By Rev. John Colquhoun
When our Lord sent forth His disciples to preach the Gospel, after His resurrection, He said to them, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature, He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be damned,” Mark 16: 15, 16. Again, immediately before His ascension, He said to them, “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.” Acts 1: 8. This clearly teaches that the gospel is to be preached to every creature of the human race, whatever their nationality, colour, or creed may be. That the meaning of these words was clear to the Apostles need not be doubted, as they were quite familiar with the free offer of the gospel in the Scriptures of the Old Testament, for the benefits of the gospel are freely offered to all sorts of sinners there. If we take Christ speaking as the Wisdom of God in the Book of Proverbs we find Him saying, “How long ye simple ones will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? Turn you at my reproof: Behold I will pour my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you.” Prov. 22: 23. That the preaching of the Apostles was in accordance with this is equally clear. If we take Peter on the day of Pentecost we find him saying to the whole congregation, “Repent and be baptised every one of you in the name of the Lord Jesus, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” Acts 2: 38. Again, Paul in addressing the Church in Corinth, says, “And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; to wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be you reconciled to God.” II Cor. 5: 18-20. Here we have the offer of Christ in the gospel to those who were not yet reconciled, and who gave no indication, as yet, that they were of the elect.
The Hyper-Calvinist’s View. — Generally speaking, the free offer of the gospel is found in the Christian Church down through the ages; the exception is found among a scattered minority, known as Hyper-Calvinists. Though these are found chiefly among certain sections of the Strict Baptists in England, yet they are not wholly confined to them. Hyper-Calvinism may be said to be the swing of the pendulum from Arminianism. Its upholders maintain that there is no warrant in Scripture for a universal call to come to Christ to all sinners to whom the gospel comes, and that Christ should only be offered to those only whom the Holy Spirit effectually calls. Such passages as “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price,” Isaiah 55: 1, are referred to as implying “a living gracious thirst,” totally ignoring the fact that those invited to come to the waters are asked, “Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not?” Verse 2. Surely a living gracious thirst cannot have for its object “that which is not bread,” and “that which satisfieth not.” This extreme view became common among a certain section of professed Calvinists in opposition to all shades of Arminianism, and the result was that they denied that there was any warrant in Scripture for an offer of Christ to all sinners, and that He is held forth or offered as a Saviour only to those who are effectually called, and they have gone the length of referring to all of the opposite view as Arminians.
Based on man’s inability to believe. — This position is maintained on the ground that man is a bankrupt, spiritually, making it impossible for him either to repent or believe. To take up the position that Christ should not be offered to any but to those who are convinced sinners is quite as unscriptural as that of the Arminians who maintained that those who are called have a certain ability, and that this ability limits man’s responsibility. Both positions are unscriptural because the sinner is responsible for his inability. His inability is his sin, and he shall be held accountable to God for that inability, for God has a right to demand of the sinner that service and obedience which man in a state of innocence had power to render. His becoming unable to render that service and obedience did not change the unchangeable God. If we take as a good example of Hyper-Calvinism the Articles of Faith of the Gospel Standard Denomination of Strict and Particular Baptists we read in Article 26: “We deny duty-faith and duty repentance — these terms signifying that it is every man’s duty to spiritual and savingly repent and believe. We deny also that there is any capability in man by nature to any spiritual good whatever. So that we reject the doctrine that man in a state of nature should be exhorted to believe in or turn to God.” No conservative theologian will deny that there is no power in man in a state of nature to do any spiritual good whatever, but what has happened to the doctrine of man’s responsibility which is so clearly taught in the Scriptures? As there are no Scripture proofs given to the above Article except proofs which show man’s inability the only logical conclusion that one can come to is that the statement “We reject the doctrine that men in a state of nature should be exhorted to believe in or return to God,” is based on a wrong inference drawn from the doctrine of man’s inability to believe or return to God. That this inference is contrary to the plain revelation which God gives in His Word, and ignores the many truths which show that the opposite is the case, is very evident.
On this point the late Principal Cunningham makes the following clear statement: “The sole ground or warrant for men’s act, in offering pardon and salvation to their fellow-men, is the authority and command of God in His word. We have no other warrant than this; we need no other; and we should seek or desire none; but on this ground alone should consider yourselves not only warranted, but bound, to proclaim to our fellow-men, whatever be their country, character, or condition, the good news of the kingdom, and to call upon them to come to Christ that they may be saved — the Bible affording us sufficient, yea, abundant materials for convincing them that, in right reason, they ought to do this, and for assuring them that all who do, shall obtain eternal life. But this has manifestly nothing to do with the question as to the ground or warrant of God’s act in making unlimited offers, and in authorising us to make them.” Historical Theology, Vol. II. p.347-348.
Scottish Theology and the Free Offer. — In Scotland, prior to what is known as the Marrow Controversy, there was among certain divines a tendency to emphasise that offers of Christ and salvation should only be to convinced and penitent sinners, yet, even among these, there was a setting forth of the duty of all men to believe in Him as God commanded, and a warning to those who continued in their sins of the consequences of unbelief and impenitency. This tendency to confine offers of Christ to the awakened, no doubt, was behind the opposition to the Marrow of Modern Divinity by Principal Haddow of St Andrews and others, which ultimately led the General Assembly to condemn the book. In spite of all this opposition to the Marrow, it left an indelible mark on the preaching of the Evangelical School in Scotland, so that the free offer of the gospel and the proclaiming of man’s duty to believe took the place of a species of Calvinism which has been described as “narrow, rigid and cold.” Thomas Boston, in his Memoirs, tells us that after his settlement in Simpkin, he had several convictions of legality in his own practice. This legality probably was introduced into Scottish Theology through the writings of some of the Dutch divines, whose writings were widely read in Scotland. After Boston digested the contents of the Marrow of Modern Divinity he says, “I found it to come close to the points I was in quest of, and to show the consistency of these, which I could not reconcile before: so that I rejoiced in it, as a light which the Lord had seasonably struck up to me in my darkness.” Thus Boston became noted as a preacher who preached a full-orbed gospel. This light illuminated other godly ministers in Scotland, and here we quote from the Introduction by Dr C. G. McCrie to the last published edition of the Marrow. “Boston was a member of the General Assembly of 1717 when the case of Simson of Glasgow was ended, with as he thought ‘great softness to the Professor,’ and when the Auchterarder Creed, intended by its framers to oppose the errors of the heretic in the west, was condemned by a majority of the court, diffidence which he found it impossible to overcome prevented the Etterick commissioner speaking out when he felt he ought to have lifted up his testimony; but, sitting beside the Rev. John Drummond, minister of Crieff, in the assembly house, he delivered his soul to that worthy Auchterarder presbyter on the subject of the gospel offer as it is set forth in such passages as the fifty-fifth of Isaiah and the eleventh of Matthew. In the course of the conversation Boston mentioned the Marrow.” Here the learned editor quotes Boston himself as to the result. “Hereupon he,” the brother from Crieff, “having inquired in the shops for the said book, at length got it; and from him Mr James Webster getting it was taken therewith; and afterward, Mr Drummond himself being hardly allowed time to read it through, it came into the hands of Mr James Hog, minister of Carnock; and in the end was reprinted in the year 1718, with a preface by the said Mr Hog, dated at Carnock, 3rd December 1717.”
The author of the Marrow states, “God the Father, as He is in His Son, Jesus Christ, moved with nothing but with His free love to mankind lost, hath made a deed of free gift and grant to them all, that whosoever of them all shall believe in his Son shall not perish, but have eternal life.” Thomas Boston, in his Notes on the Marrow, says on this point, “This deed of gift and grant, or authentic gospel offer, is expressed in so many words, John 3: 16. ‘For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that WHOSOEVER believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.’ Where the gospel comes, this grant is published, and the ministerial offer made: and there is no exception of any of all mankind in the grant. If there was, no ministerial offer of Christ could be warrantably made to the party excepted, more than to the fallen angels; and without question, the publishing and proclaiming of heaven’s grant unto any, by the way of ministerial offer, presupposeth the grant, in the first place, to be made to them: otherwise it would be of no more value, than a crier’s offering of the king’s pardon to one who is not comprehended in it. This is the good old way of discovering to sinners their warrant to believe in Christ; and it doth indeed bear the sufficiency of the sacrifice of Christ for all; and that Christ crucified is the ordinance of God for salvation, unto all mankind, in the use-making of which only they can be saved; but not an universal atonement or redemption.” In connection with John 3: 16, cited by Boston, Hyper-Calvinists maintain that the “world” there, merely means Gentiles as well as Jews. That meaning can be attached to it, but it is not the breaking down of the middle wall of partition between Jew and Gentile of which the Saviour is treating at the time, but of the necessity of the New Birth, and of the revelation of God’s love, which made it possible that sinners might experience the New Birth.
The Marrow-men’s distinction between the giving of Christ in this “deed of gift and grant” to the whole world, and the giving of Him in possession to the elect, was at the root of their giving the free offer of the gospel. Whatever may be said of the view, peculiar to the Marrow-men, on this point, the free offer is most consistent with God’s revelation of a definite atonement, and that none shall be saved but those who have been elected. That atonement is suitable and sufficient for all sinners, but all sinners will not have it. “The Lord Jesus, in order to secure the salvation of His people, and with a specific view to that end, fulfilled the condition of the law or covenant under which they and all mankind were placed. These conditions were (1) perfect obedience; (2) satisfaction to divine justice. Christ’s righteousness, therefore, consists of His obedience and death. That righteousness is precisely what the law demands of every sinner in order to justification before God. It is, therefore, in its nature adapted to all sinners who are under the law. Its nature is not altered by the fact that it was wrought out for a portion only of such sinners, or that it is secured to them by covenant between the Father and the Son. What is necessary for the salvation of one man is necessary for the salvation of another and of all. It is also of infinite value, being the righteousness of the eternal Son of God, and therefore sufficient for all.” Hodge’s Essays, pp. 181, 182.
In the Larger Catechism, in answer to the Question, How is the grace of God manifested in the second covenant? the Westminster Divines say, “The grace of God is manifested in the second covenant, in that He freely provideth and offereth to sinners a Mediator, and life and salvation by Him; and requiring faith as the condition to interest them in Him, promiseth and giveth His Holy Spirit to all His elect, to work in them that faith, with all other saving graces; and to enable them unto all holy obedience, as the evidence of the truth of their faith and thankfulness to God, and as the way which He hath appointed them to salvation.” This statement shows clearly God’s love and mercy in providing a Mediator, and life and salvation by Him, the necessity of faith, which is God’s gift, and God’s provision to work that faith in the sinner in order to enable him to receive Christ as the gift of the Father and to rest upon Him alone for salvation.
Dr John Love of Glasgow, one of the brightest ornaments of the Church of Christ in Scotland says with respect to Christ as a gift to sinners:—”In Psalm 50: 16, the Lord is not speaking against the right of the wicked, as sinners, to receive Christ and believe on Him, but against their claiming an actual interest in him, as if they already received him, and were in covenant with God. To convince them of the contrary, several evidences are given, but with this very end — to warn them against self-deceit, and stir them up to seek actual faith in Christ. But, if they had no right to Christ, it would be to no purpose to expostulate with them in this manner.
“There is a real gift of Christ made in the word to sinners, whereby they are warranted to take Christ. Then the Divine command comes forth, requiring them to make use of this gift, and to take Christ. If they plead inability, either to believe the gift or to embrace it, then there is in the word absolute promises, that some shall receive Him. These they are allowed to plead with God: for, though they cannot peremptorily conclude from these, that they shall be made to receive Him, yet there is a possibility, yea, a probability, that in this way they shall come speed: and the uncertainty ought to stir them up to greater anxiety and restlessness, to have it put out of doubt. In the meantime, they are to be attempting to believe the undeniable truth, that Christ is given to them, and to prize and receive Him. And when there is a beginning of the accomplishment in them of the absolute promises, and they are enabled to believe the gift of Christ, and to receive Him, then they may conclude, peremptorily, that all that is contained in the absolute promises shall be made good to them; since, having Christ in actual possession, they have now a right to this.
Love’s Memorials Vol. I. 286.
(To be continued)