free-will, they are not trusting in grace alone and so they don’t believe in justification by faith alone in reality. The issue between Calvinism and Arminianism is not just a minor difference; it gets at the heart of the Gospel. This is why men of old used such strong language. The Gospel is at stake and it is no time to be more concerned with diplomacy than with the Gospel of God’s glory.

In the last BLOG we looked at some writings of Louis Berkhof and how his historical view gave us a big picture of what happened. The Arminian view really came about in an effort to mediate between Augustinianism (Calvinism) and Pelagianism. It adopted two contradictory views and tried to combine them in a mediating view. For example, it tried to make the grace of Augustine friends with the free-will of Pelagius. So it adopted both and tried to adjust other things to enable them to hold these things. Then we saw that in an effort to keep predestination they tried to say that God foresaw that people would believe and obey and so He destined them. But this is not a mediating view. The teaching of Scripture is that salvation is by grace alone plus nothing else. Any addition to grace changes the teaching of salvation by grace alone into something else. The teaching that God destines sinners based on what they do changes the teaching of predestination into something totally different. It is no wonder that men like John Owen looked upon these teachings and thought they changed the orthodox view of the Gospel and of God. As Owen puts it, “They have placed an altar for their idol [free-will] in the holy temple, on the right hand of the altar of God, and on it offer sacrifice to their own net and drag; at least…not all to God, nor all to free-will, but let the sacrifice of praise, for all good things, be divided between them.”

The above quotes sound strange to modern ears. When it is thought that it is more important to be gracious than it is to represent Scripture faithfully and accurately, then men who stand up and declare that others are wrong and even heretical are rare today. But Owen was a man who declared his position and stood for it. He believed that free-will and its attending doctrines and denials cut the heart out of the Gospel itself and inevitably led to a changing of the doctrine of God. William Cunningham, in his Historical Theology, agrees with that. Referring to the Council of Trent (Roman Catholic council on theology), he notes that Trent denied the Protestant doctrine:

“This denial, however, of the great Protestant doctrine of the utter bondage and servitude of the will of unrenewed men to sin,–of their inability to will anything spiritually good,–was not only the application they made of their erroneous and defective views about the corruption and depravity of human nature, in their bearing upon the natural powers of man with reference to their own salvation. They have further deduced from the doctrine,–that the free-will of fallen men, even in reference to spiritual good accompanying salvation, is only wakened or enfeebled, but not lost or extinguished,–the position that man’s free-will co-operates with divine grace in the process of his regeneration, and this in a sense which the Reformers and orthodox Protestant churches have regarded as inconsistent with scriptural views of man/s natural capacities and of the gospel method of salvation.”

One key issue at this point, however, is that this denial of Trent is in their section on justification. The teaching of free-will reaches into the doctrine of justification and makes large ripples there as well. Cunningham says that it is “their doctrine of the cooperation of the free-will of man with the grace of God in the work of redemption” that paves the way “for their grand and fundamental heresy on the subject of justification.” Here is a point that it would be wise to study closely. Martin Luther wrote his book on The Bondage of the Will in order to defend the gospel of grace alone. It is precisely at this point where the doctrine of grace alone sets out how deeply the “alone” part reaches in the Gospel. It is also this point where many who say they believe in grace alone depart from the true teaching of the doctrine. Here is perhaps the main difference between Roman Catholicism and the Reformers. It is also the main difference between Arminianism and Calvinism. The fundamental problem with Roman Catholicism, if you listen to Luther, is that it did not believe in the bondage of the will and so did not really hold to grace alone which made it impossible for them to hold to justification by faith alone. Roman Catholicism is fundamentally Arminian in its theology. The rest is essentially external applications of historical rites to its Arminianism.

Arminianism asserts that man can do something to prepare himself or to do an act of the will in order to be regenerated. That is a necessary teaching if one is an Arminian. If the will is free and is able to act and co-operate with God in salvation and is the deciding factor if a person is saved or not saved, then salvation is not by grace alone. This means that salvation is by an act of the will and of grace, but it is not of grace alone. The reason that the Reformers set out justification by faith alone was to guard the biblical teaching of grace alone. Once free-will has removed grace alone, it has made its way onto the throne of the Gospel of justification by faith alone and has deposed it in reality. When one has deposed faith alone in reality, the adjustments to the character of God have already been done. He is no longer completely sovereign in His giving of grace which means it is no longer grace.

In the last BLOG we looked at the view of John Owen regarding Arminianism. He said that their attempt to set out free-will was really the desire to set up the sufficiency of man as happened at the Fall. In this they attempt two things: First, “To exempt themselves from God’s jurisdiction,–to free themselves from the supreme dominion of his all-ruling providence.” Second, “to clear human nature from the heavy imputation of being sinful, corrupted, wise to do evil but unable to do good; and so to vindicate themselves a power and ability doing all that good which God can justly require to be done by them in the state wherein they are.”

Louis Berkhof, in The History of Christian Doctrines, says this:

“Between the extremes of Augustinianism and Pelagianism a mediating movement arose, which is known in history as Semi-Pelagianism. As a matter of fact that halfway position served to bring out clearly-as nothing else could have done-that only a system like the Augustinian, with its strong logical coherence, could maintain its ground successfully against the onslaughts of Pelagius. Semi-Pelagianism made the futile attempt to steer clear of all difficulties by giving a place to both divine grace and human will as co-ordinate factors in the renewal of man, and by basing predestination on forseen faith and obedience. It did not deny human corruption, but regarded man the nature of man as weakened or diseased rather than as fatally injured by the fall. Fallen human nature retains an element of freedom, in virtue of which it can co-operate with divine grace. Regeneration is the joint product of both factors, but it is really man and not God that begins the work.”

What we see here is a man looking back on the history of these competing and contradictory views of theology. John Owen was a man who lived in a time when Arminianism (Semi-Pelagianism) was beginning to have a renewal. The version that John Owen saw was one that had certainly suffered a downhill slide since the days of Arminius himself. But Berkhof gives us a brief view of the history of these things from the twentieth century. What he tells us is in some ways a vindication of the views of John Owen, though he is more measured in his assessment of the situation. Augustinianism (Calvinism) holds to the teaching that man is dead in sin and cannot do one good thing apart from the power and effect of the grace of God. Pelagianism says that man is not dead in sin and can do good things apart from the grace of God. Semi-Pelagianism comes along and says that man is not dead but is weakened. Of necessity, then, human nature is seen as having “an element of freedom” and one that “can co-operate with divine grace.”

What we want to see here is that no longer is salvation by grace alone, according to this scheme, but instead is now by grace plus something. This is a different view of the Gospel and of God. While the Semi-Pelagian view is that salvation is almost all of grace, it has to leave some little part of man that can do something good and so it is not all of grace. Regeneration, then, is started by the choice of man and God finishes the work. But again, contrary to John 1:12-13, the new birth is not of the will of man, but instead it is of the will of God. Following from that the teaching is that God forsees faith and obedience rather than gives faith and obedience by grace. While this may be seen as small to some, it is a drastic change in terms of the character of God. What we can see, then, is that the stringent effort to maintain free-will has led to a change to where the Gospel is now mostly grace instead of all grace. Instead of the teaching of Scripture about predestination, we now have what is more aptly termed “post-destination.” In the Arminian or Semi-Pelagian view, God sees what the human being will do and then He destines. That is a destination after the human does something and so is post-destination.

We must not miss how important and vital this point is. Predestination and total depravity teach us that God looks upon sinners who hate Him and cannot do anything to help themselves. God looks upon them and by sheer and utter grace He breaks their hearts from their self-trust, regenerates them and gives them Christ. They are saved by grace and grace alone. It is grace that makes the first move and it is grace that makes all of the moves. God does not act because the sinner did something as an act of the will, but the sinner does something as an act of the will because God has shown grace. If you are reading closely, you will see that these positions are drastically different both about the Gospel and about the character of God. Owen has taught us that to maintain the Arminian position one has to have a different view about God and man than does the Reformed one. Berkhof has supported that position if we read him carefully. While Owen uses hard language, he believes he is fighting for the truth of God and the Gospel. Let us be careful and realize that these opposing positions are not as close as many insist today.