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The Sincere Offer of Christ and the Covenant Benefits in the Gospel

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The Sincere Offer of Christ and the Covenant Benefits in the Gospel

8 minuten leestijd Arcering uitzetten

— continued —

According to the Reformed Confession

That which is written in our Reformed Confession is also in agreement with these texts quoted from Scripture. This is particularly evident in the Canons of Dordt.

This confessional work, the youngest of the three which make up the “Three Forms of Unity,” was composed at the Synod of Dordt held in 1618-1619. This National Synod is of great significance in the history of the Reformed church.

Well-known theologians from all of Europe were sent to this gathering; all churches in the provinces of the Netherlands sent their delegates. Noted professors of theology contributed their knowledge. The occasion for this gathering was the heresy spread throughout the church by Arminius and his followers. The Arminians, or Remonstrants, as they were later labeled, had summarized their false opinions in five articles. These were extensively discussed at the large ecclesiastical meeting. The joint feelings of the National Synod were put into writing in the well- known Canons of Dordt.

It was the concern of the Synod of Dordt to ascribe the cause of salvation entirely and alone to God’s sovereign and almighty grace. No human worthiness or capability, no human merit in any aspect, could offer any basis for the gracious display of mercy to totally lost, impotent, and hostile sinners. The Canons of Dordt voice for the congregations the rejoicing in the preeminence and omnipotence of God’s sovereign grace.

And yet the fathers of Dordt guarded against ascribing the cause of eternal death to God. Thus the renowned Canons in Head 1, Article 1, begin, “As all men have sinned in Adam, lie under the curse, and are deserving of eternal death, God would have done no injustice by leaving them all to perish, and delivering them over to condemnation on account of sin....”

The guilt of those who go lost under the preaching of the gospel is expressly pointed out. “The cause or guilt of this unbelief, as well as of all other sins, is no wise in God, but in man himself’ (Head 1, Article 5).

It is not that the sacrifice of Christ is insufficient to save; no, of that sacrifice the Synod confessed: “The death of the Son of God is the only and most perfect sacrifice and satisfaction for sin, and is of infinite worth and value, abundantly sufficient to expiate the sins of the whole world” (Head 2, Article 3).

Upon the basis of this all-sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice the preaching of the gospel can reach out so extensively, as is confessed in the fifth article: “Moreover, the promise of the gospel is, that whosoever believeth in Christ crucified, shall not perish, but have everlasting life. This promise, together with the command to repent and believe, ought to be declared and published to all nations, and to all persons promiscuously and without distinction, to whom God out of His good pleasure sends the gospel.”

As the fathers at Dordt teach us, the promise of the gospel must be preached “without distinction.” We may make no distinction between nations or between persons. Although God Himself in His eternal sovereignty does indeed make distinction, so that “some receive the gift of faith from God, and others do not receive it” (Head 1, Article 6), we must, according to the Lord’s own command and to God’s revealed will, preach the gospel without making any distinction between nations and persons.

The content of the gospel is not: Christ has died for you personally! That would be a lie, because Christ has died only for the elect. In the gospel God makes known the excellent way of salvation, and He calls everyone to whom the Word comes to come to the opened fountain by way of repentance. If this calling of God were not earnest and true, how could the despising of it be accounted as guilt?

The Lord speaks emphatically to us of that in Hebrews 2:3, “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?” In many other places God declares judgment upon those who have rejected the gospel of His Son.

We also call this proclamation of the gospel the offer, or proffer, of the gospel. When in this context the word “universal” is used, it has no other meaning than that which is confessed in the above-quoted paragraph of the Canons of Dordt: without distinction.

The reproach frequently made that the universal offer is almost the same as universal atonement is entirely unfounded. To avoid misconceptions the use of this word can better be avoided. However, where this word “universal” is used by Comrie as well as by the Scottish divines, there is no mention of a connection between “universal offer” and “universal atonement” by these trusted Reformed theologians.

The “destructive poison of the Pelagian errors” does not lie in this offering of the gospel, but in the opinion held by the Remonstrants that the free will “joins itself to the grace that is offered without exception, and that it is not dependent on the special gift of mercy, which powerfully works in them, that they rather than others should appropriate unto themselves this grace” (Head 2, Rejection of Errors, Article 6).

In contrast to the reproach of the Remonstrants that the calling by the gospel was not true and well-meant from God’s side, our Reformed fathers have emphatically confessed that the gospel calling is sincere. Let us read the 8th article of the Third and Fourth Heads of the Canons: “As many as are called by the gospel are unfeignedly called....”

The Reformed church has clearly distinguished between the external and internal calling. All who hear the gospel are called externally. God’s calling is sincere. The Lord does not feign this calling. Although God in His good pleasure gives the grace of faith and repentance only to the elect, whom He calls internally, powerfully, and irresistibly, by the Holy Ghost, yet the external call is not therefore untrue or insincere.

Also in this calling, God seeks the glory of His Name. Of this Rev. G. H. Kersten wrote, “There is an external and an internal calling. The external call comes to all who hear the Word preached. It calls to conversion; it invites to salvation; it proffers Christ to lost sinners. By this external call God Himself invites the sinner, and sends His servants, who, with holy zeal and faithfulness, as though God did beseech the sinner by them, entreat them in Christ’s stead: ‘Be ye reconciled to God’ (2 Corinthians 5:20).

“The internal call is not to be lightly esteemed; it is God’s message to us. That it bears no fruit to salvation is not the fault of the gospel, nor of God, who calls by means of the gospel and even confers various gifts unto those whom He calls; but the fault lies in those who are called. Read attentively Articles 9 and 10 of the Third and Fourth Heads of Doctrine of our Canons of Dordt. It shall be our own fault if the Word is not instrumental to our conversion.

“Yet the external call is not saving. If faith is to be wrought by the Word, then the Spirit must fructify it. But now the question arises: How can God’s proffer of salvation be well- intended when it is made even to reprobates, of whom He had determined in His eternal counsel that they should not obtain salvation?

“It can be so only because God’s glory stands above our salvation. The Lord seeks His own glory, also by the preaching of the Word. He shall be glorified in those who are lost, as well as in those who are saved; as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 2:15-16, ‘For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish: to the one we are the savour of death unto death; and to the other the savour of life unto life.’

“Now the Lord has in view the glory of His attributes in proffering salvation to all those unto whom He sends His Word and whom He invites and calls. His proffer is true, and it shall redound to the glory of His justice, as well as of His mercy. For none shall be able to give any blame unto God, should he perish under the hearing of the Word; that is solely the fruit of the hardness and obduracy of his heart” (A Treatise of the Compendium).

This agrees very explicitly with that confessed in the Canons of Dordt, Heads 3 and 4, Article 9: “It is not the fault of the gospel, nor of Christ, offered therein, nor of God, who calls men by the gospel, and confers upon them various gifts, that those who are called by the ministry of the Word, refuse to come and be converted....”

It appears very clearly from these sections of the Canons of Dordt that our fathers of Dordt, even in their heavy struggle against the Pelagian poison, did not allow themselves to be distracted from the earnestness and sincerity of God’s calling in the gospel, which we, with them, call “the sincere offer of Christ and the covenant benefits in the gospel.”

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The Sincere Offer of Christ and the Covenant Benefits in the Gospel

Bekijk de hele uitgave van dinsdag 1 juli 1997

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