1b. Controversies Surrounding the Gospel Offer
Rev A W MacColl
We noted in the previous article that there are various views regarding the free offer of the gospel. We generally give the name of Hyper-Calvinist to any position that seeks to restrict what we believe to be the biblical teaching on the subject in regard to the universal extent of the offer. This term is, we believe, fair and warrantable since Calvin himself and his followers among the Reformed Churches, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, held that Christ and all His benefits were indiscriminately offered in the gospel to every hearer. To deny a universal offer is thus to go beyond biblical Calvinism.
Some hold that it is not the duty of the non-elect to believe and, consequently, it is not the duty of preachers to invite sinners to come to Christ for salvation. Of all Hyper-Calvinist positions, this is perhaps the most worrying. It is based on the argument that God cannot command His creatures to do what is not within their ability to perform. The plain answer to this is that it most certainly is within God’s prerogative to command His creatures to obey His revealed will. This is manifestly obvious with regard to the divine law. Sinners cannot begin to keep the commandments of God without constant transgressing, yet God is just in demanding obedience. To assert that men are not required to obey God’s commands, even though they have no ability to do so, would lead to a position where all moral accountability is overturned.
If men are not to be held responsible for what they cannot perform in duty to God, then it follows that, if a man becomes more and more wicked, he is less and less responsible for his actions and is thus less liable to punishment the further he progresses in sin. John Bonar explodes this reasoning in a sermon that demonstrates the consistency of the free offer with man’s inability. He states, “God can blame and punish man for not doing what yet he cannot do – else the more depraved man became, the less blameable he would become”. Bonar insists that “God can command what men are utterly unable to fulfill” and, moreover, “God can demand what man can only do by the aid of His Spirit”. He adds that God cannot demand less of man “than what His Spirit alone can work in the soul; for God cannot demand other than spiritual service”. He asserts finally that “God does demand of man, and cannot but demand of man – of sinful man, of man lost, undone, and dead, of man without strength, and utterly impotent – repentance and conversion”.^2^
We should also bear in mind that God has decreed and ordained the means to obtaining the very things He requires and which man is unable to produce: faith and repentance through Christ. Sinners are warranted to ask for the Holy Spirit to enable them to come to Christ, according to the terms of Luke 11:13: “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?” W G T Shedd taught that “as Christ’s atonement is offered indiscriminately, so the Holy Spirit is offered indiscriminately; and this warrants every man in asking for what is offered”.^3^ This leaves gospel hearers with no excuse for remaining in unbelief.
There is not a great deal to say about the various theories of Arminianism and Amyraldianism regarding the free offer. In basing their offer on a theological nonentity – a spurious universal atonement – they remove all certainty of salvation from the sinner coming to faith in Christ. If the Saviour died with the purpose of saving all men, then He has manifestly failed in His mission. The clear teaching of Scripture is that His intercession and atonement are co-extensive and so, if He would not pray for the unbelieving world (Jn 17:9), He cannot be said to have died for all the world on the cross. Certainly the language of Scripture forces Arminians to say something about a purpose to bring salvation to the elect, but this “purpose” is based on God’s foreknowledge of man’s free choice.
But if man’s choice is the key factor in sinners benefiting from Christ’s redemption, very serious consequences follow. By denying that Christ’s death actually secures salvation for the elect only, Arminians must face the fact that, at the very point of offering the gospel, they have nothing certain to present to sinners. Thus we can readily see that the consequences of the Arminian teaching are highly unfavourable to personal assurance. The Calvinist minister, however, can say to his hearers with all certainty that if they truly believe in Christ they will definitely be saved.
It may be said of the Scottish Church since the Reformation that, in general, the doctrine of the free offer of the gospel has remained relatively unscathed. The main period of opposition, in the early decades of the eighteenth century, which culminated in the famous “Marrow Controversy”, actually served to strengthen the attachment of Evangelical Presbyterians to the free offer. The principal opponent of the “Marrow” theology, James Hadow, held that faith was every man’s duty but that Christ was conditionally promised in the gospel only to those who are elect.^4^
Hadow’s view prevailed in the General Assembly to the extent that the book in question, The Marrow of Modern Divinity, was condemned in 1720. In the long term, however, it was the “Marrowmen” who wielded the greater influence over Scottish preaching and theology. As Rev Donald Beaton wrote, “it was reserved for the Marrow-men to give this truth [the free offer] such an honoured place that it has been a potent power in keeping Hyper-Calvinism out of the Scottish pulpit”. In their zeal to preach Christ to every creature, they sounded a much-needed blast of the gospel trumpet against legalism and they not only avoided Arminianism but “they managed no less successfully to steer clear of Amyraldianism” at the same time.^5^
It is regrettable that the debate over The Marrow of Modern Divinity was clouded by the fact that some of the statements in the book may be interpreted in a way that might indicate a leaning towards a universal atonement. The suggestion, however, that the Marrowmen themselves held that the atonement had a universal reference has no foundation. They certainly stood by the intrinsic value of the atonement as being sufficient for all men – and in this they were following, and were followed by, many eminent Scottish divines – but they emphatically did not teach that Christ died for all men.
When it came to the actual presentation of the gospel, they did not seek to harmonise the divine decrees with the universal calls and invitations of the Word. They stood by covenant theology and the certainty of salvation for the elect that this theology guarantees. Simultaneously, however, they highlighted the indefiniteness of the manner of Christ’s administration of the covenant of grace among sinners of mankind generally. In other words, the gospel is to be preached to every creature and, in the course of providence, the elect will come to Christ through the door of the free offer. Whilst they did not try to reconcile divine sovereignty and human responsibility, they saw no contradiction between a definite atonement and an indefinite offer of salvation. This theology engendered a strong sense of the need to emphasise the offer, and this imperative has run through the Evangelical school of Scottish preaching ever since.
In the twentieth century, opposition to the free offer in Reformed circles has largely arisen from Dutch-American sources. The leading protagonist here has been Herman Hoeksema of the Protestant Reformed Church. He claimed to represent Calvinistic orthodoxy in his denial of the free offer, but it is fair to state that he did not go as far along the line of Hyper-Calvinism as others. Yet he did deny both a Divine benevolence to all men and a universal free offer of the gospel.
Clearly Presbyterians influenced by such views cannot escape from the terminology of the free offer in The Westminster Confession of Faith and the Catechisms. Nevertheless, such Presbyterians cannot accept the idea that God sincerely offers salvation to sinners whom He has not elected to eternal life. They regard the usage of the word “offer” in the seventeenth-century as merely implying a presentation or exhibition of the truth of the gospel without any actual invitation.^6^ But this, in practice, reduces the promises and invitations of the Word to mere gospel commands, and it limits the offer itself only to believers. There is, on the surface, a certain logical consistency in this position since it endeavours to untie the knot which the divine decrees and the universal language of the gospel invitations often seem to present to our minds. Yet, as David Silversides points out, this position has potentially very dangerous consequences for believers who lack assurance:
“On the view that Christ is only offered to the elect, since the doubting believer can only legitimately determine his election by knowing that he is a true believer . . . this would mean he has no access to an offered Saviour until his doubts are resolved. Yet, the offer of Christ, as the object of faith, is the very means whereby such doubts can be resolved.”^7^
One of the most precious practical benefits of the gospel invitations is to show sinners that they need not look within for qualifications to come to the Saviour. Sadly, this benefit is hindered by maintaining that Christ is only offered to those who show marks of election.
^1^The first part of this Theological Conference paper sought to explain the free offer.
^2^ J Bonar, “The Universal Calls and Invitations of the Gospel Consistent with the Total Depravity of Man, and Particular Redemption”, Banner of Truth Magazine, no 14, (Feb 1959), p 13
^3^ W G T Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, Presbyterian & Reformed, 2003 edn, p 774.
^4^ D C Lachman, The Marrow Controversy 1718-1723, An Historical and Theological Analysis, Rutherford House, 1988, pp 207-8.
^5^ D Beaton, “The Marrow of Modern Divinity and the Marrow Controversy”, Records of the Scottish Church History Society, 1 (3), pp 127,129; K W Stebbins, Christ Freely Offered, Covenanter Press, 1996 edn, p 86. While some have argued that the language of the Marrow shows a leaning towards Amyraldianism, the “Marrowmen” believed it to be in harmony with orthodoxy.
^6^David Silversides argues against this interpretation of the word offer in the seventeenth century by referring to the AV usage in Luke 6:29, 11:12 and Hebrews 5:7, in The Free Offer: Biblical and Reformed, Marpet Press, 2005, pp 62-65.
^7^Silversides, The Free Offer, p 78. Mr Silversides’ book effectively refutes Hoeksema and his followers, on these issues.