Monday, October 30, 2017

Free Offer Of The Gospel


Q. What is effectual calling?

A. Effectual calling is the work of God's Spirit, whereby, convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, he doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the gospel.

Canons of Dort 2.5:

Moreover, it is the promise of the gospel that whoever believes in Christ crucified shall not perish but have eternal life. This promise, together with the command to repent and believe, ought to be announced and declared without differentiation or discrimination to all nations and people, to whom God in his good pleasure sends the gospel.

The free offer of the gospel (abbreviated “free offer”) has meant different things at different times. From a confessional standpoint, it can only mean that God sincerely offers salvation to all who repent and believe. The meaning is at best narrow. The confessions do not speak in terms of God’s desire for all men to be saved; they merely teach that God promises the gift of everlasting life to all who would turn from self to Christ. This promise of life through faith is sincere. It is a genuine offer. If you believe, you will be saved. This gospel is to go out to all men everywhere.

Arminians are often quick to point out that the free offer is inconsistent with Calvinism. They reason that if the offer of the gospel is sincere and to go out to all people without exception, then God must desire the salvation of all people without exception. Otherwise, they say, the offer isn’t sincere. How can God desire the salvation of all men without exception if God as the ultimate decider of man’s salvation chooses to pass over some? In other words, Arminians reason that unless God desires to save all men, which they observe does not comport with Calvinism, the free offer of life through faith is insincere when given to the reprobate. Their axiom is that a sincere gospel offer implies a sincere desire to see the offer accepted, a well-meant offer. More on that in a moment.

The Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC), representative of possibly most Calvinists today on the matter of the free offer, under the leadership of John Murray and Ned Stonehouse, adopted as a majority position the Arminian view that God desires the salvation of all men. While still holding fast to the Reformed view of predestination, the OPC affirmed the view that that the free offer cannot adequately be disassociated from a divine desire of salvation for all men without exception. In other words, such Calvinists assert that the genuineness of the gospel offer presupposes God's desire that all embrace Christ.

Subsequently, the free offer has taken on the additional meaning of a well-meant offer, or desire, that the reprobate turn and be saved. Accordingly, a major difference between Arminians and such Calvinists as these is on the question of consistency. Arminians find the free offer inconsistent with unconditional election, whereas these sorts of Calvinists (who hold to an expanded view of “free offer”) do not.

Back to first principles. What makes an offer genuine or sincere?

Can we judge whether an offer is genuine or sincere simply based on whether it is true or not? If God intends to keep his promise, then isn't the offer genuine? With respect to the gospel, if one meets the condition of faith, he will one day enter the joy of Lord. Isn't that enough to make the offer of salvation sincere? 

What was introduced in this discussion is what we might call the “well meant” offer of the gospel, that when God sincerely promises life on the condition of faith, the genuineness of the promise is predicated upon a sincere desire to see all men meet the condition. An indiscriminate call supposedly implies a desire for salvific fulfillment. Yet does a desire to keep one’s promise suggest an additional desire to see all meet the condition upon which the promise is based? Or does a sincere free offer merely require that the promise is truthful?

Well-meant offer; genuine offer; free offer; universal offer... (i.e. any offer!) now somehow implies the same thing – God desires all men without exception to exercise faith in Christ and be saved. 

Let’s do some basic theology…

What does it mean that God desires the salvation of the reprobate? Are we to believe that God desires the reprobate to do something he cannot do, namely regenerate himself and grant himself union with Christ? Or, is that to check our Calvinism at the door? Isn't it Jesus who saves? Isn't salvation of God after all? At best, if we are to remain consistent with our Calvinism, then wouldn't it follow that to argue for a well-meant offer of the gospel we'd have to posit that God desires that he himself would regenerate the reprobate unto union with Christ and salvation? Simply stated, since Calvinism affirms total depravity, wouldn't it stand to reason from a Calvinistic perspective that if God desires someone's salvation, God must desire that he save that person?

Accordingly, the question that should be considered in this regard is either (a) "Does God desire the reprobate to turn himself and live?" Or (b), "Does God desire that he himself turn the reprobate so that he can live?" Given that man is blind and deaf to spiritual things and cannot do anything to atone for his sins, how are we not strictly dealing with the theological plausibility of (b), that God desires to turn the reprobate contrary to what he has already decreed? If TULIP  is true, then (a) is a non-starter lest God desires what is impossible to occur.

Now then, is it reasonable to think that the Holy Spirit desires to turn the reprobate Godward when the Father, in eternity, did not choose the reprobate in Christ? Moreover, if Christ did not die for the reprobate and does not pray that the efficacy of the cross would be applied to the reprobate, then in what sense does God desire the reprobate’s salvation? Does God desire that for which Christ does not pray? Does the Trinity desire that persons of the Godhead work at cross purposes? Does God desire true contradictions after all? Or is this a matter of mystery? Does God have multiple wills, let alone multiple wills that are at cross-purposes? Or is this a matter of two truths that we should accept by faith? Apparent contradiction or true contradiction?

Not only can God not save the reprobate whom he did not elect in Christ; 2000 years ago didn't God act in time sealing that inability by securing salvation only for the elect? If so, then does it not follow that for God to desire the salvation of the reprobate, we should be willing to say that God, today, desires that Jesus would have died for the reprobate 2000 years ago? Or is there a third way of living looking at this? Does God live with a sense of regret or un-fulfillment? 

The OPC is quick to point out that they are not advocating a position entailing God both desiring and not desiring his decree. Fine, but then what does it mean for God to desire that men act contrary to his decree? Can God desire his decree while also desiring men to act in such a way that would thwart it? Moreover, aside from the question of whether God desires that man act contrary to God's decree, what does it mean for God to desire that he himself act contrary to how he decreed he would act? (Of course, I know no Calvinist who affirms the well-meant offer of the gospel who would also say that God desires that he elected more unto salvation, or anything like that. Yet if man cannot turn himself, as Calvinism clearly affirms, then isn't the implication of a well-meant offer that God desires to save those he has determined not to save?)

Indeed, God delights in his elect turning to Christ, but does such delight require that he also desires all men to turn to Christ, especially given that he has not seen fit to save all men?

Calling such a contra-Murray view a form of hyper-Calvinism or rationalistic appears insupportable until shown otherwise.


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9 comments:

ron said...

Seems to me that there is no violence done to the verse if we recognize that God may desire the salvation of all men and not will it.
The word desire, to my knowledge, has no biblically supportable connotation of "to will."
I desire a lot of things that I will not to obtain.

Reformed Apologist said...

"I desire a lot of things that I will not to obtain."

Let's look at that a bit more critically.

The will to obtain something must include a desire to obtain it. A lack of will to obtain something must include a lack of desire to obtain it. To deny that is to allow one to willfully obtain something while not desiring to obtain it... To deny that axiom is to reduce volition to unintended actions.

With that in view, at best you're using desire in a weak sense. You're simply subordinating what you're calling "desire" to what cashes out to be a *stronger* desire, which you're calling "will." That must be internalized before going further. You're using two different terms that mean the same thing but just differ by degree. I'll try to flesh out the equivocation and speak in terms of strength of desire.

If you *will* not to obtain x, there must be a want of *desire* actually to obtain x. So, at best you're saying that God desires both yet he desires one thing more. You're essentially doing as John Piper does, attributing to God opposing desires for the same object. More below...

Again, you're quote: "I desire a lot of things that I will not to obtain."

When this comes to God, you're using "desire" in an irrelevant sense. One might "desire" to have a brand new car, which he can afford, but isn't *willing* to spend the money. That's to use "desire" in an irrelevant sense as it pertains to God; something akin to "nice-to-have." Applying this human characteristic to God we're left to ask, what does it mean that God desires the salvation of those he has *no* desire to regenerate? If there's no desire that triggers obtaining, then you're attributing God a human feeling of "nice-to-have." If not, then you are imposing upon God a desire to save those he had no desire to send the Savior to die for, i.e. the non-elect.

Consider God's decree a painting in his mind. Consider the actual brush strokes to be the providential means by which the painting comes into existence. God desires his decree to be painted just as he imagines. The OPC say God desires parts of the painting to be painted differently yet while not wanting the final painting to be different than originally imagined. That's a contradiction, which no mystery can solve.

What does it mean that God desires that Jesus would have died for those he did not desire to save?

James said...

"I desire a lot of things that I will not to obtain."

That leaves you unfulfilled. Is God unfulfilled?

Anonymous said...

"The word desire, to my knowledge, has no biblically supportable connotation of "to will.""

When one wills, she desires. When one desires, she desires. When humans will and when God decreed, desire is / was present. As was already noted, you are putting forth competing desires in God. The lesser desire not only goes unfulfilled, it can't be fulfilled given the decree.

Anonymous said...

What a bunch of mumbo jumbo. In trying to be logical and intellectual you drive any reader insane. If God indeed preordained certain people to hell and others to heaven not based upon foreknowledge but just because he could, that would make him a monster and He is not that. Calvinists are so prideful they are infact carnal. they claim one can never be sure of ones justification and they demand perseverance for assurance of salvation. God wants everyone saved. He knows not everyone will accept the free gift of Grace so everyone is not saved. Case closed. You essentially believe justification by sanctification. You dont understand that a gift has no conditions, you force fit your system of theology into the scripture and you make darn sure no one has assurance until they die.

Reformed Apologist said...

“If God indeed preordained certain people to hell and others to heaven not based upon foreknowledge but just because he could, that would make him a monster and He is not that.”

The Bible uses the terms predestined and elect. If God elects based upon what He foresees man would choose, that wouldn’t be for Him to predestine. It would be for Him to post-destine.

“Calvinists are so prideful...they claim one can never be sure of ones justification...”

Like many Arminians, you don’t understand Calvinism. Here you go again:

“you force fit your system of theology into the scripture and you make darn sure no one has assurance until they die.”

Paul G said...

Hi there,
I think that the Calvinists and the Arminianists have never come to fully understand the doctrine of predestination. Perhaps that’s why they have been argue about that doctrine for centuries.

They think that a man is predestined based upon what man would do, or they think that a man is predestined for hell etc. but that is far from the truth.
Predestination and election is only for God’s children, and that is ‘life from the dead’, right back to Adam the first son of God.

In Adam all have died and in Jesus Christ all have been made alive, and only that new life is a free gift of God lest any man would boast. And only the elect from Adam’s line will receive that free gift, and all the devils children will be excluded of that salvation which is life from the dead.
But that does not exclude the salvation which is for all men, for the Lord wills no one to perish but all to be saved, and whosoever will believe in the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved.

Reformed Apologist said...

“They think that a man is predestined based upon what man would do,”

Calvinists don’t believe that.

“or they think that a man is predestined for hell etc.

Arminians don’t believe that. Some Calvinists don’t ether (believe in double predestination).

“Predestination and election is only for God’s children, and that is ‘life from the dead’, right back to Adam the first son of God.”

Most Calvinists and Arminians believe this to some degree.

Reformed Apologist said...

How do you distinguish John as writing to unbelievers?

I’m not tracking the rest of what you wrote.