The erosion of moral standards which began in the Sixties has now inexorably brought us to the point where Government ministers responsible for the enforcement of law and order and the administration of the welfare state might well be regarded as almost at their wits’ end. Violence, robbery, dishonesty and immorality are abounding, and with almost fifty per cent of marriages now breaking down, and the number of one parent families claiming state support steadily increasing, it is little wonder that concern is being expressed. The amount of tax-payers’ money expended in fighting crime and in providing state benefits is enormous.
‘The powers that be’ are finding out that it is far easier to identify the problems than to solve them. As the alarm bells began to ring certain measures were adopted with a view to arresting and reversing the moral decline, but it is now very evident that they have failed to produce the hoped-for effect. The soft approach to teenage thuggery, the relaxation of rules to make life within prison walls more congenial for those confined within them, and the changes in the law which were introduced to secure a fair trial for the accused, but which have had the effect of tilting the balance towards favouring the criminal while leaving the victim without redress, are now discredited and regarded as in need of drastic revision. Matters are getting out of hand to the extent that the conviction is beginning to register that it is only a return to Christian moral standards that will, after all, reverse the trend. Noises to that effect are now being heard in the corridors of power. It is suggested that the inculcation of moral standards should begin in the home and that parents who fail to discipline their children should be held responsible for their offspring’s delinquency. It is also thought that periods allocated to religious education might be more usefully employed in teaching children the distinction between what is morally right and wrong rather than wasting them on
pursuits which often have no relevance to the Christian religion at all.
The sum of the Moral Law, as every properly-informed Christian knows, is “to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength, and with all our mind; and our neighbour as ourselves.” If that were instilled into the minds of young and old and, at the same time, emphasis was placed on the solemn fact that men, women and children are accountable to God for their actions, there would surely be some hope of amendment. But how can this be effected when the very people who are given the place of religious leaders, and who ought to preach and practise Biblical Christianity, are continually undermining the authority of the Moral Law by condoning sin as, for instance, was the case recently when a Church of England working party report called for the removal of any stigma attached to couples living together outside of marriage? The same dignitaries are prepared to let self-publicised sodomites continue in what is called “holy orders”. Blind leaders of the blind they are and is it any wonder that eventually both fall into the ditch? Some politicians like Mr John Redwood are showing more concern over these matters than time-serving clerics who are more expert at fudging moral issues than defining them and who act as if they were ignorant of the eternal distinction that there is between what is precious and what is vile. And where shall we find, throughout the nation, Christian school-teachers prepared to sit down in class-rooms and in a loving, diligent manner instil into the minds of children the Christian moral code? They are, doubtless, there, but, alas, they are few and far between. The multi-faith/comparative religion approach to religious education has led to confusion and children are left with the impression that Christianity is not unique and that one religion is as good as another.
Those in high places might begin to set a better example. Our Queen, whose conduct and example are, in many respects, admirable, permits herself to be led astray by misguided counsellors and now attends multi-faith services as a matter of course. Is that not giving place to false gods? And what shall we say when she sees fit to attend an ecumenical service in Westminster Cathedral, the principal seat of Popery in the United Kingdom, and where the most heaven-provoking form of all idolatry is practised daily in the so-called sacrifice of the mass? Whatever the Archbishop of Canterbury may have advised, we believe that Her Majesty’s conduct is not consistent with her coronation declaration of being ‘a faithful Protestant’. We cannot surely countenance idolatry and at the same time love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, strength and mind.
Christian commentators have drawn attention to the place occupied by the Fourth Commandment at the very heart of the Moral Law. It may be safely asserted that when this Commandment is observed in any community, then, so also will be the other nine Commandments. By removing almost all of the laws which inhibited Sabbath-breaking, such as those which restricted the opening of shops and places of entertainment on the Lord’s Day, our Government has greatly contributed to the opening of the flood-gates. Can it be that one reason for the widespread rejection of this Commandment is that acceptance of its authority is inseparable from acceptance of the Genesis account of the creation of the heavens and the earth? “For in six days”, it states, “the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is”, and that contradicts all that is taught in schools and universities with regard to the origin of man and the universe.
If the bringing back of our nation to Christian moral standards appears a task insuperable to us, we are to remember that “the things which are impossible with men are possible with God.” An outpouring of the Holy Spirit would do it. Then we would have a situation analogous to that which obtained in Scotland towards the end of the Cromwellian period. “At the king’s return”, Kirkton, in his History of the Church of Scotland, tells us, “every parish had a minister, every village had a school, every family almost had a Bible — yea, in most of the country all the children of age could read the Scriptures, and were provided of Bibles either by their parents or ministers. Every minister was a very full professor of the reformed religion, according to the Confession of Faith framed at Westminster. None of them might be scandalous in their conversation, or negligent in their office, so long as a presbyterie stood. I have lived many years in a parish where I never heard an oath; and you might have ridden many miles before you heard one. Also, you could not, for a great part of the country, have lodged in a family where the Lord was not worshipped by reading, singing, and public prayer. Nobody complained more than the taverners; whose ordinary lamentation was — their trade was broke, people were become so sober.”
When I look to my guiltiness, I see my salvation one of our Saviour’s greatest miracles, either in heaven or earth. I am sure I may defy any man to show me a greater wonder. But seeing I have no wares, no hire, no money for Christ, He must either take me with want, misery, corruption, or then want me. — Rutherford.
Lecture on the Sabbath
by Rev. N. Cameron, Glasgow
(This lecture is reprinted from Volume 38 of this Magazine)
“Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath Day, and hallowed it” — (Exodus 20:8).
The Sabbath Day rest was instituted in the garden of Eden. It was the first whole day man enjoyed after God created him. Although no mention is made directly of the Sabbath Day as a day for rest and worship, there is indirectly in the case of Cain and Abel’s sacrifices: “And in process of time it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering to the Lord. And Abel, he brought also of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof.” The expression, “in process of time,” means at the end of days, which may mean either at the end of the days they remained with their father (as we can trace down through the succeeding ages that the father acted as priest in his own family), and that they began then to act as priests in their own homes. The end of days, we firmly believe, meant also the end of the week, or the Sabbath.
From the manner in which reference is made to the Sabbath in the 16th Chapter of Exodus, it must have been lost sight of and forgotten during the bondage of the children of Israel in Egypt. The divine record of the event reads thus:— “And it came to pass, that on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for one man; and all the rulers of the congregation came to Moses. And he said unto them, this is that which the Lord has said, ‘Tomorrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord’.” This is one reason why this commandment is prefaced by the word, “Remember,” and, indeed, we as a generation have much need of considering seriously the obligation which this charge of Almighty God will one day mean to us should we forget our duty as to this commandment.
Let us consider now a few things in connection with this commandment of God’s moral law. May the Holy Spirit guide us in our thoughts and words.
I. Let us consider the perpetually binding obligation of this commandment.
(1) It was declared by the mouth of God from the top of Mount Sinai on that never-to-be-forgotten day in the hearing of all the children of Israel. We read:— “And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled. And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God. . . . And the mount was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire . . . and the whole mount quaked greatly. And when the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder, Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice.” The fourth commandment is a part of the expressions of the voice of God that day. It was placed in the middle of the moral law, not only as God expressed it, but also as He wrote it by His own finger on the tables of stone. We have it in the very words which came out of the mouth of God that day. No sane man will deny God’s right to make and declare a law to show His rational, reasonable creatures the rule of their duty towards Him, and towards one another. This is exactly what the moral law contains. No man, having his reason unimpaired, will deny that God has power enough to demand obedience to His law, and in the case of disobedience to punish the transgressor even with everlasting destruction. None will deny these things but “the fool who says in his heart there is no God”: but even the fool will not deny it at the Great Day, and before the Judge and the great white throne.
Let any man consider the precepts of God’s moral law and he will feel convinced that they are unchangeable in their nature. It will never be right for sons or daughters to disobey and dishonour their parents. Neither can it ever be right for a man to kill, commit adultery, steal, slander, or covet. The same thing is true concerning the first table of the moral law. It can never be but sin that any of His creatures should have any false God; or worship the true God by images; or blaspheme God’s great and terrible name by taking it into their lips in vain; or transgress the fourth commandment by doing any work on that day save those of necessity and mercy.
The moral law cannot and will not be abrogated. Our Lord says — “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” Notice that this fulfilment will not be consummated “till heaven and earth pass.” So it would be well for its transgressors to make sure that God has abrogated the fourth commandment before they dare
profane it. But they will search in vain for its annulment in any place in God’s Word. It is written in God’s statute book, and while it remains there, its transgressors are in danger of being apprehended, and charged before the Great Judge, and condemned as sinners against God’s law. This takes place in the case of every Sabbath desecrator when death lands him in the presence of God in eternity. “O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!” But no. The Papacy, when it introduced images into its worship as a body, removed the Second Commandment from the manuals which were placed in the hands of its people. If it had left it, its followers would have read — “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them,” etc. It, therefore, removed it, because it prohibited the idolatrous form of worship which it purposed to impose upon the people. So the millions who adhere to the Papacy are idolaters, and will be condemned for that sin at the day of final judgment.
There is now a supreme effort made by Satan and his servants to banish the Sabbath Day. Very few are met with anywhere who hold that the Fourth Commandment is an integral part of God’s moral law, and that such as transgress it, and such as will continue transgressing it to the end, will be punished with eternal death. They will tell one that it was only a Jewish institution, and that we as Christians are not bound to observe it. Some will allow that it should be observed for morning worship in our churches; while others deny that they are under any obligation to keep it holy, or to refrain from doing work on it. On account of these sophistries, Sabbath profanation has come in like a flood into industry of every description in this country, and also into the churches everywhere. Men go to their work on this holy day without a qualm of conscience, and ministers, office-bearers, and members travel by trains and street cars which are run for the very purpose of earning money. All seem to forget, or to disbelieve, that “sin is the transgression of the law, and that the wages of sin is death.” This flood has risen so high that one reads in speeches made ostensibly in defence of Sabbath observation that the speaker does not desire to go back to the puritanical manner in which the Sabbath was observed in the past. We are afraid that such statements are made to avoid being considered narrow and bigoted by such as hate holiness, or puritanism, on Sabbath or week days. The desire after popularity is the moving cause of such expression.
An effort is being made to prove that the Christian Sabbath is
unscriptural, and that the seventh day should be observed and not the first. (1) The seventh day was instituted by God to commemorate the work of creation. This day was the Sabbath Day during the Old Testament economy. It was the Son of God that created the heavens and the earth, and all that they contain, as it is written — “Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. . . . And thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thy hands.” (2) It was the Son in our nature, that suffered, obeyed, and died for his own elect people. This work of redemption He finished on the morning of the Resurrection. “There remaineth therefore a rest (Sabbath-keeping) to the people of God. For He that entered into His rest hath ceased from His own works, as God did from His.” Who is said to cease from His works in this scripture? Who but Christ, and the Sabbath-keeping that remains to the people of God now commemorates the work of the Son of God by which he laid the foundation of the new creation, which shall not pass away like the old creation. That the Church, especially among the Gentiles, in the apostolic age and ever since held the first day of the week as the Christian Sabbath is manifest in the Scriptures of the New Testament. On the evening of the Resurrection day Christ met with His disciples, Thomas being not then present. Eight days after that He came into their midst and cured Thomas of his unbelief. Again, we find that at Troas “upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached to them, ready to depart on the morrow” (Acts 20:7). Again, we find in I Cor. 16:1-2, “Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store . . . ”. This shows that these churches assembled together on the first day of the week, and that an order was given them to make a collection for the poor on that day. In Revelation we read — “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day” (Rev. 1:10). This shows that the first day of the week was called “the Lord’s Day”.
There was no cause why the terms of the Fourth Commandment should be altered; for the command is, “Six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work; but the seventh day.” The seventh day after six days of labour is quite in agreement with the terms of the Fourth Commandment. I think every fair-minded man will feel convinced that notwithstanding the Jews met in the synagogues on the Sabbath Day as before, the Gentile believers kept the Lord’s Day, i.e., the Christian Sabbath, from the beginning. If further proof were necessary, the many occasions upon which the Lord sent the Holy Spirit since the day of Pentecost to bless His word to poor sinners on the Lord’s Day should satisfy any reasonable person that the Lord still blesses this day of rest.
(To be continued)
Particular Redemption
By the Rev. Donald Beaton
The following has been extracted from a little booklet published, in 1938, by the Sovereign Grace Union under the title: “Some Foundation Truths of the Reformed Faith.” Mr Beaton was a church Tutor for over forty years.
Dr Cunningham has well said: “The Incarnation of the second Person of the Godhead, the assumption of human nature by One who from eternity possessed the divine nature, so that He was God and man in one Person is, as a subject of contemplation, well fitted to call forth the profoundest reverence, and to excite the strongest emotions; and if it was indeed a reality, it must have been intended to accomplish most important results. If Christ really was God and man in one Person, we may expect to find, in the object thus presented to our contemplation, much that is mysterious, much that we cannot fully comprehend; while we should also be stirred up to examine with the utmost care everything that has been revealed to us regarding it, assured that it must possess no ordinary interest and importance” (Historical Theology, ii, 237). This is certainly the right frame of mind in which to approach the sublime subject of the doctrine of redemption. It should never be forgotten that there is a very intimate connection between the Person and the work of Christ. A low view of His Person will naturally lead to an inadequate view of His propitiatory work. Hence Socinianism, Arianism and Modernism have no glorious doctrine of redemption to present to sinners. It is a feature of the theology of the present day as recognised too widely in the high places of the professing Church that Christ is not given the high and honourable place as “the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.” Hence His vicarious sacrifice is eliminated from the theological system of Modernism, which has no need of a divine sacrifice and ruthlessly rejects the very idea. Modernism is the modern expression of the ancient taunt of the chief priests, scribes and elders: “If He be the King of Israel, let Him come down from the cross, and we will believe Him” (Matt. 27: 42). Eliminate the cross and all it implies, and what Gospel is there to preach to perishing men, lost and ruined? Let Calvary be preached in all its glory of redeeming love, and then it is good news indeed to those who are ready to perish. No wonder the Apostle said: “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (Gal. 6: 14).
The term “satisfaction” is used by the Reformers to designate the priestly work of Christ, and in many respects it is preferable to the word
“atonement,” which occurs but once in the Authorised Version of the New Testament (Rom. 5: 11), and then with the meaning of at-one-ment or reconciliation (vide margin), expressing the effect and not the nature of Christ’s work. That work was so perfect that it gave full satisfaction to God’s justice. “This perfection of the satisfaction of Christ” is not due, as Dr Charles Hodge points out, “to His having suffered either in kind or in degree what the sinner would have been required to endure; but principally to the infinite dignity of His Person. He is not a mere man, but God and man in one Person. His obedience and sufferings were therefore the obedience and sufferings of a divine Person” (System. Teol., 3: 483). This does not imply that the divine nature suffered as was maintained by some heretics (Patripassians) in the ancient Church, and as is held by many modern theologians who hold the doctrine of the passibility of God. It is wrong to say that the human nature was the sacrifice, for this would immediately make the sacrifice finite. The correct way of stating the doctrine is that He suffered in His human nature, but the suffering was of a person who was divine. Hence the Scriptures when they speak of His sufferings always speak of them as the sufferings of a person.
A truth which must be maintained at all costs is the vicarious nature of Christ’s death. The Saviour stood, as the old divines put it, in the sinner’s law place. Christ, the substitute, suffered in the room and stead of all His people.” The attempt is sometimes made to illustrate vicarious suffering in grace,” says Dr Shedd, “by what is denominated ‘vicarious suffering in nature.’ But the analogy is defective. The two things are different in kind, not merely in degree. A mother’s suffering for her child is not substitutionary, and has no reference to retributive justice. The following points of difference are evident: Vicariousness in nature: (1) Is not expiatory, that is, satisfactory of law. (2) Does not release another from obligation to suffer penalty. (3) Is sharing suffering with another. The mother suffers with the child. There are two sufferers. (4) Is helping another to bear suffering. The mother assists her child to endure. Vicariousness in grace: (1) Is expiatory; that is, satisfactory of law. (2) Releases another from the obligation to penal suffering. (3) Does not share suffering with another, but endures the whole of it. Christ does not suffer with the sinner, but ‘treads the winepress alone.’ (4) Does not assist the sinner to bear suffering, but suffers in his place (Dogmatic Theol., 3: 503, 4).
(i.) The Necessity of Redemption. — Scripture plainly teaches that satisfaction was made and that pardon and salvation are held out to sinners
and bestowed upon them on the ground of Christ’s satisfaction. “Neither Scripture nor reason,” says Dr Cunningham, “warrant the position that repentance is, in its own nature, an adequate reason or ground, ordinarily and in general, still less in all cases, for pardoning those who have transgressed a law to which they were subject” (Hist. Theol., 2: 283). The very Incarnation of the Son of God. His life of humiliation, His death on Calvary’s cross, all proclaim the necessity of satisfaction: “Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin.” All this life of humiliation and suffering has elements in it so extraordinary that we are forced to say that it would never have taken place had it not been absolutely necessary. “We feel”, says Dr Cunningham, “and we cannot but feel, that there is no unwarranted presumption in saying, that if it had been possible that the salvation of guilty men could have been otherwise accomplished, the only-begotten Son of God would not have left the glory which He had with His Father from eternity, assumed human nature, and suffered and died on earth. This ground, were there nothing more revealed regarding it, would warrant us to make the general assertion that the Incarnation, suffering, and death of Christ were necessary to the salvation of sinners; that this result could not have been effected without them” (ibid. ii. 254). He is careful to point out, however, that this general consideration does not warrant us in asserting directly and immediately the necessity of redemption, but only the necessity of the suffering and death of Christ, whatever may have been the character attaching to them, or the effect resulting from them in connection with the salvation of sinners.* Furthermore, there are some things which God cannot do because of His infinite perfection. If sin could not be pardoned without satisfaction, then it is because the infinite perfections of His nature stood in the way.
(1) God’s law proclaims that the soul which sins shall die. Since God has said this, and as He is not a man that He should lie, nor the son of
* The question of the necessity of Christ’s satisfaction was raised in the controversy with the Socinians and others who denied that a vicarious redemption was necessary. The assertion of the necessity of redemption, as well as the denial, must be based upon certain ideas of the attributes and moral government of God viewed in connection with the actual state and condition of man as a transgressor of His law says Dr William Cunningham. The necessity of redemption is based by Dr J. Owen on the nature of divine justice. In his Dissertation of Divine Justice (Works 10: 481) he maintains the absolute nature of divine justice in opposition to the view that its claims could be set aside by the mere volition of God. There were some among the Schoolmen (e.g., Hales and Bonaventura) and also such great divines as Dr W. Twisse, the prolocutor of the Westminster Assembly, Samuel Rutherford, and others, who held that it was possible for God to have pardoned sin by a mere volition without satisfaction to His justice. Dr Twisse held that redemption was only hypothetically necessary. The foregoing divines reached their conclusion by magnifying God’s sovereignty and power at the expense of His justice.
man that He should repent (Num. 23: 19), His truth is pledged that this will not be meaningless. We cannot conceive of a way whereby this veracity will be maintained in all its integrity and unsullied purity except by an adequate satisfaction being rendered. While this is so, we are not warranted in asserting these things apart from revelation, but they give us strong grounds for asserting that since God did threaten death as the punishment of sin, nothing could prevent the carrying out of this threatening except an adequate satisfaction.
(2) The necessity of redemption is not only based upon God’s veracity, but upon His justice. By this justice divines mean that perfection of His nature of which He cannot denude Himself, and which of necessity must regulate the free acts of His will. This justice cannot be set aside by an arbitrary decree. If sin is to be pardoned, then some provision is necessary, not only to conserve this veracity, but to vindicate His justice.
(3) In connection with this subject it is important that the fundamental idea of sin as a transgression of God’s law should be kept before us. It is not merely debt, but it is breach of God’s law. When God deals with it, it is not as a creditor, who may remit the debt, but as a just law-giver who has given a holy law, prohibiting sin upon the pain of death, and who in the interests of holiness must vindicate the honour of His law when broken. The point touched on here is clearly brought out by an illustration of Dr Charles Hodge. A man is in debt to the extent, say, of £100; a kind friend comes forward, advances the £100, and the claims of the creditor end. But in the case of a man who steals £100, the fact that a kind friend may offer the money by way of reparation does not end the matter. In this case law has been broken, and satisfaction must be rendered by the payment of a penalty. Stress, great stress has been laid upon the necessity of redemption, and the more this doctrine is considered, the more terrible does sin appear. Since there is no way of removing it but by the satisfaction made by our Lord Jesus Christ, how hopeless is the case of those who look to another way of salvation:
(ii.) The Extent of Redemption. — By this phrase it is not meant that the sufficiency of the vicarious death of Christ is not infinite; for the most orthodox Calvinistic theologians, though using the terms particular or limited,* hold that doctrine with unswerving loyalty. Some of the Schoolmen, in an endeavour to set forth this great truth, were accustomed
* Definite is the more correct term, and it is used by the Princeton theologians and invariably by Dr Cunningham and Dr G. Smeaton. Limited is open to the objection that it tends to conflict with the sufficiency of the redemption if its common usage is not kept clearly in mind.
to say that Christ died sufficiently for all men, but efficiently or efficaciously for the elect (sufficienter pro omnibus, efficaciter pro electis). The phrase is ambiguous, though accepted by Calvin and other orthodox divines, as it may appear to ascribe an intention of Christ dying for all without exception. It fixes attention on the intention rather than on the sufficiency. After the controversies concerning the extent or design of redemption, Reformed theologians modified the formula, making it read: “Christ’s death was sufficient for all, while efficacious for the elect.” This statement sets forth the infinite efficacy of the vicarious sacrifice, while the statement of the Schoolmen would seem to indicate, as Dr Cunningham points out, “that when He died, He intended that all should derive some saving and permanent benefit from His death.” (Hist. Theol., ii. 332). The question between those who hold the doctrine of a definite redemption, however, and those who hold by an indefinite redemption, is not the question of the sufficiency of the redemption, but its design or intention. “All that Christ did and suffered would have been necessary,” says Dr C. Hodge, “had only one human soul been the object of redemption; and nothing different and nothing more would have been required had every child of Adam been saved through His blood” (System. Theol., ii. 545).
In maintaining the doctrine of particular redemption it is not meant that humanity in general, including those who ultimately perish, does not derive some benefits and advantages from Christ’s death. “They (i.e. Calvinists) believe,” says Dr Cunningham, “that important benefits have accrued to the whole human race from the death of Christ, and that in these benefits those who are finally impenitent and unbelieving partake. What they deny is, that Christ intended to procure, or did procure, for all men those blessings which are the proper and peculiar fruits of His death in its specific character as an atonement, that He procured or purchased redemption, that is, pardon and reconciliation, for all men. Many blessings flow to mankind at large from the death of Christ, collaterally and incidentally, in consequence of the relation in which men, viewed collectively, stand to each other. All these benefits were, of course, foreseen by God when He resolved to send His Son into the world; they were contemplated or designed by Him, as what men should receive and enjoy. They are to be regarded and received and bestowed by Him, and as thus unfolding His glory, indicating His character, and actually accomplishing His purposes; and they are to be viewed as coming to men through the channel of Christ’s mediation, of His sufferings and death” (Hist. Theol., ii. 333). This is the position taken up by Turretin, Witsius, C. Hodge and A. A. Hodge. While admitted by Calvinists of
unimpeachable orthodoxy, yet it is not meant by them that Christ, in the true and proper Scriptural import, substituted Himself in the room and stead of all men without exception, or that He made satisfaction to God’s justice for them, or that He purchased redemption for them. For all this is not true of any but those who are actually at length pardoned and saved.
The question at issue does not concern the nature of Christ’s work. If His death was designed simply to exert a moral influence on men, it must have been designed indiscriminately for all. But both parties in this controversy — Calvinists and Arminians — reject the moral theory of the atonement. According to this theory, all idea of expiation or satisfaction of divine justice by vicarious punishment is rejected and the efficacy of Christ’s work is attributed to the moral effect produced on the hearts of men by His character, teaching and acts. This view was first distinctly set forth by Abelard (A.D. 1142). It is the view held in more recent times by the Socinians and in still later times by Jowett (Master of Balliol) Maurice, Young, Bushnell, and Coleridge in his Aids to Reflection. The same objection applies to the governmental or Grotian theory of the atonement. According to this view, God’s justice is not vindictory, but is to be referred to a general governmental rectitude, based on a benevolent regard for the highest ultimate well-being of the subjects of His moral government. If this be so, then it follows that this work can have no special reference to one man more than another. “All that it can do for any it has done for all.” According to this theory, Christ’s death has removed the obstacles out of the way of all and so rendered possible the salvation of each. This theory, advanced by Grotius, the great jurist, has never been embodied in the creed of any historical Church. The theory was held by President Edwards, junior, of Union College, Schenectady, New York State, and is styled the Edwardean Theory of the Atonement.*
What, then, is the real question involved in the matter at issue? It is this: “Did Christ die with the design of making satisfaction to divine justice on behalf of all men indiscriminately, or on behalf of His elect people given to Him by the Father before the foundation of the world, to be redeemed by Him and to be His inheritance? The answer Calvinists give is: “On behalf of His elect people.” The real question is not a limited atonement implying the limitation of Christ’s sacrifice in value, but an
* It is only right for the sake of the good name of President Edwards, of Princeton College, to point out that he held the orthodox doctrine of the atonement. The President Edwards referred to above, was a son. The elder Edwards never held the governmental theory of the atonement.
atonement that was limited to a certain class, or to use the words of the Westminster Divines: “To all those for whom Christ hath purchased redemption, He doth certainly and effectually apply and communicate the same, making intercession for them, and revealing unto them, in and by the Word, the mysteries of salvation; effectually persuading them by His Spirit to believe and obey; and governing their hearts by His Word and Spirit; overcoming all their enemies by His almighty power and wisdom, in such manner and ways as are most consonant to His wonderful and unsearchable dispensation”** (Conf., 7: 8). “Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only” (Ibid., 3: 6). The doctrine of the Reformed Church is, to put it in a few words, that the Lord Jesus Christ died with the design of actually saving His elect people; that is, as Dr A. A. Hodge puts it, “for the purpose of actually saving those whom He does actually save” (The Atonement, p. 332).
(1) The Reformed theologians in their theology taught that it was the design of the redemptive work of Christ to carry into effect the purpose of election. As presented to us in the Confession of Faith, God is represented as having, out of His mere good pleasure, elected some to everlasting life and to all the means thereof, and having sent His Son to effect that purpose by His obedience unto death. (2) The love that prompted God to send His Son and the love that prompted His son to die is set before us in Scripture as the highest conceivable love which made it certain that He will also, with His Son, freely give the objects of that love all things that His wisdom sees they need, and that the objects of that love were a people predestinated from all eternity. (3) That Christ died with the design of making the salvation of those for whom He died certain in pursuance of eternal covenant engagements,* is also the teaching of Reformed theologians. (4) That the purchase of salvation is so connected with its application that it respects the same persons, the latter following upon the former. (5) The Lord Jesus obtained the gracious influences of the Holy Ghost and all the fruits of the Spirit for those for whom He died. Their doctrine was that Christ died for the purpose of actually saving
** Dr Cunningham says concerning this statement: “Now this latter statement . . . contains, and was intended to contain the true status quaestionis in the controversy about the extent of the atonement” (Historical Theology ii. 329).
* This subject is dealt with by Witsius in his Economy of the Covenants (ii, 9), at the considerable length and also by Dr Hugh Martin in his work, The Atonement, in which he treats the redemptive work of our Lord in relation to the covenant of grace. Dr R. Watts, Belfast, recommended this as one of the most masterly works on the subject.
those whom He does actually save; or, to put it in the words of the Confession: “Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only” (iii. 6). Around this question have raged those controversies that bear the names of (a) Arminianism, (b) Amyraldianism, (c) Baxterianism, (d) Double Reference, and (e) Dr B. B. Warfield’s Cosmic or Eschatological Universalism.
(a) The Arminian doctrine asserts that Christ died for all and every man alike — for Judas as well as for Peter. And in support of their position. Arminians appeal to certain passages in Scripture which they allege have a definitely universalistic application. According to the teaching of consistent Arminianism as to the design of Christ’s death, it simply brought all men into a salvable state, but did not actually procure reconciliation for any, and, as Dr G. Smeaton puts it, “under the guise of enlarging Christ’s merits, it tended only to undermine and diminish them.” Arminianism did not scruple to maintain that the ransom might have been paid by Christ and yet not applied to any because of unbelief. “A gulf was thus drawn,” says Dr Smeaton, “between the procuring of redemption and the application of it, as if these were not of equal extent and breadth. The application was thus suspended on man’s free will, and humanity was thrown back on its own resources, or on such aid as all equally receive, to apply the redemption for themselves” (Apostles’ Doctrine of the Atonement, p. 537). The Arminians also held that the end of Christ’s death was to acquire a new right, on the ground of which God might make a new covenant with men. This is thorough going Neonomianism, as Dr Cunningham has pointed out, the same in substance though not in form as that around which the Neonomian Controversy was waged in England in the 18th century, and which had its echoes in Scotland in the Marrow Controversy. The Arminians further denied that the Atonement carried with it the ground of its application. As the sinner’s salvation is left so largely to his own free will, it follows that thousands for whom Christ died, according to the Arminian view, may never be saved. In point of fact, Arminians admit that many are lost, i.e., many of those for whom, according to their doctrine, Christ died. (a) If this be so, then their doctrine of a universal redemption is what Dr Warfield described as inoperative universalism. “Though in intrinsic worth it (Christ’s satisfaction) could save the whole world,” says Dr Smeaton, “and a thousand worlds more, if there had been such worlds of human beings to be saved, yet the redemption work does not extend, in point of fact, beyond the circle of those who approve of it as a fit and proper method of salvation; or, in other words, who, by a faith which is the gift of God, are led to accept
it as the ground of reconciliation with God. It is simply co-extensive, as to saving effects, with the number of true believers” (Our Lord’s Doctrine of the Atonement, p. 371). (b) Further, if some are lost for whom Christ died, then His redemptive work has failed for them or the Holy Spirit has failed in applying the benefits of His redemption. In either case their doctrine does dishonour to Christ and the Holy Spirit, and if not blasphemy it is perilously near it.
It remains to be pointed out that there are Scriptural statements which cannot by any fair process of interpretation be reconciled with the Arminian doctrine, and in this connection, perhaps, there are no works attaining such excellence as Prof. G. Smeaton’s Our Lord’s Doctrine of the Atonement and The Apostle’s Doctrine of the Atonement. Dr Smeaton adopts the exegetical method and dealt with the texts in the Gospels and Epistles bearing on the subject.
Our Lord speaks of those for whom He was to lay down His life as His sheep (John 10: 15), a people given to Him by the Father who hear his voice and follow Him; it is for these that He laid down His life. Again, those whom He is to save are called His people (Matt. 1: 21); and those for whom He laid down His life are called His friends (John 15: 13, 14). Concerning an oft-quoted and oft-misunderstood text, Dr R. L. Dabney says: “There is, perhaps, no Scripture which gives so thorough and comprehensive an explanation of the design and results of Christ’s sacrifice as John 3: 16-19″ (Systematic and Polemic Theology, ii. 535). The satisfaction offered is definitely limited to those who believe in His name. The Bible teaches that the design of Christ’s death is actually to save, and not simply to make salvation possible (Matt. 18: 10; Rom. 5: 10; 2 Cor. 5: 21; Gal. 1: 4; Eph. 1: 7)
(To be continued)
John Welsh
Continued from page 310 of the last issue