Is There Spiritual Life Outside of Christ? (2)

Rev. A. Moerkerken, Capelle a/d Ijssel, the Netherlands

In our previous article we began to consider how within our congregations, on the one hand, the concept is defended that all true spiritual life begins with regeneration even though the Lord Jesus is a hidden Person for the sinner at that time. On the other hand, the concept is taught that there can be no spiritual life as long as the sinner lives outside of Christ.

We tried to find the solution to this question in the distinction which is made between the ingrafting in Christ and the revelation of Christ. We saw that the key to this is found in Lord’s Day 7 of our Heidelberg Catechism where it speaks about being ingrafted (passively) in Christ by a true faith which precedes the receiving of His benefits.

It is of the greatest importance to take notice of this, especially in our time when many place so much emphasis upon the receiving of Jesus. Something must precede our receiving. What is that? It is the wonder of regeneration. In regeneration, which is the quickening work of God’s Spirit or a change of state, the sinner is entirely passive. It can be no different. God does not glorify that wonder in a sick or half-dead sinner but in a sinner who is completely, spiritually dead.

What happens in regeneration? The Lord cuts off the sinner from the old root of his life, Adam, and He ingrafts him at the same time into a new trunk, Christ. At the same moment He plants the gift of the most holy faith in his heart. That faith (which is to be distinguished from believing) unites the elect sinner with Christ. Also, the sap of Christ, the true Vine, begins to flow through the living branch, and it does not take long before the fruits of the new life become evident in the quickened sinner.

What are those fruits? They include: grief about sin, sorrow after God, loathing of self, a realization of our heaven-high guilt, a sweet and inexplicable longing for an unknown God, etc. Take notice that these are fruits of Christ! It is a riddle to me why some, as was already mentioned in the first article, continually maintain that these things precede regeneration. Why would they say this? Are they afraid that a person will seek his rest or find his foundation in all these things?

It is conceded that this does take place at times even with God’s true people, but does this danger cause men to claim these to be fruits of nature or of the common work of the Holy Ghost? I am sometimes afraid that it comes forth from those who claim to be “master-teachers,” which was also the fear of Comrie. At times the suspicion creeps in that the aversion of some against these things comes from the fact that they are inwardly strangers of the first principles of the life which is of God. The words “From whence comest thou, Gehazi?” come up in the heart, for those who have stolen Jesus will not desire to hear of the way to Jesus. In our Canons of Dordt, there is a very clear statement: “Moreover, to hunger and thirst after deliverance from misery, and after life, and to offer unto God the sacrifice of a broken spirit, is peculiar to the regenerate and those that are called blessed” (III-IV, Rejection 4).

In this the question is answered as to whether there is spiritual life outside of Christ. The answer can only be, “No, never.” Paul wrote to the Ephesians, “That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12). An entirely different question is: when does the sinner personally learn to know Christ? Can one (and I form this very carefully) be in Christ without knowing Christ? Indeed, that can certainly be true. The one flows out of the other. We are fully aware of the terrible misuse that men make of these things, but if the church had to remain silent about all the teachings of doctrine which the enemy can misuse, then for centuries already we would not have had a doctrine of faith. Men can make pure poison of a precious healing medicine prescribed by the doctor if men use it wrongly. This is also true with the teaching of the church.

In the order of salvation, there is a way that runs from regeneration to the revelation of the Mediator. We can call this the way that leads to Christ. The Lord can have begun His saving work in the heart of His elect child although there hangs a veil of secrecy around the Person of Christ. Must we give scriptural examples of this? We think of the Samaritan woman. Who would dare to deny that Christ had begun His good work in her already when He held before her the mirror of the holy law of His Father and spoke to her of her actual sins with the words, “Go, call thy husband, and come hither”? Yet, the Person of Him who spoke with her was hidden from her. She viewed Him as a prophet. She spoke of the Messiah who was to come. The veil remained hanging around His Person until He removed the scales from her eyes with the words, “I that speak unto thee am He.”

In our Canons of Dordt, there is a very clear statement: “Moreover, to hunger and thirst after deliverance from misery, and after life, and to offer unto God the sacrifice of a broken spirit, is peculiar to the regenerate and those that are called blessed” (III-IV, Rejection 4).

Let me also mention the man born blind. Great was the wonder performed on him. At the pool Siloam he had received the sight in his eyes, but more than that, he gave such a testimony of the Person who had healed him that he was cast out of the synagogue. However, upon the question, “What sayest thou of Him?” his answer was merely, “He is a Prophet.” Christ Himself asked him, “Dost thou believe on the Son of God?” and he answered so honestly, “Who is He, Lord, that I might believe on Him?” Then the wonder of the personal revelation of the Mediator took place in his heart, “Thou hast both seen Him, and it is He that talketh with thee.”

Consider one more example of our view that a person can be in Christ even though the knowledge of Him is so dim. We want to point to Cornelius, the centurion. He is called a devout man. That is not such a little thing. From whence did his devoutness flow forth? It was certainly not from his upbringing, from his natural refinement, or from something else. Calvin very clearly maintains in his commentary that the wonder of regeneration had taken place in the heart of Cornelius. Let me say it using the words of Lord’s Day 7; it flowed forth from the fact that he was ingrafted into Christ. Although Cornelius had certainly read of the Messiah in the rolls of the Old Testament and had extensively heard of Jesus of Nazareth, he knew Him not. It was that which burdened him with concern; he lacked peace for his soul, and through the brief, simple preaching of Peter it pleased the Lord to reveal His Son in the heart of this centurion.

We could multiply these examples from Scripture, but we shall not do so. Our only purpose is to point out that there is no contradiction in our doctrine that spiritual life begins with regeneration, in other words, with the ingrafting into Christ, but that the sinner who is ingrafted into Christ is blind at first for the Person of the Lord Jesus. To me both matters are scriptural and Reformed. We must guard against dangers from both sides. We must be on guard for the sandbanks of those that say that the life of grace first begins with the personal knowledge of the Mediator, but we must likewise guard against the whirlpool of those who maintain that the knowledge of the Person of Christ is actually superfluous on our journey to eternity if we but have knowledge of a small beginning of grace. It is our thought that the Lord unlearns His children the one and keeps them from the other.

Rev. G.H. Kersten has so often stressed that prior to eternity the great thing will be whether we are in Christ; the degree and the measure of received grace is not the determination of our state before God, but it will be for our soul’s rest. At the same time, however, in his preaching he continually emphasized the necessity of the knowledge of Christ. How kind and tender he could also be for God’s concerned children, for the bruised reed and the smoking flax. Never did he give them rest in anything they had experienced or enjoyed. What a holy art he had in dealing with souls—on the one hand, giving no rest where rest is not possible; on the other hand, not being an Egyptian slave driver to murder the children in Israel. May the Lord teach His servants that sacred balance, to not despise the smallest thing that God does, but to also be continually urging His children to enter into the ark of salvation.

Erratum: In the April issue of The Banner of Truth, page 82, the last sentence of the first paragraph in the second column was translated incorrectly and should read as follows: They then, in order to support their position, quote liberally, although selectively, from statements of Calvin and other old writers. We regret this oversight.

— The Editors

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