By Rev. Arthur Allen
From Our Banner: September, 1954.
"The decrees of God are His eternal
purpose, according to the counsel of His will, whereby, for His own glory, He
hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass." - (Shorter Catechism, Q.
7.)
THE question resolves itself into a
discussion of the nature and properties of God's decrees. We frankly admit that
the doctrine "That God hath fore-ordained whatsoever comes to pass,"
goes beyond the powers of human interpretation. We willingly confess our
ignorance concerning many mysteries that are involved in this doctrine. There
is a mystery in the origin of sin, and so far as we are concerned, we are not
prepared to "darken counsel by words without knowledge." We maintain,
however, that sufficient has been revealed by experience and revelation fully
to substantiate the truth, "that God from all eternity has elected certain
men to everlasting life, and determined to effect their salvation in accordance
with His own provision and purpose." God's selection was not influenced by
the foreknowledge of the faith, repentance and perseverance of the elect, but,
on the contrary, faith, repentance and perseverance are the fruits of their
election, and not the means. The remainder of mankind, the non-elect, are
fore-ordained to everlasting death.
In approaching the subject it is essential
that we should consider our limitations. As the Apostle has said, "O the
depths of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable
are His judgments and His ways past finding out!" (Rom. 11:33). Augustine,
commenting on the words of Paul, "Nay, but, O man, who art thou that thou
repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to Him that formed it, Why
hast thou made me thus?" (Rom. 9:20), said, "In such questions as
these the Apostle throws man back into the consideration of what he is, and
what is the capacity of his mind. This is a mighty reason, rendered in few
words indeed, but in great reality. For who that understands not this appeal of
the Apostle can reply to God? And who that understands it can find anything to
reply?"
Revelation and Theology
Christian theology recognises the absolute
authority of the supernatural revelation of God; it further acknowledges that
both faith and Christian experience is the result of a supernatural cause, and
it maintains that God's special revelation can only be understood as it is
illuminated by the Holy Ghost, "For God Who commanded light to shine out
of darkness, hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of
the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." (2 Cor. 4:6).
The heart is not the recipient of
illumination, but is taken possession of by the light. "God hath shined IN
our hearts," not "INTO," as Dr. Hugh Martin states. "Into
suggests an external source of light, that illuminates the soul from without;
but in suggests that the soul is the dwelling-place of light," and it is
this light that illuminates God's special revelation.
Therefore, man depends objectively upon
supernatural revelation, and subjectively upon the working of the Holy Spirit,
enabling man to apprehend special revelation. No violence is done to the
faculty of reason; rather, it performs its proper function by being exercised
under the authority of supernatural revelation. The fact that the works and
operations of God are not compressed within the compass of the human intellect
is not the repudiation of reason. Reason has both authority and evidence before
it, and it has to submit to their right to instruct and guide us, but it simply
cannot cope with that authority and evidence. The reality of evidence is one
thing, the power to conceive and analyse it, quite another. "It is no
objection to the brilliancy of the sun if it fails to illuminate the blind."
Reason acknowledges the reality of evidence in God's special revelation
illuminated by faith, but it also realises its own limitations.
The Pride of Reason
The opposition to the mysterious works of
God arises from intellectual pride. "Pride of intellect revolts against
the claim that truth lies outside the realm of reason." Modernism denies
the virgin birth of Christ because they cannot see any adequate reason for the
Virgin Birth; but this does not alter the authority of supernatural revelation.
Modernism violates every rule of Christian theology by passing the distinctive
line between Christian theology and pagan philosophy. The Arminians of the more
evangelical type are doing the same thing in regard to the doctrine of the
fore-ordination of God. They are substituting the authority of pagan philosophy
for the authority of God's special revelation. Those who adopt this procedure
consciously or unconsciously ignore the fact of regeneration, for the
transition from natural knowledge to Christian theology cannot be accomplished
by purely intellectual means, but involves the supernatural phenomenon of
regeneration.
Christian theology stands apart in its own
exalted realm from all other learning, as it is judged by none, yet it judges
all. "He that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of
no man." (1 Cor. 2:15). Dr. Hugh Martin has said: "Let Mount Zion
rejoice, walk about Zion, and go about her; tell the towers thereof, set your
heart upon her bulwarks." (Psa. 48). "Carry not her interests and
crown jewels outside these bulwarks, but let your defence be carried
within."
While the doctrine of God's fore-ordination
as a constituent truth of Christian theology is in harmony with the ordained
course of those movements which in the external world are fulfilling God's
purpose from day to day, its evidence must be found in its own peculiar sphere
in the testimony of the Holy Spirit in the Word of God and in the experience of
God's people. Though the human mind cannot transcend its natural limitations so
as to look down from above on the point of reconciliation between the sovereign
action of the Divine will and the free agency of the human spirit, yet the
believer can say with Paul: "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ
Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in
them" (Eph. 2:10). Neither is the Christian an unwilling captive, nor an
independent servitor. "I know who I have believed, and am persuaded that
He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day."
(2 Tim. 1:12). Between pride of reason on the one hand and Christian theology
on the other, there is a world of thought in which the elements of Christian
truth and paganism are inextricably mixed, and it is in this world that we find
Arminians, Unitarians, Socinians and a multitude of others, varying only in the
degree in which they distort the truth. It is here that we find the opponents
of the doctrine of the foreordination of God.
Mystery, but No Contradiction
There are many unfathomable mysteries in the
doctrine of the fore-ordination of God, but are they of greater magnitude, or
more profound, than those which we find in the doctrine of the Atonement? The
attributes of God which stand out in the doctrine of the Atonement are justice
and mercy. On the one hand we have the unswerving rectitude of God, impartial,
inflexible, holding the sinner in an unrelaxing grasp, and which must
inevitably lead to the full vindication of God's infinite justice, eternal
death. On the other hand, mercy, unsearchable in the richness of its
forbearance and tenderness, and because of its very nature, must bring pardon
and forgiveness. "The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious,
long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear
the guilty." (Exod. 34:7). Here we have what appears to be a direct
contradiction. We are told that God in His infinite justice "will by no
means clear the guilty," and at the same time we are informed that
"He is keeping mercy for thousands," but when God's special
revelation is illuminated by faith, the seeming contradiction immediately
vanishes.
Christian theology reveals that the
attributes of God working in conjunction, meet in reconciliation at the Cross
of Jesus Christ. To think of God's attributes working in isolation must lead to
confusion. At the Cross of Christ the glory of infinite justice is displayed in
all its awful majesty; but we also behold the meridian splendour of eternal
mercy, and the one does not darken or eclipse the other.
The doctrine of the Atonement involves
profound mysteries such as the incarnation, the sacrificial death of our Lord
Jesus Christ, the resurrection. We may describe the nails that pierce the hands
and feet, or the derision of the Jews, but not the iron of Divine vengeance
that pierced His soul, nor the hiding of the Father's face. But neither reason
nor intellect is strained; they function in the normal manner. Reason does not
question the qualifications of Christ to act as our substitute, and the
mysteries of the Atonement do no violence to the intellect. Under an
administrative moral government it is impossible to conceive of any other way
whereby the sinner could be reconciled to God. God deals with man as an
inteiligent, responsible being, and the moral faculty of man is under
obligation to the law of God. God addresses man personally by the moral law. It
would be absurd to suggest that the natural and physical laws are synonymous
with the moral law. To do so, as Dr. Hugh Martin has said, "is the most
miserable science - still more wretched philosophy. It is the destruction of
morals, it makes Christianity an impertinence, an impossibility. Nay, it
overthrows all evidence of the personality of God, and refuses all recognition
of the personality of man.'' Therefore, the Atonement supplies the only
systeraatic and satisfactory answer to the reconciliation between God and the
sinner.
Predestination
In the doctrine of Predestination, we have,
on the one hand, fore-ordination, which reveals the sovereignty of God over all
His creation, and which must result in predestination. On the other hand we
have the free will agency of man, as created, which makes man responsible for
his actions and moral conduct. Here we have an apparent contradiction. But does
it create a greater or more convincing obstacle than the seeming contradiction
in the doctrine of the Atonement, between the infinite justice of God that
determines that the "soul that sinneth shall die," eternally, and His
infinite mercy that offers pardon and forgiveness? The solution to the problem
of Predestination and man's self-responsibility is the same as the solution in
the doctrine of the Atonement. The attributes of God working in conjunction,
reconcile Predestination and man's self-responsibility. We may not see the
supernatural operations of God's attributes in the process of reconciliation
between Predestination and man's self responsibility in the same way as we see
the operations in the Atonement. Because (1) The reconciliation between
Predestination and man's self responsibility is involved in the Atonement.
"According as he hath chosen us in Him before the foundations of the
world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love." (Eph.
i: 4). (2) The process of such reconciliation did not lend itself to such a
mighty manifestation of His power.
The doctrine of Predestination does not
present any greater problems or deeper mysteries than the doctrine of the
Atonement. Why, then, should there be any question of the acceptance of the one
and the rejection of the other? To accept in the one case the attributes of God
working in conjunction to bring about the reconciliation of God and the sinner,
and to insist on considering the attributes of God working in isolation in the
doctrine of Predestination, is not only unfair, but thoroughly dishonest. As
Scripture reveals, the doctrine of the Atonement and Predestination are
inseparable. We are chosen in Christ: Our election is expressly represented as
in Him, as our covenant Head, and the great means of the execution of that
decree, "He hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass" (Eph. 1:4) (2
Tim. 1:9). The benefits and effects of election are in Christ. (Eph. 1:7).
Adoption (Gal. 3:26); Regeneration and Sanctification (Eph. 2:10), and
Perseverance in Grace (Jude 1:24, 25).
The unalterable connection between election
and redemption necessarily requires that those who are saved must have been
predestinated to obtain salvation: "Who hath saved us, and called us with
an holy calling, not according to works, but according to His own purpose and
grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began'' (2 Tim. 1:9).
Whatever God's works may be in this world, they can never be the condition of
choosing particuiar persons to obtain salvation in a past eternity.
Therefore, we claim in accepting the
doctrine of Predestination we adhere strictly to the only acknowledged and
authoritative means by which any doctrine in the Holy Scripture can be
interpreted.
The Execution of God's Decrees
The decrees of God can only be ascertained
by the means put into operation for the execution of those decrees. According
to the doctrine of Predestination, God's decree had its seat in the Divine mind
from all eternity, and the only way it has egress to the created sphere is by
the means employed and the authority of experience and testimony of the means
in operation. Is it essential that the Divine decrees must receive the veto of
humanity? Cannot God inform us of our duty, without divulging to us His most
secret counsels? "The decrees of God are His eternal purpose, according to
the counsel of His own will, whereby for His own glory He hath foreordained
whatsoever comes to pass." God has not exposed His decrees to the
criticism of the human conscience, but the means implementing His decrees lie
open and become the subject of experience and testimony, therefore, authority.
God invites us to recognise that authority: "O, House of Israel, are not
My ways equal? Are not your ways unequal?" (Ezek. 18:29). If the
pre-determined destinies of men are wrought out under a moral administration,
where men are under a sense of moral responsibility to a Supreme Legislator,
where righteousness is exalted and sin condemned, how can there be any
inconsistency? If, on the one hand, man cannot accept the invitation of the
Gospel without the supernatural operations of the Holy Spirit, it simply
emphasises how completely dominated man is by sin. The whole human race is
involved; there are no exceptions. "For all have sinned and come short of
the glory of God." On the other hand, if God, according to the counsel of
His own will, makes certain men of the human race willing to accept the invitation
of the Gospel, it is simply a manifestation of His grace.
Human Responsibility
The question arises, how, then, can man be
held responsible? The decrees of God are inoperative, apart from the means
employed for their accomplishment. Acute thinkers have laid down the following
axiom: "That the decree of God does not give existence to an event about
which it is conversant." To illustrate the point: The decree to create the
world was in the Divine mind from all eternity, but the existence of that
decree in the Divine mind did not bring the created universe into being. It was
not the bare decree, but "by the word of God were the heavens made and all
the hosts of them by the breath of His mouth." (Psa. 33:6). It is the
means by which God's decrees are made effective. The decree of Predestination
has an eternal existence in the mind of God, but there was no efficiency in the
existence of the bare decree to prevent Paul from being "a persecutor and
a blasphemer and injurious." While the existence of the decree made Paul's
conversion certain, it was the means that effected his conversion. Equally, the
decree of reprobation must be considered in the same manner. It is not the mere
existence of the decree, but the means by which the decree is accomplished.
Therefore, it is the means employed that determines man's responsibility.
"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and
unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness; because that
which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto
them. For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are
clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal
power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse." "Because that
when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but
became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened."
(Rom. 1: 18, 22).
Where, then, is man's responsibility? Paul
answers, in natural theology and revelation, the authority of experience and
testimony. Woven into the means whereby God executes His decrees is the factor
that makes the whole human race inexcusable.