# Why does Limited Atonement Matter?



## Justified

One time I was asked by a 4 (3.5?) point Calvinist "what difference does it make if we believe in Limited Atonement?" In a word, why is it important? Obviously, I think it is important; it is the truth, and on that ground alone we are obligated to believe it. His main thrust was: what is the practical difference between someone who believes in Limited Atonement and someone who doesn't? How does it affect our lives?

My opinion is that Limited Atonement exists within the framework of all of Calvinism, which is a coherent whole, and if you are wrong on this point, a simple use of logic will cause you to deduce other, more dangerous doctrines which are harmful to the individual and the church. However, suppose we grant that someone is simply able to live with this tension in doctrine; how will this affect their life?


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## py3ak

It will mean that there is no assurance that there will be anyone in heaven, let alone a multitude whom no man can number. If one person for whom Christ died is not redeemed, why not more? Why not me? Why not everyone?


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## Contra_Mundum

Here's one reason.

The atonement and Christ's intercessory work are perfectly conjoined. In short, Christ receives the answers to his perfect sacrifice and prayers, always.

To deny a _particular redemption_ (another shorthand for L.A.) separates Christ's dying efforts from effectual results. As well, it separates his ongoing prayers from the answers he both wills, and knows the result beforetimes, as the divine Son of God. But no, Christ prays the effectual application of the blood he shed upon all those for whom it was shed.

Jn.17:20-21, "I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me."

Without P.A./L.A., Jesus prays for the salvation of some who will not be saved. This, in my mind, is even more problematic than the idea that the death of Christ was not only sufficient for the sins of the world, but also somehow efficient for all without exception either. He dies for some who won't be saved? How could divine efficiency and intention be divided?

Simply put: if some for whom Jesus prays for salvation yet aren't saved, how can I be assured that his prayers _for me_ will deliver my soul from death? The matter is once more put into doubt. Either something *more* must yet be done for the saved by God; or else the responsibility falls to the individual soul to make Christ's prayers effectual.


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## Captain Picard

"We are often told that we limit the atonement of Christ, because we say that Christ has not made a satisfaction for all men, or all men would be saved. Now, our reply to this is, that, on the other hand, our opponents limit it: we do not. The Arminians say, Christ died for all men. Ask them what they mean by it. Did Christ die so as to secure the salvation of all men? They say, 'No, certainly not.' We ask them the next question—Did Christ die so as to secure the salvation of any man in particular? They answer 'No.' They are obliged to admit this, if they are consistent. They say 'No; Christ has died that any man may be saved *if'— and then follow certain conditions of salvation. Now, who is it that limits the death of Christ? Why, you. You say that Christ did not die so as to infallibly secure the salvation of anybody. We beg your pardon, when you say we limit Christ’s death; we say, *No, my dear sir, it is YOU that do it.' We say Christ so died that He infallibly secured the salvation of a multitude that no man can number, who through Christ’s death not only may be saved, but ARE saved, MUST be saved, and cannot by any possibility run the hazard of being anything BUT saved. You are welcome to your atonement; you may keep it. We will never renounce ours for the sake of it."~Charles Spurgeon


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## MW

Justified said:


> how will this affect their life?



The Christian life is a life of faith, Galatians 2:20 -- a continual going out from our emptiness to receive of the fulness of Christ. The life of faith is severely affected by the conviction that faith is something of itself and contributes something towards personal salvation. One might say faith is thereby changed into something other than faith. It becomes another faith, which is no faith. And it is a recurring fact of historical theology that those who universalise the atonement make faith something more than a receiving and resting upon Christ alone for salvation.


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## Paul1976

As usual, I like Bruce Buchanan's answer. Let me add a few simpler thoughts.

One thing to keep in mind is limited atonement is a poor name for what we believe (although it does allow for TULIP to work as a nice acronym...). The problem is that the only people who do not believe in limited atonement are universalists. And hopefully nobody here takes them seriously. Everyone else believes that atonement is limited in some respect - some are saved and some are not. Arminians limit atonement by saying that Christ's sacrifice made possible the salvation of all, but only becomes effectual when a sinner believes. To our natural inclinations, this sounds more appealing as it makes us the decisive element in our salvation. A simple way of showing the problem with this thinking, though, is that it suggests that Christ's atonement covered every sin except for the sin of unbelief. When you think about it that way, it sounds absurd. Calvinists limit atonement to the elect, but under this theology, Christ's atonement not only covers all his peoples sins, but secures and guarantees their salvation. When Christ said "It is finished," He meant it.

I do prefer particular redemption to limited atonement also, although few who are not already reformed will know what you're talking about.

I will also comment that, as I discovered the doctrines of grace, it took me the longest by far to understand the need for P.R. in the system. I've heard many times that most people who consider themselves 4-point Calvinists would eventually become 5-point Calvinists if they took the time to understand the need for P.R. That was true in my case, although I never went through a distinct 4-point phase.


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## Justified

Bruce and Reuben, I made many of those same points to the person I'm talking about. His response was "well, given Perseverance of the Saints we can already have assurance of salvation." My response was that that and limited atonement can't be separated from one another, but he kept pressing the point, "but how does a person who believes in Limited Atonement behave any differently." I was a bit frustrated, because I was trying to make the point that the assurance of salvation was directly linked with Christ's once-for-all, sufficient atonement.


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## Justified

MW said:


> Justified said:
> 
> 
> 
> how will this affect their life?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The Christian life is a life of faith, Galatians 2:20 -- a continual going out from our emptiness to receive of the fulness of Christ. The life of faith is severely affected by the conviction that faith is something of itself and contributes something towards personal salvation. One might say faith is thereby changed into something other than faith. It becomes another faith, which is no faith. And it is a recurring fact of historical theology that those who universalise the atonement make faith something more than a receiving and resting upon Christ alone for salvation.
Click to expand...


Thanks Mr. Winzer. I think you make some fine points (as well as everybody else). I'll keep that in my meditations.


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## Justified

Paul, I myself prefer the term Particular Redemption. The problem with the person in question was that he wanted to make everything about utility. He thought it was just "an intellectual thing" that really had no bearing at all on the health of the Church, so our argument wasn't necessarily about the truth of LA, but of it's utility.


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## py3ak

Justified said:


> Bruce and Reuben, I made many of those same points to the person I'm talking about. His response was "well, given Perseverance of the Saints we can already have assurance of salvation." My response was that that and limited atonement can't be separated from one another, but he kept pressing the point, "but how does a person who believes in Limited Atonement behave any differently." I was a bit frustrated, because I was trying to make the point that the assurance of salvation was directly linked with Christ's once-for-all, sufficient atonement.



A person who believes in limited atonement doesn't start out by functionally denying Hebrews 10:14. I think that's a pretty fundamental text for assurance.


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## Paul1976

If you can only argue on the basis of utility and not truth, you're probably not going to convince him. He probably has more important things to learn that P.R. anyway. You might get him thinking about the purpose behind creation. That expanded my view of the centrality of God.


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## timfost

I, too, much prefer P.R. over L.A. I think there are many misconceptions that come along with the doctrine, many of which stem from hyper-Calvinism or a misunderstanding when God's sovereignty is attempted to be understood outside of the incomprehensible nature in which scripture represents it. I think patience is required when speaking to someone with such inconsistency, knowing that it is a difficult doctrine that needs more scriptural background than a simple argument will impart.

In short, denial of this doctrine robs the Godhead of _design_ in Christ's sufferings. When we believe and understand a sovereign God, can any of His works lack _design_?


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## Peairtach

It makes the atonement personal; for Evan Kramer and Richard Tallach, rather than the attempted salvation of the anonymous amorphous mass of everyone who's ever lived.



> I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me (Saul of Tarsus), and gave himself for me(Saul of Tarsus). (Galatians 2:20)



God the Son foreknew you and set His heart on you from all eternity, and in His divinity, certainly, He knew those He was dying to infallibly save even by name, and in His humanity He certainly knew He was dying for a particular people.

If you're asking for "practical effects", the Truth is greater than visible practical effects. It depends how an individual Christian who believes these things allows them to affect the spiritual and hence practical aspects of their lives.


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## Darryl Le Roux

It matters because it makes the work of the Lord on that cross null and void should it not be true. We know for certain that two men are in hell as we speak. Therefore, should the atonement be universal, it was ineffective. 

Simple summary.


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## Semper Fidelis

This has been articulated in many ways but here goes:



> Hebrews 10:1-18 (ESV)
> 
> 1*For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. 2*Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? 3*But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. 4*For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
> 5*Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said,
> 
> “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired,
> but a body have you prepared for me;
> 6* in burnt offerings and sin offerings
> you have taken no pleasure.
> 7* Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God,
> as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.’*”
> 
> 8*When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), 9*then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second. 10*And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
> 11*And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12*But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, 13*waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. 14*For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.
> 15*And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying,
> 
> 16* “This is the covenant that I will make with them
> after those days, declares the Lord:
> I will put my laws on their hearts,
> and write them on their minds,”
> 
> 17*then he adds,
> 
> “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”
> 
> 18*Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.



Christ either:
1. Made full atonement for sin once and for all or
2. Something needs to be added to that sacrifice.

This may be thought of as the _power_ of Christ's atonement.

IF, as some claim, Christ has died for all people then let us consider condition 1. above. 

Christ made full atonement for sin once and for all (power)
That atonement was made for all men (population)
Therefore, all men are saved (effect)

The Scriptures teach:

Christ made full atonement for sin once and for all (power)
The atonement was made for the elect (population)
Therefore, the elect are saved (effect)

So now we turn to what the Arminian insists. He still wants to limit the effect of what happened because he realizes that all are not saved but what does he go after? The power of the atonement.

The atonement made salvation possible for men to be saved (power)
The atonement was made for all men (population)
Therefore, those who add some condition to the atonement will be saved (effect)

Essentially the great sin of this position is to deny what Christ actually accomplished. Arminians well know that if we are to take Hebrews 10:1-18 on its face then the only way to avoid universalism is that Christ died only for the elect. The only other option is to deny what Hebrews 10 teaches.


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## timfost

Upon thinking about this conversation some more, again, I believe that some of the major problems that 4-pointers (whatever that means) have with this doctrine is that sometimes us 5-pointers are not clear in articulating what the doctrine _does not_ imply.

1. Christ's sufferings were not designed by _themselves_ to atone. Otherwise, we agree with the doctrine of eternal justification (see Crisp and Gill). Faith is instrumental in _applying_ the atonement (its etymology means "covering"). Therefore, the elect ate not _covered_ in Christ's righteousness _until_ they are granted faith in Christ. In this way the atonement (or satisfaction) of Christ has a universal promise _upon the condition of faith_, though only the elect will be given faith since saving faith is not produced by anyone or anything but its Author.

2. The promises of God are always good. John 3:18: "He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, *because* he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." This does not prove a hypothetical universalism as the Amyraldians teach, but rather a blaming of condemnation on unbelief (or second causes, also see Dort 2:6). This does prove that as we understand Christ's sufferings to be particular in design, they also has a universal application. 

3. Particular redemption _never hindered anyone from coming to Christ_. This cannot be stressed enough to those who are having difficulty with the doctrine. Rather, _because_ of it's particular design, salvation is rendered certain for all the elect, _which is the same as saying_ for all those who believe. This is probably the most practical and encouraging part of the doctrine: my salvation is completely in the hands of God, not me. When we understand our _total depravity_, salvation being in God's hand is of unspeakable consolation. 

For the most part, a denial of particular redemption compromises or destroys all of the other four points.


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## MW

timfost said:


> This does prove that as we understand Christ's sufferings to be particular in design, they also has a universal application.



If they are particular in design their application must be limited to those for whom the particularity was designed. An architect designs the house to fit the particular condition of the family that will live in it. It does not have a universal application precisely because it was designed to meet particular conditions. Likewise, particular redemption was designed to meet the condition that sinners cannot believe in their own power. They require the gift of faith. Therefore Christ procured the gift of faith as a part of the covenant promise, and God gives faith in accord with His righteousness. The application is co-extensive with the design. It cannot be universalised without destroying its particularity.


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## timfost

Have I misunderstood Dort? Does not Dort also speak about the atonement in relation to reprobates? Please consider Dort 2:3-8.


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## MW

timfost said:


> Have I misunderstood Dort? Does not Dort also speak about the atonement in relation to reprobates? Please consider Dort 2:3-8.



Please consider the rejection of errors under the second head, as it carefully defines the limits in which Christ's work is to be understood. Dort rejects any "worth of what Christ merited" which "might have existed, and might remain in all its parts complete, perfect, and intact, even if the merited redemption had never in fact been applied to any person." Again, Dort regards it as a necessary teaching that "Christ by His satisfaction merited ... faith, whereby this satisfaction of Christ unto salvation is effectually appropriated." Faith is never set forth as a condition of the efficacy of Christ's work but is always an effect of it.


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## timfost

Of course Christ merited faith! I said that in my last post. 



MW said:


> Faith is never set forth as a condition of the efficacy of Christ's work but is always an effect of it.



Yes and no. 

1. Yes, Christ merited faith by His satisfaction.

2. No, in that regardless of man's inability, He is responsible before God to put faith in Christ where in turn Christ promised to forgive him _if_ he does (again, see John 3:16-18, a passage to which you avoided a response).



> Question 32: How is the grace of God manifested in the second covenant? Answer: The grace of God is manifested in the second covenant, in that he freely provides and offers to *sinners* a Mediator, and life and salvation by him; and *requiring faith as the condition to interest them in him*, promises and gives his Holy Spirit to all his elect, to *work in them that faith*, with all other saving graces...



Just because faith is the condition offered to sinners does not deny that Christ merited it and meets the condition through His work.

Do you deny duty-faith?


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## MW

timfost said:


> Do you deny duty-faith?



No, but the gospel requires and gives faith. Duty-faith of man's natural and moral working is not required in the gospel, as is evident from the Catechism answer you have quoted. Neonomians make the gospel a new law. If your "universal application" of the atonement depends on the condition of faith, then this faith is man's natural and moral working. It is something other than what Christ has merited by His work of mediation. It is something other than a gift of grace.


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## Semper Fidelis

MW said:


> timfost said:
> 
> 
> 
> Do you deny duty-faith?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> No, but the gospel requires and gives faith. Duty-faith of man's natural and moral working is not required in the gospel, as is evident from the Catechism answer you have quoted. Neonomians make the gospel a new law. If your "universal application" of the atonement depends on the condition of faith, then this faith is man's natural and moral working. It is something other than what Christ has merited by His work of mediation. It is something other than a gift of grace.
Click to expand...



Dordt:


> Article 8: The Saving Effectiveness of Christ's Death
> 
> For it was the entirely free plan and very gracious will and intention of God the Father that the enlivening and saving effectiveness of his Son's costly death should work itself out in all his chosen ones, *in order that he might grant justifying faith to them only* and thereby lead them without fail to salvation. In other words, it was God's will that Christ through the blood of the cross (by which he confirmed the new covenant) should effectively redeem from every people, tribe, nation, and language all those and only those who were chosen from eternity to salvation and given to him by the Father;* that he should grant them faith* (which, like the Holy Spirit's other saving gifts, he acquired for them by his death); that he should cleanse them by his blood from all their sins, both original and actual, whether committed before or after their coming to faith; that he should faithfully preserve them to the very end; and that he should finally present them to himself, a glorious people, without spot or wrinkle.


Dordt sees the faith of Christ's elect as inextricably tied to the very intent of Christ's death.


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## MW

Semper Fidelis said:


> Dordt sees the faith of Christ's elect as inextricably tied to the very intent of Christ's death.



Yes; precious faith is obtained through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, 2 Pet. 1:1.


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## timfost

Semper Fidelis said:


> Dordt sees the faith of Christ's elect as inextricably tied to the very intent of Christ's death.



Amen


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## timfost

MW said:


> timfost said:
> 
> 
> 
> Do you deny duty-faith?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> No, but the gospel requires and gives faith. Duty-faith of man's natural and moral working is not required in the gospel, as is evident from the Catechism answer you have quoted. Neonomians make the gospel a new law. If your "universal application" of the atonement depends on the condition of faith, then this faith is man's natural and moral working. It is something other than what Christ has merited by His work of mediation. It is something other than a gift of grace.
Click to expand...


Confused... what kind of faith then is man's duty? Does God require the saving faith that Christ merited of every man? Does God require saving faith in the elect?


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## MW

timfost said:


> Confused... what kind of faith then is man's duty? Does God require the saving faith that Christ merited of every man? Does God require saving faith in the elect?



Try breaking it down into its components as indicated by the Larger Catechism answer. (1) The offer of the Mediator and the requirement of faith belongs to the gospel. (2) Appropriation of Him belongs to faith. (3) The enabling for faith belongs to the promised Holy Spirit.

What is required by the gospel? Not bare faith. Not faith as a moral and natural work of the sinner. The gospel requires appropriating faith, a faith that interests the sinner in the Mediator.

The gospel warrants the sinner to receive Christ, and life and salvation by Him. It is faith which appropriates Christ in order to receive what is promised in the gospel. Faith says, I receive Him for my Mediator and receive life and salvation by Him. The gospel offers no salvation apart from this appropriating faith.

Confusion arises when the gospel is made to assume the office of faith. Understandably, the gospel and faith in the gospel appear to be the same from a believer's perspective. The promise and the thing promised are joined together in the believer's own experience. They must be distinguished, however, when looking at the way the gospel functions in relation to a sinner who is being called to believe on Christ. "Appropriation" belongs to faith, not the gospel. By the work of the Holy Spirit giving faith to the sinner the gospel promise will be appropriated and made his own.


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## timfost

So does God command all to repent and believe? I think the question is pretty simple...


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## MW

timfost said:


> So does God command all to repent and believe? I think the question is pretty simple...



God commands all to repent and believe. That is simple enough. This is what the law demands.


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## Semper Fidelis

timfost said:


> Semper Fidelis said:
> 
> 
> 
> Dordt sees the faith of Christ's elect as inextricably tied to the very intent of Christ's death.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Amen
Click to expand...




timfost said:


> MW said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> timfost said:
> 
> 
> 
> Do you deny duty-faith?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> No, but the gospel requires and gives faith. Duty-faith of man's natural and moral working is not required in the gospel, as is evident from the Catechism answer you have quoted. Neonomians make the gospel a new law. If your "universal application" of the atonement depends on the condition of faith, then this faith is man's natural and moral working. It is something other than what Christ has merited by His work of mediation. It is something other than a gift of grace.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Confused... what kind of faith then is man's duty? Does God require the saving faith that Christ merited of every man? Does God require saving faith in the elect?
Click to expand...


Tim,

I know Matthew has been answering you but I find it interesting that you wrote Amen to what I pointed out in Dordt and then expressed confusion to Matthew following your confidence. In other words, your confusion following your Amen leads me to believe you were actually confused about what you were saying "Amen" to.

The point of my quote was to demonstrate that part of the Father and the Son's _design_ of the atonement was that the Son would procure the faith of those who would believe. He didn't merely ensure, by His death, that He had committed an act that other's could theoretically have faith in but He actually procured the faith of those to whom it would be given.

Your follow on questions to Matthew lead me to believe you are confused between the gift of faith and the exercise of faith. Faith is a gift. This does not mean that the Spirit exercises faith for the believer but that the Spirit enlivens us so that we may see our sin, turn from it, and turn to Christ. Faith is thus a gift but it is we who exercise that gift. It is not a gift in the sense that we decide whether or not we want to receive that gift but it is a gift in the sense that we are given life and that life produces repentance and faith.

So then we return to the issue where you and Matthew started interacting and that's on Dordt's language about the relative worth of the Atonement.

We can't read into Dordt some idea that the Atonement is theoretically powerful enough to atone for the sins of all mankind but that it is only able to save those who have faith. One might say that if God had purposed that the Atonement would save all men by Christ's death that it could do so and that's their point. The reason for this is that faith is part of the design of the atonement (as I quoted). It is because of the atonement that men believe. Their faith was purchased by Christ. Those who would believe had their ability to believe (whom the Spirit would grant faith) by His death. Thus, if the _design_ of the Atonement is "theoretically" for all mankind then "theoretically" Christ purchased faith for everyone and "theoreticall" the Spirit makes all men alive and "theoretically" all men exercise that faith.

I hope that clears things up.


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## MW

Semper Fidelis said:


> It is not a gift in the sense that we decide whether or not we want to receive that gift but it is a gift in the sense that we are given life and that life produces repentance and faith.



This is worth pondering. The faith which sinners place in the Saviour is an "evangelical grace," wrought by the Word and Spirit of God. It is not a legal act. There is a way of interpreting John 3:16ff in a legal/moral manner. By contrast, the evangelical interpretation maintains what the passage as a whole says, that sinners are condemned already. It is not the gospel which condemns them. It is the law.

One of the problems with the doctrine of "universal application" is that it requires a legal faith; it calls on men in their natural state to believe in Christ as a condition of salvation, and then condemns men because they have not fulfilled the condition required of them. This turns the gospel into a "new law." It is not good news at all.


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## TylerRay

Justified said:


> He thought it was just "an intellectual thing" that really had no bearing at all on the health of the Church



Ask your friend whether doctrinal purity says anything about the health of the Church. Is believing a lie healthy? Christ prayed that the Father would sanctify us by his truth (his word is truth). *Doctrinal purity is a means by which God sanctifies his people. To put it another way, the Word of God is a means of grace.*


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## Justified

TylerRay said:


> Justified said:
> 
> 
> 
> He thought it was just "an intellectual thing" that really had no bearing at all on the health of the Church
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ask your friend whether doctrinal purity says anything about the health of the Church. Is believing a lie healthy? Christ prayed that the Father would sanctify us by his truth (his word is truth). *Doctrinal purity is a means by which God sanctifies his people. To put it another way, the Word of God is a means of grace.*
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'd agree. It was a rather frustrating conversation when I had it, to say the least.


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## timfost

Rich,

First, thank you for engaging me on this without imputing meaning that I did not intend. I am learning a lot and trying to be able to word things clearly. I also don't want to communicate that I am "beyond reproach" on this issue as I am most certainly not. I know many would disagree with my convictions on this issue, but until I see clearly where I am wrong by scriptures, I cannot violate my conscience for the sake of "going with the flow." If I saw no support for my thought process on this, I would be more apt to keep silent, but I do believe Dort supports what I'm proposing as well as many reformed theologians through history.



> I know Matthew has been answering you but I find it interesting that you wrote Amen to what I pointed out in Dordt and then expressed confusion to Matthew following your confidence. In other words, your confusion following your Amen leads me to believe you were actually confused about what you were saying "Amen" to.



Christ merited faith as you pointed out. I've supported this the whole time. Is there anything I said that would make you think otherwise? To this I maintain an "amen."



> The point of my quote was to demonstrate that part of the Father and the Son's design of the atonement was that the Son would procure the faith of those who would believe. He didn't merely ensure, by His death, that He had committed an act that other's could theoretically have faith in but He actually procured the faith of those to whom it would be given.



I agree, which is why I repeatedly have spoken about the design of His sufferings. If all that God designed to do with Christ's sufferings is to make salvation possible, no one would be saved. Therefore the divine intention and the Spirit's regenerating work is of utmost consolation to the faithful.



> Your follow on questions to Matthew lead me to believe you are confused between the gift of faith and the exercise of faith. Faith is a gift. This does not mean that the Spirit exercises faith for the believer but that the Spirit enlivens us so that we may see our sin, turn from it, and turn to Christ. Faith is thus a gift but it is we who exercise that gift. It is not a gift in the sense that we decide whether or not we want to receive that gift but it is a gift in the sense that we are given life that that live produces repentance and faith.



Again, what made you think I was confused about this? I heartily agree! Are all men required to exercise faith (i.e. saving faith every man's duty) even though they are not morally able to produce it?



> So then we return to the issue where you and Matthew started interacting and that's on Dordt's language about the relative worth of the Atonement.



This is where I think you are not reading Dort correctly. There is a difference between saying that Christ's sacrifice had infinite value and saying that _because_ of the infinite value it is legitimately offered. If Christ's satisfaction had no reference to the reprobate, how could it be offered and how can it be rejected? How is there a promise of God with nothing to back it up? Again, please consider John 3:18.

This is precisely what Dort picks up on. Charles Hodge summarizes the thrust of Dort's argument, saying "that all Augustinians can join with the Synod of Dort in saying, 'No man perishes for want of an atonement.'" But, if the atonement had no reference to all of mankind, there would be a "want of an atonement." I would submit that the sufficiency of the atonement is more than a doctrine of its intrinsic value but it's the very basis of the free offer. What is there to reject if the remedy has nothing to do with those who reject the Gospel? Certainly God has sufficient grounds for judgment because of original and actual sin, but unbelief is so heinous because it rejects the offered remedy to the disease. If the atonement had no reference to unbelievers, what remedy do they reject (see 2 Thes. 2:10, Heb. 2:3)? Or do they reject anything? I've heard some say that Christ is rejected. But the promise of the gospel offers Christ, which by faith applies the atonement. In my opinion, to say Christ is rejected but not the remedy (atonement) is an unfortunate dicing up the work of Christ and only serves convenient categories as we make the simple doctrine complicated.



> We can't read into Dordt some idea that the Atonement is theoretically powerful enough to atone for the sins of all mankind but that it is only able to save those who have faith. One might say that if God had purposed that the Atonement would save all men by Christ's death that it could do so and that's their point. The reason for this is that faith is part of the design of the atonement (as I quoted). It is because of the atonement that men believe. Their faith was purchased by Christ. Those who would believe had their ability to believe (whom the Spirit would grant faith) by His death. Thus, if the design of the Atonement is "theoretically" for all mankind then "theoretically" Christ purchased faith for everyone and "theoreticall" the Spirit makes all men alive and "theoretically" all men exercise that faith.



Please reread second head, articles 5-6. The very thrust of the argument is that the atonement renders unbelievers without excuse. In other words, the atonement had reference to those who perish, though as you rightly pointed out that it's design for eternal salvation was only for the elect. When you say "theoretically for all mankind," please understand that I'm not saying this. I've spoken to the design of the atonement. I'm not saying that Christ's death is equal for all in its design. You quoted Dort second head, article 8 with which I wholeheartedly agree. But let's not neglect the doctrine of article 6 so that we can reconcile with our system. The clear point of 6 is that the *atonement holds unbelievers without excuse*, not only their original and actual sin (through unbelief is certainly actual sin). If this is true, then according to Dort, *it has reference to all*, not simply that it's intrinsic worth would be a sufficient price to save all.

I understand now that many Westminster divines would disagree. I respect that and am not asking you to agree with me, only that you don't force Dort into your system and eisegete it's doctrine on this point. (Also, Heidelberg 37 along with Ursinus's commentary may shed some light on the understanding of the atonement with reference to all as promoted in the 3FU.)

Concerning Winzer's comments about legal and evangelical faith, these distinctions sound very much like the hyper-Calvinist categories of legal and evangelical repentance (see Brine and Gill). Peter Toon draws out this history clearly in his book about hyper-Calvinism. Additionally, Winzer's neonomian argument sounds Gospel Standard (article 26) to me and is likewise the almost identical arguments shared by Hussey, Brine and Gill. I hope I'm wrong on seeing the similarity...

It's not my wish to get too far away from the OP. If you would like to continue discussing, I'd be happy to, but it may be more appropriate in a new thread as I don't want to derail this one.


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## Semper Fidelis

timfost said:


> This is precisely what Dort picks up on. Charles Hodge summarizes the thrust of Dort's argument, saying "that all Augustinians can join with the Synod of Dort in saying, 'No man perishes for want of an atonement.'" But, if the atonement had no reference to all of mankind, there would be a "want of an atonement." I would submit that the sufficiency of the atonement is more than a doctrine of its intrinsic value but it's the very basis of the free offer. What is there to reject if the remedy has nothing to do with those who reject the Gospel? Certainly God has sufficient grounds for judgment because of original and actual sin, but unbelief is so heinous because it rejects the offered remedy to the disease. If the atonement had no reference to unbelievers, what remedy do they reject (see 2 Thes. 2:10, Heb. 2:3)? Or do they reject anything? I've heard some say that Christ is rejected. But the promise of the gospel offers Christ, which by faith applies the atonement. In my opinion, to say Christ is rejected but not the remedy (atonement) is an unfortunate dicing up the work of Christ and only serves convenient categories as we make the simple doctrine complicated.


I think we may be talking past each other. Hodge's point is very subtle and does not deal with the point I was trying to make.

The issue is not whether, theoretically, a reprobate man is prohibited by the Gospel from believing. Christ's satisfaction, as Hodge notes, has to be made for men as sinners and so His atonement is for sinners.

The issue is whether or not the Atonement carries with it the procurement of faith itself. This Dordt acknowledges.

I guess I don't have a problem with the words "free offer" as long as we're talking about the same thing. It is true to say to all that Christ died for sinners and that any man who believes will possess eternal life. To the hearer, he need not know the eternal purposes of God. He need only know that this is true and that there is nothing lacking in Christ's sacrifice to save those who place their trust in Him. The concern I have is when we start trying to move beyond ectypal into archetypal theology and peer into whether or not God has to *desire* the salvation of the hearer for the person to be given a real offer. I don't think one has to get into debates about hyper-Calvinism to state that some theological arguments try to move to things hidden - to make unrealized desires in the Godhead the basis for whether or not an offer is really "free" or "well meant".

Having read Ursinus and Hodge, I believe they are making essentially the same point. Christ's atoning sacrifice fully atones for men as sinners. Insofar as He was a Mediator for sinful men His death sufficiently and perfectly atones for a humanity that is under bondage to the Law. They make the same qualification, however, that the atonement brings with it the evangelical graces necessary. Hodge even goes so far as to say that the intent of the atonement is for the sheep and the fact that Christ made atonement for sinners is collaterally true for all sinners but is not the intent of the atonement itself. One can, at best, speak of the faith of the reprobate in theory because reality makes such things impossible because the atonement's _aim_ is for the elect. It purchases the faith of the elect themselves.

Thus, I would agree with Hodge who says that a man cannot claim that there was no atonement capable of dealing with sin. Yes, a reprobate man in rejecting the Gospel is rejecting a remedy for sin. But the issue I've been dealing with is whether faith, as an evangelical grace, is offered as an option to the reprobate hearer. The reprobate is not rejecting the evangelical gift of faith (because that is irrestible) but He is rejecting the Person and Work of Christ in his sin.


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## MW

timfost said:


> Additionally, Winzer's neonomian argument sounds Gospel Standard (article 26) to me and is likewise the almost identical arguments shared by Hussey, Brine and Gill. I hope I'm wrong on seeing the similarity...



Wrong on every level, and a misrepresentation.


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## TylerRay

timfost said:


> Concerning Winzer's comments about legal and evangelical faith, these distinctions sound very much like the hyper-Calvinist categories of legal and evangelical repentance (see Brine and Gill). Peter Toon draws out this history clearly in his book about hyper-Calvinism. Additionally, Winzer's neonomian argument sounds Gospel Standard (article 26) to me and is likewise the almost identical arguments shared by Hussey, Brine and Gill. I hope I'm wrong on seeing the similarity...



You ought to be more charitable than that, friend. Rev. Winzer is a minister in good standing in a confessional Presbyterian church, and he has vowed before God to take the Westminster Confession as the confession of his own faith. His comments ought to be read in light of that.


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## MW

James Buchanan, The Doctrine of Justification, p. 177: "The Neonomian doctrine of Justification amounts in substance to this — That Christ, by His death, made full satisfaction to divine justice for the sins of all mankind, so as to remove every obstacle to their pardon and acceptance, and to bring them into a salvable state, or to make their salvation possible..."


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## MW

Ralph Erskine, Sermons, 5:92: "Some cloud and darken the gospel, by making it a new or milder law, requiring faith, and repentance, and new obedience, instead of the perfect obedience required in the covenant of works. The gospel, properly speaking, is no law, but a promise: and it might be easily evinced, that faith, repentance, and new obedience, are so far from being easier or milder terms, that they are harder conditions to us, in our lapsed state, than perfect obedience was to Adam in a state of innocence. And so the apostle argues against any such new law; Gal. 3:21, "If there had been a law given, which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law;" or, as it may be read, "Verily righteousness should have been by a law." But there is no such law given to fallen man, as could give life to him; therefore, there is no righteousness, or justification, to be had by a law, but by a promise; no life by any new law, but by a new promise of mercy and grace in Christ Jesus; "By the works of the law, no flesh living can be justified." "Eternal life is the gift of God, through Christ Jesus our Lord."


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## timfost

Rich,

Thanks for your response. I was not trying to lay a foundation for the free offer in relation to desire in God, although it is certainly a related point. I also completely agree with you that faith was merited by Christ for His elect. I think a helpful distinction would be in this: the gospel does not offer faith, but salvation through faith. Therefore we hold out salvation based on the condition of faith rather than hold out faith itself, since faith itself does not merit righteousness.

I'm going to allow Hodge to make the point about "universal application" that I was trying to make. Hopefully we can agree with him.



> Admitting, however, that the Augustinian doctrine that Christ died specially for his own people does account for the general offer of the gospel, how is it to be reconciled with those passages which. in one form or another, teach that He died for all men? In answer to this question, it may be remarked in the first place that *Augustinians do not deny that Christ died for all men. What they deny is that he died equally, and with the same design, for all men. He died for all, that He might arrest the immediate execution of the penalty of the law upon the whole of our apostate race; that He might secure for men the innumerable blessings attending their state on earth, which, in one important sense, is a state of probation; and that He might lay the foundation for the offer of pardon and reconciliation with God, on condition of faith and repentance*. These are the *universally* admitted consequences of his satisfaction, and therefore they all come within its design.



I am sorry if my representation was confusing as the above is the doctrine I'm seeking to communicate.


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## timfost

Rev. Matthew, 

Please understand that I'm not making an accusation and am happy to be wrong. I'm having a difficult time differentiating between your legal and evangelical faith and hyper-Calvinist distinctions, but I don't want to get caught up in words if they mean something entirely different. I only sought to spell out its appearance to me in relation to this conversation. 

Tyler,

Thank you for your concern. As I said above, his language was concerning to me. I desire to be charitable and not jump to an emphatic conclusion about what Rev. Winzer meant. Perhaps I stated my concern too strongly. Again, I take your concern seriously (1 Tim. 5:17).


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## MW

timfost said:


> I'm having a difficult time differentiating between your legal and evangelical faith and hyper-Calvinist distinctions, but I don't want to get caught up in words if they mean something entirely different.



I don't think it is a matter of words. The problem is with systemic preconceptions, as I have pointed out before. Universalist tenets are established on the basis of legalist commitments. Free, evangelical grace is particular grace through and through.

Ralph Erskine, Gospel Sonnets

Law-precepts in a gospel-mold,
We may as gospel-doctrine hold;
But gospel-calls in legal dress,
The joyful sound of grace suppress.

*Faith and repentance may be taught,
And yet no gospel-tidings brought;
If as mere duties these we press,
And not as parts of promis'd bless.*

If only precepts we present,
Though urg'd with strongest argument,
We leave the wak'ned sinner's hope
In darkness of despair to grope.

The man whom legal precepts chase.
As yet estrang'd to sov'reign grace,
Mistaking evangelic charms,
As if they stood on legal terms.

Looks to himself, though dead in sin,
For grounds of faith and hope within:
Hence fears and fetters grow and swell,
Since nought's within but sin and hell.

But faith that looks to promis'd grace,
Clean out of self the soul will chase,
To Christ for righteousness and strength,
And finds the joyful rest at length.


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## Semper Fidelis

Tim,

The point that Matthew is trying to make is that the Gospel is gift not duty. It is of the nature of the Law that all men are to believe in God and, in that sense, they are required to believe in Christ. There is a duty in the fact that they are creatures and to deny the Son of God incarnate is an example of their rebellion.

Thus, there is a danger in not seeing the particularity of the atonement and seeing it in the abstract as belonging to all men. For then what differentiates it among men is the duty of faith and repentance to that atonement. The Gospel becomes duty.

In contrast, the atonement is particular and brings with it the gift of faith and brings life and blessing to it. There is a call to believe but the call brings life to the hearer and the promise of eternal life grants what it promises. The Gospel is then Good News because it is life and not seen as duty to both the elect and the reprobate alike with only the elect able to meet the conditional duty of faith.


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## TylerRay

timfost said:


> Tyler,
> 
> Thank you for your concern. As I said above, his language was concerning to me. I desire to be charitable and not jump to an emphatic conclusion about what Rev. Winzer meant. Perhaps I stated my concern too strongly. Again, I take your concern seriously (1 Tim. 5:17).



Thank you for taking it graciously. It's easy to give a rebuke (especially over the internet). Receiving one is not so easy.


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## MW

The only other point I would make is that the outward administration of the gospel in and of itself makes no differentiation between elect or reprobate. "Many are called but few are chosen." The calling is general and indefinite to sinners as sinners. The One who calls has His chosen among those who are outwardly called, and this secret election only becomes manifest in the personal reception or rejection of the outward calling by the sinner. We have to resist bringing the elect and reprobate into the discussion at the point of administration. Calvin has wisely noted this on many occasions. It distorts Calvinism to impose the secret election on the administration of the gospel because it undermines the historical administration by which the eternal decree will be brought to pass in time.


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## timfost

Semper Fidelis said:


> The point that Matthew is trying to make is that the Gospel is gift not duty. It is of the nature of the Law that all men are to believe in God and, in that sense, they are required to believe in Christ. There is a duty in the fact that they are creatures and to deny the Son of God incarnate is an example of their rebellion.



I am seriously trying to understand what you are saying. I don't think I ever said that the gospel is a duty. The gospel is the good news of salvation that is _received_ by faith. Faith is the duty, the gospel is the promise of salvation granted when the sooner meets the condition through the regenerating work of the Spirit (WLC 32). Again, Hodge says "Being a proclamation of the terms on which God is willing to save sinners, and an exhibition of the duty of fallen men in relation to that plan, it of necessity binds all those who are *in the condition which the plan contemplates*. It is in this respect analogous to the moral law." Do we agree on this?



> Thus, there is a danger in not seeing the particularity of the atonement and seeing it in the abstract as belonging to all men. For then what differentiates it among men is the duty of faith and repentance to that atonement. The Gospel becomes duty.



Again, _faith_ is the duty. Atonement belongs to all men only in a certain sense and in no way do I promote the Arminian sense in that it was equally intended for all. Again, please see how Hodge qualifies this in my last response to you as He says it more clearly than I am able.



> In contrast, the atonement is particular and brings with it the gift of faith and brings life and blessing to it. There is a call to believe but the call brings life to the hearer and the promise of eternal life grants what it promises. The Gospel is then Good News because it is life and not seen as duty to both the elect and the reprobate alike with only the elect able to meet the conditional duty of faith.



Charles Hodge is my favorite author on the atonement. Can we agree on the quote in my previous response to you or do you differ? 

Again, I don't mind if you differ, but I'm trying to figure out what the problem was in the first place to my phrase "universal application" if we are in agreement with Hodge...


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## MW

timfost said:


> It is in this respect analogous to the moral law." Do we agree on this?



No. This is "new law" thinking. The man that doeth them shall live in them. Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. The gospel is not analogous in any way to the moral law. It promises life. It says, Live, and Do this. The law says, Do this, and Live. The gospel administration subordinates the law to its good-news purpose. It does not assimilate it or create a new law. The Mediator did not come to destroy the law but to fulfil it.

Thomas Boston, Human Nature in its Fourfold State:

"Such is the natural propensity of man's heart to the way of the law, in opposition to Christ, that, as the tainted vessel turns the taste of the purest liquor put into it, so the natural man turns the very gospel into law; and transforms the covenant of grace into a covenant of works. The Ceremonial Law was to the Jews a real gospel; which held blood, death, and translation of guilt before their eyes continually, as the only way of salvation: yet their very table, (i.e. their altar, with the several ordinances pertaining thereto, Mal. i. 12) was a snare unto them, Rom. ii. 9, while they used it to make up the defects in their obedience to the Moral Law, and clave to it so, as to reject him, whom the altar and sacrifices pointed them to, as the substance of all: even as Hagar, whose it was only to serve, was by their father brought into her mistress's bed; not without a mystery in the purpose of God, for 'these are the two covenants,' Gal. iv. 24. Thus is the doctrine of the gospel corrupted by Papists, and other enemies to the doctrine of Free Grace. And indeed, however natural men's heads may be set right in this point, as surely as they are out of Christ, their faith, repentance, and obedience (such as they are), are placed by them in the room of Christ and his righteousness, and so trusted to, *as if by these they fulfilled a new law*."


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## MW

William Romaine, Twelve Discourses upon the Law and the Gospel (Whole Works, vol. 3, pp. x.-xi.):

"It highly concerns those persons to consider this matter well, who fancy that Christ came as a great lawgiver, to publish milder terms of acceptance than the moral law had required. They have a notion of Christ, as if he were only the publisher of some new remedial law, which abated something of the demands, and mitigated some of the rigour of the moral law. Whereas he came not to publish any new law, but to save his people from their sins committed against the old law. He came to be a Saviour, and not a lawgiver. Indeed he preached the law, but it was to bring men to the knowledge of sin, and to see and to feel their want of his salvation. But he preached nothing new. He only enforced the law in its spiritual nature, and in its full extent, shewing the length and breadth, the depth and height of the commandment. He would not have his people so much as entertain a thought of his coming to make a change in the moral law. 'Think not,' says he, 'that I am come to destroy the law, I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil it:' and he did fulfil it; for he was born under the law, and was obedient to it even unto death. The law was unalterable. It could not change, unless God's most holy mind and will could change, which is impossible, and therefore the law being broken could not remit the deserved punishment, unless some infinitely perfect obedience should be paid, and some infinitely meritorious sufferings should be undergone in the sinner's stead, by which the law might be magnified and made honourable. And the Lord Christ undertook to do this. He vouchsafed to obey and to suffer for his people, to obey the precepts, and to suffer the pains and penalties of the law. The law had indicted them, and found them guilty of disobedience. Christ came to obey for them, as it is written, 'By the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.' The law had put them under the curse, and he came to redeem them from the curse of the law. The law threatened to punish them, and he came to bear their sins, and the punishment due to them in his own body upon the tree. So that Christ came not to publish a new remedial law, but to glorify the moral law, and to demonstrate the unchangeable nature of it, since no obedience, and no sufferings, but his, which were absolutely perfect, divine and infinite, could work out such a righteousness for any one sinner, as the law required, in order to his being justified in the sight of God."


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## MW

Archibald Hall, A Treatise on the Faith and Influence of the Gospel, pp. 104-105:

"It is a capital mistake in this opinion, that the gospel is blended with the law; and upon the ruins of both the law and the gospel, a new mode of divine administration is contrived, under the name of gospel laws. The law and the gospel are entirely distinct from one another, and ought never to be confounded together. A gospel law is a contradiction in terms; for the works of the law and the grace of the gospel stand opposed to one another in the great concerns of our justification before God. To compound the sincere endeavours of men with the grace of God, is to destroy the perfection of the law, and to subvert the sovereignty of saving grace, at one bold stroke. If such a scheme be once admitted, the divine law will no longer exhibit the perfection of beauty that is essential to the eternal God; and the glorious gospel will no longer reveal the riches of his sovereign grace, whereby he has mercy on whom he will have mercy. This dangerous innovation sets aside the necessity of knowing and believing the truths of God, by resting the whole of a man's salvation upon the sincerity of his intentions to please his Maker, whatever his principles may be; and it opens the door to licentiousness of practice, by representing the Lawgiver as demanding only that which is upright, not that which is perfect. Upon the whole, this doctrine concerning a new law is a gross perversion of Christianity."


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## MW

Ebenezer Erskine, Works, 1:426-427:

"Use third of this doctrine may be of confutation to Papists, Arminians, Pelagians, Baxterians, and others, who make the gospel a new preceptive or commanding law, requiring faith, repentance, sincere obedience, and the like, which they say were never required in the moral law from Sinai, whereby they destroy one of the main differences between the law and the gospel; for as I said already, the law is a system of precepts, the gospel a system of promises, or acts of grace strictly considered; and to bring in new commands into the gospel, which were never contained in the moral law, has been, and is, a doctrine of a most pernicious tendency, in regard it derogates from the perfection of the moral law, as if under the gospel there were sins which it doth not forbid, and duties which it doth not require. They who assert that faith and repentance are not enjoined, and that unbelief and impenitency are not forbidden, even in the first commandment of the moral law, contradict our received standards of doctrine, particularly the Larger Catechism explaining the first command; they must needs assert another righteousness than the righteousness of Christ to fulfil the new gospel law, seeing Christ was not made under it, but under the moral law, as a covenant, to redeem us who are under it. When we sinned in Adam we did not break the new gospel law, but the old moral law of the ten commandments; and if Adam never broke that new gospel law they speak of, his posterity cannot be blamed if they want power to repent and believe; and if faith and repentance be enjoined by a new law, it is equitable that a new fund of strength be given in order to our obeying it: and thus the Pelagian universal grace bestowed on every man that hears the gospel is introduced. Many other things might be said on this head, but I do not insist."


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## MW

Ralph Erskine, Sermons 2:325:

"The Baxterian scheme is also opposite to this gospel-doctrine: they tell us, that God hath made a new law with mankind; and obedience to that new law and to its commands, is our righteousness; and this obedience gives us a title to heaven, and gives us a title to Christ's blood, and to pardon: And the act of faith is our righteousness, not as it accepts of Christ's righteousness, but as it is an obedience to that new law; the very act and work of faith is, according to them, the righteousness itself: And this faith takes in all kind of works, namely, repentance, love, obedience, and ten or twelve duties of that sort; and all these together are our righteousness for justification. Really (as one says upon this very head) if the apostle Paul were alive, he would excommunicate such ministers."


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## MW

Charles Hodge, Commentary on 2 Corinthians 3:6,

"The law, in every form, moral or Mosaic, natural or revealed, kills. In demanding works as the condition of salvation, it must condemn all sinners. But the gospel, whether as revealed in the promise to Adam after his fall, or in the promise to Abraham, or in the writings of Moses, or in its full clearness in the New Testament, gives life. As the old covenant revealed both the law and the gospel, it either killed or gave life, according to the light in which it was viewed. And therefore Paul sometimes says it does the one, and sometimes the other. But the spirit giveth life. The spirit, or the gospel, gives life in a sense correlative to that in which the letter (i.e. the law) kills. 1. By revealing a righteousness adequate to our justification, and thus delivering us from the sentence of death. 2. By producing the assurance of God’s love and the hope of his glory in the place of a dread of his wrath. 3. By becoming, through the agency of the Holy Spirit, an inward principle or power transforming us into the image of God; instead of a mere outward command."


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## Semper Fidelis

timfost said:


> I am seriously trying to understand what you are saying. I don't think I ever said that the gospel is a duty. The gospel is the good news of salvation that is received by faith. Faith is the duty, the gospel is the promise of salvation granted when the sooner meets the condition through the regenerating work of the Spirit (WLC 32). Again, Hodge says "Being a proclamation of the terms on which God is willing to save sinners, and an exhibition of the duty of fallen men in relation to that plan, it of necessity binds all those who are in the condition which the plan contemplates. It is in this respect analogous to the moral law." Do we agree on this?



No.

I've read the Hodge passage and I think you're inferring something about faith that he does not state.

Earlier Hodge writes:


> According to one view, man having by his fall lost the ability of fulfilling the conditions of the covenant of life, God, for Christ’s sake, enters into a new covenant, offering men salvation upon other and easier terms; namely, as some say, faith and repentance, and others evangelical obedience.



It is one thing for Hodge to speak of condition in that portion you cited but it is another to turn that condition into a "duty" as you have done. He speaks of pecuniary and judicial debt in certain places. One might say that the condition to be released from a pecuniary debt is the paying of the debt but it is another thing to say that the fulfillment of that condition is therefore, in God's design, man's duty to fulfill that condition by paying that debt.

I see nowhere that Hodge writes of faith and repentance as anything other than the _gift_ of the Holy Spirit.

When we begin calling faith a duty then we forget that the essence of faith is that it is an evangelical grace. It is not an abstract mental state that men are commanded to muster and they either find it within themselves or they do not. It comes with the Gospel itself by the power of the Holy Spirit. Yes, we exercise faith but not as a duty but as gift. The reprobate knows nothing of faith. Yes, he hears the Gospel of Promise but it is the stench of death to him. Yes, he rejects the Son of God but it is not because he refuses to exercise faith for faith is not a muscle or some internal condition that can be exercised by natural man.


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## timfost

Rich and Matthew,

I plan on writing a longer response, hopefully in a few days. I am very busy over the next couple days. I would also like to formulate my thoughts and spend some time in prayer.

I think to one extent we are talking past each other. Thank you so far for the discussion. 

Blessings,


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## Ask Mr. Religion

timfost said:


> Rich and Matthew,
> 
> I plan on writing a longer response, hopefully in a few days. I am very busy over the next couple days. I would also like to formulate my thoughts and spend some time in prayer.
> 
> I think to one extent we are talking past each other.


Why not simply state your initial presuppositions and position thereto in plain terms. It seems the discussion is going back and forth circling some agenda you have in mind. It would aid the discussion to make things quite plain and proceed from there.

AMR


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## Clark-Tillian

I'll echo the sentiment that "Limited Atonement" is a clearly stated biblical truth, and that Christ in his "High Priestly Prayer" in John 17 makes it plain that God's Word is a means of grace, and a primary factor in our progressive sanctification. Also, those who would argue for any manner of non-limited atonement must deal with Jesus' words in John 10: 

I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep. And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.

Moreover, those who disagree with us on this point do, in fact, in their theology, set limits on Christ's work. We make the inference from scripture and God's decree; they begin with man and limit the blood to those who have faith.


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## timfost

Ask Mr. Religion said:


> Why not simply state your initial presuppositions and position thereto in plain terms. It seems the discussion is going back and forth circling some agenda you have in mind. It would aid the discussion to make things quite plain and proceed from there.



I agree. I feel like the conversation went way off course. I don't think I have any "agenda." I'm seeking to clarify the "universal application" to which statement came the controversy. I thought I was being confessional in the context of the Three Forms of Unity as I was responding to the OP.


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## Semper Fidelis

timfost said:


> I agree. I feel like the conversation went way off course. I don't think I have any "agenda." I'm seeking to clarify the "universal application" to which statement came the controversy. I thought I was being confessional in the context of the Three Forms of Unity as I was responding to the OP.



Tim,

I'm not trying to stir the pot here but it does seem like you see the 3FU and the Westminster Standards in fundamental tension on the issue. You even seem to imply that Hodge is saying that Augustinianism has a wider tradition on something. It seems that the presumption is that Hodge's Systematic theology is somehow more 3FU than Westministarian even though he was a Presbyterian(?!). I'm not accusing you of being deceitful but it does seem like you are making some assumptions regarding some sort of "streams of Calvinism" argument regarding the nature and extent of the atonement and then this touched on the issue of whether or not faith is a duty or a gift.

What I think may be happening is not merely some talking past each other but some assumptions you may have made about underlying tensions and that some of your assumptions are being tested as they relate to faith as a consequence of an earlier assumption. In other words, the systematic nature of theology is coming into play and you'll push in one direction (assuming you you understood the nuance of Hodge or Ursinus) and then you are challenged by the "bulge" that creates in another point of doctrine (e.g. the nature of faith) and you don't seem to recognize that the bulge was created that neither Hodge nor Ursinus created but your own assumptions about what they are trying to state.

So far I haven't really read anyting in either man that supports a 3FU vs Westminster on this issue so I don't believe you've established your case yet. Based on another thread where you speak of grace coming to every hearer (in some sense) based on a reading from Calvin I just sense a little bit of an "ad hoc" approach to this that I think you need to more fully work out because quotes are being used from various folks that are not really bearing out their entire theology. At least that's my spider sense on this.

I think you're a fine fellow but please give this a little consideration. I'm not saying I'm a better man than you because I have made and continue to make similar mistakes. I'm just asking you consider that this may be going on because "Calvin versus the Calvinist" arguments rarely work out the way people think they do.


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## timfost

Rich,

Thank you for your words of encouragement. I do take them seriously.

For the sake of clarity, I'm not trying to pit the Three Forms over the Westminster. I know that many of the Westminster divines would disagree with some of what I'm saying, but the WCF seems to be silent on this issue. As a member of a church that subscribes to the Three Forms, I was stating a doctrine that I believe is established in the Three Forms. Such doctrine cannot be pitted against the WCF when the WCF does not deal directly with the issue.

I hope that clarifies...


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## Semper Fidelis

timfost said:


> Rich,
> 
> Thank you for your words of encouragement. I do take them seriously.
> 
> For the sake of clarity, I'm not trying to pit the Three Forms over the Westminster. I know that many of the Westminster divines would disagree with some of what I'm saying, but the WCF seems to be silent on this issue. As a member of a church that subscribes to the Three Forms, I was stating a doctrine that I believe is established in the Three Forms. Such doctrine cannot be pitted against the WCF when the WCF does not deal directly with the issue.
> 
> I hope that clarifies...



It might. I'm still not sure I understand what those doctrines are... 

I do realize that there are some intramural discussions around some issues that are not necessarily hashed out by the Reformed Confessions.

For instance, Hodge's take on the atonement providing for men not being wiped out in the Fall to set the stage for redemption is something I've heard before. I don't know what I think about it.


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## timfost

Since I’ve been asked to state some of my presuppositions, I would like to build a defense for what initially sparked controversy, namely seeing a “universal application” in the death of Christ. I will try to reference with scripture and confessions so that you can understand my premise. Hopefully by numbering my presuppositions relevant to this discussion, it should clarify where and why we disagree. If you think I am wrong in any of my presuppositions, I am eager to know why, since I am not above error.
______________________

*Definitions*:

*Hyper-Calvinism*: A denial that faith is every man’s duty since man has no ability in himself to produce it. Because man does not have this ability, to offer Christ to him would promote “creature power” and deny special redemption (Gospel Standards 33). This doctrine tends to look at all of soteriology through the lens of God’s secret decree.

*Neonomianism*: The doctrine that Christ through His obedience has abolished the moral law and therefore provides salvation to sinners on lesser terms, namely faith and repentance. Faith and repentance are seen as a “new law” thus making their obedience law keeping and worthy of salvation through their merits.

*Presuppositional statements*

1. *Faith and repentance are mutually inclusive*

Faith and repentance are often used in scripture synecdochically, as one references the positive trust (looking toward) our Savior while repentance specifically turning away from what proceeds from man. Scripture acknowledges this connection (Heb. 6:1). Since faith is the instrument that ingrafts us into Christ, separating it from repentance unto the remission of sins (Luke 3:3) would be nonsense.

2. *Faith is a work/duty*

God “commands all men to repent” (Acts 17:30) as well as promises “remission of sins” (Luke 3:3) when there is that repentance. Paul contrasts the law that kills to “the law of faith” (Rom. 3:27). This is in no way a new law as the neonomians would suggest, but rather a law that establishes the righteousness that Christ merited through his active and passive obedience. In this way, the law of faith establishes the moral law (Rom. 3:31). Furthermore, Paul does not shy away from speaking about faith being a work when he describes the “work of faith” (1 Thess. 1:3) and the “obedience of faith” (Rom. 1:5). 

The WCF says that “it is *every man’s duty* to endeavor to repent of his particular sins, particularly” (WCF 15.5). Such repentance is *repentance unto life* as is the title of chapter 15. Faith and repentance are called both a “requirement” (WCF 7.3) for salvation and a “condition” (WLC 32) of salvation. In the Westminster _description of the law_, both “condition” (WCF 7.2) and “require” (WLC 99) are similarly used, thus shedding light to Charles Hodge’s words which state that the response to the call of the gospel “of necessity binds all those who are in the *condition* which the plan contemplates… [and] *is in this respect analogous to the moral law*.” This is not neonomian language as has been suggested, but simply Hodge is recognizing the similarities that the Westminster finds and acknowledges that man has this duty, namely to savingly repent.

3. *Faith does not merit*

Although faith is a duty and a work, the Scripture is clear that it _does not merit_. Because it does not merit, the reward is called grace (Rom. 4:4-5, 11:6, Heidelberg 21). This runs contrary to neonomianism, as this scheme sets up _faith and repentance themselves_ as the obedience of the _new_ law. Under this doctrine, faith actually _merits_ salvation. In contrast, scripture teaches that it is not the work of faith itself that saves (else it would merit), but is the instrument which ingrafts us into Christ so that we receive His benefits, or His perfect obedience to the moral law (Heidelberg 20, Belgic 22). 

4. *The gospel*

The “promise of the gospel is 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 declared and published to all nations, and to all persons promiscuously and without distinction…” (Dort second head, article 5). The gospel and the promise contained in the gospel do not go out indefinitely, _but definitely_, since the promises of God are always good. Dort clearly links this promise to the sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice (see articles 3 and 6) so that rejection of the atonement is “wholly to be imputed to themselves.” Christ is _definitely_ offered to sinners as a Mediator upon the condition of faith and repentance (WLC 32). (“Sinners” is not an indefinite but a definite category.)

5. *Effectual calling*

Effectual calling is not technically part of the gospel, since it is not in our power to offer. 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, [so that] he doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the gospel*” (WSC 31). Notice that it is effectual calling that enables us to embrace Christ offered in the gospel. It is the _particular_ quickening that _embraces something general_. If we synthesize both effectual calling and the gospel, we reduce the gospel to an indefinite category and contradict the distinctions made in the Westminster standards and Dort. 

*Conclusions*

1. During the course of this conversation, there has been resistance to seeing a definite promise of the gospel. It was said “the gospel requires *and gives faith*.” This is only half true. The gospel requires faith *and promises life* upon the condition of faith and repentance. I believe that to say that the gospel “gives life” is synthesizing the gospel with effectual calling. This seems to be the reason why Rev. Winzer is very careful to talk about definite and indefinite categories in relation to the gospel, simply because he has not properly distinguished between the _definite promise_ of the gospel to all sinners and (definite) effectual calling.

2. It was said that “If your ‘universal application’ of the atonement depends on the condition of faith, then this faith is man's natural and moral working.” I believe that this is also false. All men are under obligation to exercise saving faith and is a condition set forth in the gospel (WCF 32). Since man cannot produce such faith by himself, Christ gives it to the elect when he effectually calls them. Because all men are under obligation to exercise saving faith does not mean that the promises were not good, nor does it promote “man’s natural and moral working.”

3. It was also said that “God commands all to repent and believe. That is simple enough. This is what the law demands.” If the universality of the command only proceeds from the law, then it cannot by necessity promise life, otherwise, we would be promoting salvation through the law. If it proceeds from the law, but cannot promise life, how is there the promise of remission of sins? Such duties, therefore, proceed out of the gospel as the confessions clearly state.

*Final remarks*

The atonement has reference to all because it is promised in the gospel. This is at no variance with particular redemption, because it was only ever designed to effectively save those who were elected, who in time are effectively called and receive Christ’s benefits. Part of the design that Christ had in giving His life was so that this good news could be offered with definite promises to particular people (Acts 16:31). Also see Calvin’s commentaries on John 3:16-18, 12:44-50.

A related presupposition to this is that part of the design of the atonement is so that Christ could be offered indiscriminately. This presupposes that at minimum the offer of the gospel is definite and legitimate, at most it is sincere, even from God. 



> “Why then does Christ not choose to condemn them [who reject God]? It is because he lays aside for a time the office of a judge, and offers salvation to all without reserve, and stretches out his arms to embrace all, that all may be the more encouraged to repent” (Calvin’s commentary on John 12:47).


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## Semper Fidelis

timfost said:


> 2. Faith is a work/duty


No. Faith is an evangelical grace:

"I. The *grace of faith*, whereby the elect are enabled to believe to the saving of their souls, *is the work of the Spirit of Christ* in their hearts; and is *ordinarily wrought by the ministry of the Word*: by which also, and by the administration of the sacraments, and prayer, it is increased and strengthened."



timfost said:


> The WCF says that “it is every man’s duty to endeavor to repent of his particular sins, particularly” (WCF 15.5). Such repentance is repentance unto life as is the title of chapter 15. Faith and repentance are called both a “requirement” (WCF 7.3) for salvation and a “condition” (WLC 32) of salvation. In the Westminster description of the law, both “condition” (WCF 7.2) and “require” (WLC 99) are similarly used, thus shedding light to Charles Hodge’s words which state that the response to the call of the gospel “of necessity binds all those who are in the condition which the plan contemplates… [and] is in this respect analogous to the moral law.” This is not neonomian language as has been suggested, but simply Hodge is recognizing the similarities that the Westminster finds and acknowledges that man has this duty, namely to savingly repent.



I don't know if you realize how much you are skipping over to get to 15.5. The very first clause of WCF 15 states:

I. Repentance unto life is an *evangelical grace*...

15.6 states that every man is bound to repent but this is clearly connected to those who have received this evangelical grace and cannot be generalized to all men as you have erroneously inferred.

What you call duty/work the Confessions call evangelical graces. You have not established some major premises in your ignoring of the Standards on this point.


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## Semper Fidelis

Notice what Dordt says about Faith:



> Article 3: The Preaching of the Gospel
> 
> *In order that people may be brought to faith*, God mercifully sends proclaimers of this very joyful message to the people he wishes and at the time he wishes. By this ministry people are called to repentance and faith in Christ crucified. For how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without someone preaching? And how shall they preach unless they have been sent? (Rom. 10:14-15).
> 
> Article 4: A Twofold Response to the Gospel
> 
> God's anger remains on those who do not believe this gospel. But those who do accept it and embrace Jesus the Savior with a true and living faith are delivered through him from God's anger and from destruction, and receive the gift of eternal life.
> 
> Article 5: The Sources of Unbelief and of Faith
> 
> *The cause or blame for this unbelief*, as well as for all other sins, is not at all in God, but *in man*. *Faith in Jesus Christ, however, and salvation through him is a free gift of God.* As Scripture says, It is by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this not from yourselves; it is a gift of God (Eph. 2:8). Likewise: It has been freely given to you to believe in Christ (Phil. 1:29).
> 
> Article 6: God's Eternal Decision
> 
> The fact that some receive from God the *gift of faith* within time, and that others do not, stems from his eternal decision. For all his works are known to God from eternity (Acts 15:18; Eph. 1:11). In accordance with this decision he graciously softens the hearts, however hard, of his chosen ones and inclines them to believe, but by his just judgment he leaves in their wickedness and hardness of heart those who have not been chosen. And in this especially is disclosed to us his act--unfathomable, and as merciful as it is just--of distinguishing between people equally lost. This is the well-known decision of election and reprobation revealed in God's Word. This decision the wicked, impure, and unstable distort to their own ruin, but it provides holy and godly souls with comfort beyond words.



You are conflating belief/unbelief with faith. Man is commanded to believe. He is not commanded to exercise faith. Faith is seen as a gift.


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## timfost

_Believe_ is a verb, _faith_ is a noun. They have the same root and mean the same thing (see Rom. 4:3,5,9).

Just because faith is an evangelical grace does not mean it is not a work. It is an evangelical grace because it is given to those who cannot produce it, though God requires it of them.


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## Semper Fidelis

timfost said:


> _Believe_ is a verb, _faith_ is a noun. They have the same root and mean the same thing (see Rom. 4:3,5,9).
> 
> Just because faith is an evangelical grace does not mean it is not a work. It is an evangelical grace because it is given to those who cannot produce it, though God requires it of them.



That is simply not consistent with any Reformed writing. Show me a single Reformed writer or Confession that attribute the _work_ of faith to any but the work of the Holy Spirit.

You have claimed that faith is a duty and work but everywhere that faith is spoken of the work of faith is seen as a gift of God.

You need to do some language study and learn about root fallacies. There is much more to exegesus and theology than understanding the root of a word. The demons believe (same root) but do not have faith that saves (which is the only type we're interested in). It is consistent with the Reformed confessions that all men are callled to believe but saving faith is not something that is ever seen as something that is equivalent to that general call in the Reformed confessions. It is _always_ and evangelical grace and evangelical graces belong to the elect alone. You will have to establish in Reformed writing to the contrary and you have not done so either for faith or for repentance unto life.


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## Semper Fidelis

Calvin:



> 8. But before I proceed farther, it will be necessary to make some preliminary observations for the purpose of removing difficulties which might otherwise obstruct the reader. And first, I must refute the nugatory distinction of the Schoolmen as to formed and unformed faith.285 For they imagine that persons who have no fear of God, and no sense of piety, may believe all that is necessary to be known for salvation; *as if the Holy Spirit were not the witness of our adoption by enlightening our hearts unto faith*. *Still, however, though the whole Scripture is against them, they dogmatically give the name of faith to a persuasion devoid of the fear of God.* It is unnecessary to go farther in refuting their definition, than simply to state the nature of faith as declared in the word of God. From this it will clearly appear how unskillfully and absurdly they babble, rather than discourse, on this subject. I have already done this in part, and will afterwards add the remainder in its proper place. At present, I say that nothing can be imagined more absurd than their fiction. They insist that faith is an assent with which any despiser of God may receive what is delivered by Scripture. But we must first see whether any one can by his own strength acquire faith, or whether the Holy Spirit, by means of it, becomes the witness of adoption. Hence it is childish trifling in them to inquire whether the faith formed by the supervening quality of love be the same, or a different and new faith. *By talking in this style, they show plainly that they have never thought of the special gift of the Spirit; since one of the first elements of faith is reconciliation implied in man’s drawing near to God. Did they duly ponder the saying of Paul, “With the heart man believeth unto righteousness,” (Rom. 10:10), they would cease to dream of that frigid quality. There is one consideration which ought at once to put an end to the debate, viz., that assent itself (as I have already observed, and will afterwards more fully illustrate) is more a matter of the heart than the head, of the affection than the intellect. For this reason, it is termed “the obedience of faith,” (Rom. 1:5), which the Lord prefers to all other service, and justly, since nothing is more precious to him than his truth, which, as John Baptist declares, is in a manner signed and sealed by believers (John 3:33).* As there can be no doubt on the matter, we in one word conclude, that they talk absurdly when they maintain that faith is formed by the addition of pious affection as an accessory to assent, since assent itself, such at least as the Scriptures describe, consists in pious affection. But we are furnished with a still clearer argument. *Since faith embraces Christ as he is offered by the Father, and he is offered not only for justification, for forgiveness of sins and peace, but also for sanctification, as the fountain of living waters, it is certain that no man will ever know him aright without at the same time receiving the sanctification of the Spirit; or, to express the matter more plainly, faith consists in the knowledge of Christ; Christ cannot be known without the sanctification of his Spirit: therefore faith cannot possibly be disjoined from pious affection.*
> 
> Calvin, J. (1997). Institutes of the Christian religion. Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.


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## Semper Fidelis

Hodge:



> The question, What is Faith? is a very comprehensive one. In one view it is a, metaphysical question. What is the psychological nature of the act or state of the mind which we designate faith, or belief? In this aspect the discussion concerns the philosopher as much as the theologian. Secondly, faith may be viewed as to its exercise in the whole sphere of religion and morality. *Thirdly, it may be considered as a Christian grace, the fruit of the Spirit; that is, those exercises of faith which are peculiar to the regenerated people of God. This is what is meant by saving faith.* Fourthly, it may be viewed in its relation to justification, sanctification, and holy living, or, as to those special exercises of faith which are required as the necessary conditions of the sinner’s acceptance with God, or as essential to holiness of heart and life.
> 
> Hodge, C. (1997). Systematic theology (Vol. 3, pp. 41–42). Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.


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## Semper Fidelis

Hodge again:



> § 3. Different Kinds of Faith
> 
> Though the definition above given be accepted, it is to be admitted that there are different kinds of faith. In other words, the state of mind which the word designates is very different in one case from what it is in others. This difference arises partly from the nature of its objects, and partly from the nature or form of the testimony on which it is founded. Faith in a historical fact or speculative truth is one thing; faith in aesthetic truth another thing; faith in moral truth another thing; faith in spiritual truth, and especially faith in the promise of salvation made to ourselves another thing. That is, the state of mind denominated faith is very different in any one of these cases from what it is in the others. Again, the testimony which God bears to the truth is of different kinds. In one form it is directed especially to the understanding; in another to the conscience; in another to our regenerated nature. This is the cause of the difference between speculative, temporary, and saving faith.
> 
> Speculative or Dead Faith
> 
> There are many men who believe the Bible to be the Word of God; who receive all that it teaches; and who are perfectly orthodox in their doctrinal belief. If asked why they believe, they may be at a loss for an answer. Reflection might enable them to say they believe because others believe. They receive their faith by inheritance. They were taught from their earliest years thus to believe. The Church to which they belong inculcates this faith, and it is enjoined upon them as true and necessary. Others of greater culture may say that the evidence of the divine origin of the Bible, both external and internal, satisfies their minds, and produces a rational conviction that the Scriptures are a revelation from God, and they receive its contents on his authority. Such a faith as this, experience teaches, is perfectly compatible with a worldly or wicked life. This is what the Bible calls a dead faith.
> 
> Temporary Faith
> 
> Again, nothing is more common than for the Gospel to produce a temporary impression, more or less deep and lasting. Those thus impressed believe. But, having no root in themselves, sooner or later they fall away. It is also a common experience that men utterly indifferent or even skeptical, in times of danger, or on the near approach of death, are deeply convinced of the certainty of those religious truths previously known, but hitherto disregarded or rejected. This temporary faith is due to common grace; that is, to those influences of the Spirit common in a measure greater or less to all men, which operate on the soul without renewing it, and which reveal the truth to the conscience and cause it to produce conviction.
> 
> Saving Faith
> 
> That faith which secures eternal life; which unites us to Christ as living members of his body; which makes us the sons of God; which interests us in all the benefits of redemption; which works by love, and is fruitful in good works; is founded, *not on the external or the moral evidence of the truth, but on the testimony of the Spirit with and by the truth to the renewed soul.*
> 
> What is meant by the Testimony of the Spirit
> 
> It is necessary, before going further, to determine what is meant by the testimony of the Spirit, which is said to be the ground of saving faith.
> God, or the Spirit of God, testifies to the truth of the Scriptures and of the doctrines which they contain. This testimony, as has been seen, is partly external, consisting in prophecies and miracles, partly in the nature of the truths themselves as related to the intellectual and moral elements of the soul, and partly special and supernatural. *Unrenewed men may feel the power of the two former kinds of testimony, and believe with a faith either merely intellectual and speculative, or with what may be called from its ground, a moral faith, which is only temporary. The spiritual form of testimony is confined to the regenerated.* It is, of course, inscrutable. The operations of the Spirit do not reveal themselves in the consciousness otherwise than by their effects. We know that men are born of the Spirit, that the Spirit dwells in the people of God and continually influences their thoughts, feelings, and actions. But we know this only from the teaching of the Bible, not because we are conscious of his operations. “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8.)
> This witness of the Spirit is not an affirmation that the Bible is the Word of God. Neither is it the production of a blind, unintelligent conviction of that fact. It is not, as is the case with human testimony, addressed from without to the mind, but it is within the mind itself. *It is an influence designed to produce faith*. It is called a witness or testimony because it is so called in Scripture; and because it has the essential nature of testimony, inasmuch as it is the pledge of the authority of God in support of the truth.
> 
> The effects of this inward testimony are, (1.) What the Scriptures call “spiritual discernment.” This means two things: A discernment due to the influence of the Spirit; and a discernment not only of the truth, but also of the holiness, excellence, and glory of the things discerned. The word spiritual, in this sense, means conformed to the nature of the Spirit. Hence the law is said to be spiritual, i.e., holy, just, and good. (2.) A second effect flowing necessarily from the one just mentioned is delight and complacency, or love. (3.) The apprehension of the suitableness of the truths revealed, to our nature and necessities. (4.) The firm conviction that these things are not only true, but divine. (5.) The fruits of this conviction, i.e., of the faith thus produced, good works,—holiness of heart and life.
> 
> When, therefore, a Christian is asked, Why he believes the Scriptures and the doctrines therein contained, his simple answer is, On the testimony or authority of God. How else could he know that the worlds were created by God, that our race apostatized from God, that He sent his Son for our redemption, that faith in Him will secure salvation. Faith in such truths can have no other foundation than the testimony of God. If asked, How God testifies to the truth of the Bible? If an educated man whose attention has been called to the subject, he will answer, In every conceivable way: by signs, wonders, and miracles; by the exhibition which the Bible makes of divine knowledge, excellence, authority, and power, If an uneducated man, he may simply say, “Whereas I was blind, now I see.” Such a man, and indeed *every true Christian, passes from a state of unbelief to one of saving faith, not by any process of research or argument, but of inward experience*. The change may, and often does, take place in a moment. The faith of a Christian in the Bible is, as before remarked, analogous to that which all men have in the moral law, which they recognize not only as truth, but as having the authority of God. W*hat the natural man perceives with regard to the moral law the renewed man is enabled to perceive in regard to “the things of the Spirit*,” by the testimony of that Spirit with and by the truth to his heart.
> 
> Proof from Express Declarations of Scripture
> 
> 1. That this is the Scriptural doctrine on the subject is plain from the express declarations of the Scriptures. *Our Lord promised to send the Spirit for this very purpose.* “He will reprove the world of sin,” especially of the sin of not believing in Christ; “and of righteousness,” that is, of his righteousness,—the rightfulness of his claims to be regarded and received as the Son of God, God manifest in the flesh, and the Saviour of the world; “and of judgment,” that is, of the final overthrow of the kingdom of darkness and triumph of the kingdom of light. (John 16:8.) F*aith, therefore, is always represented in Scripture as one of the fruits of the Spirit, as the gift of God, as the product of his energy (πίστις τη̂ς ἐνεργείας του̂ Θεου̂) (Colossians 2:12). Men are said to believe in virtue of the same power which wrought in Christ, when God raised Him from the dead. (Eph 1:19, 20.)* The Apostle Paul elaborately sets forth the ground of faith in the second chapter of First Corinthians. He declares that he relied for success not on the enticing words of man’s wisdom, but on the demonstration of the Spirit, in order that the faith of the people might rest not on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God. Faith was not to rest on argument, on historical or philosophical proof, but on the testimony of the Spirit. The Spirit demonstrates the truth to the mind, i.e., produces the conviction that it is truth, and leads the soul to embrace it with assurance and delight. Passages have already been quoted which teach that faith rests on the testimony of God, and that unbelief consists in rejecting that testimony. The testimony of God is given through the Spirit, whose office it is to take of the things of Christ and show them unto us. The Apostle John tells his readers, “Ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things … The anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you: and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.” (1 John 2:20, 27.) This passage teaches, (1.) That true believers receive from Christ (the Holy One) an unction. (2.) That this unction is the Holy Ghost. (3.) That it secures the knowledge and conviction of the truth. (4.) That this inward teaching which makes them believers is abiding, and secures them from apostasy.
> 
> 
> 1 Corinthians 2:14.
> 
> Equally explicit is the passage in 1 Corinthians 2:14, “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.” *The things of the Spirit, are the things which the Spirit has revealed. Concerning these things, it is taught: (1.) that the natural or unrenewed man does not receive them. (2.) That the spiritual man, i.e., the man in whom the Spirit dwells, does receive them. (3.) That the reason of this difference is that the former has not, and that the latter has, spiritual discernment. (4.) This spiritual discernment is the apprehension of the truth and excellence of the things discerned. (5.) It is spiritual, as just stated, both because due to the operation of the Spirit, and because the conformity of the truths discerned to the nature of the Spirit, is apprehended.*
> 
> When Peter confessed that Jesus was the Christ the Son of the living God, our Lord said, “Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.” (Matt. 16:17.) Other men had the same external evidence of the divinity of Christ that Peter had. *His faith was due not to that evidence alone, but to the inward testimony of God. Our Lord rendered thanks that God had hidden the mysteries of his kingdom from the wise and prudent and revealed them unto babes.* (Matt. 11:25.) The external revelation was made to both classes. Besides this external revelation, those called babes received an inward testimony which made them believers. Hence our Lord said, No man can come unto me except he be drawn or taught of God. (John 6:44, 45.) The Apostle tells us that the same Gospel, the same objective truths, with the same external and rational evidence, which was an offence to the Jew and foolishness to the Greek, was to the called the wisdom and the power of God. Why this difference? Not the superior knowledge or greater excellence of the called, but the inward divine influence, the κλη̂σις, of which they were the subjects. Paul’s instantaneous conversion is not to be referred to any rational process of argument; nor to his moral susceptibility to the truth; nor to the visible manifestation of Christ, for no miracle, no outward light or splendour could change the heart and transform the whole character in a moment. It was, as the Apostle himself tells us (Gal. 1:15, 16), the inward revelation of Christ to him by the special grace of God. It was the testimony of the Spirit, which being inward and supernatural, enabled him to see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. The Psalmist prayed that God would open his eyes that he might see wondrous things out of his law. The Apostle prayed for the Ephesians that God would give them the Holy Spirit, that the eyes of their souls might be opened, that they might know the things freely given to them of God. (Eph. 1:17, 18.) Everywhere in the Bible the fact that any one believes is referred not to his subjective state, but to the work of the Spirit on his heart.
> 
> Proof from the Way the Apostles acted
> 
> *2. As the Scriptures thus expressly teach that the ground of true or saving faith is the inward witness of the Spirit, the Apostles always acted on that principle.* They announced the truth, and demanded its instant reception, under the pain of eternal death. Our Lord did the same. “He that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” (John 3:18.) Immediate faith was demanded. Being demanded by Christ, and at his command by the Apostles, that demand must be just and reasonable. It could, however, be neither unless the evidence of the truth attended it. That evidence could not be the external proofs of the divinity of Christ and his Gospel, for those proofs were present to the minds of comparatively few of the hearers of the Gospel; nor could it be rational proof or philosophical arguments, for still fewer could appreciate such evidence, and if they could it would avail nothing to the production of saving faith. The evidence of truth, to which assent is demanded by God the moment it is announced, must be in the truth itself. And if this assent be obligatory, and dissent or unbelief a sin, then the evidence must be of a nature, to which a corrupt state of the soul renders a man insensible. “If our gospel be hid,” says the Apostle, “it is hid to them that are lost: in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them … *[But] God, who commanded the 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. 4:3–6.) It is here taught, (1.) That wherever and whenever Christ is preached, the evidence of his divinity is presented. The glory of God shines in his face. (2.) That if any man fails to see it, it is because the God of this world hath blinded his eyes. (3.) That if any do perceive it and believe, it is because of an inward illumination produced by Him who first commanded the light to shine out of darkness.*
> 
> Proof from the Practice in the Church
> 
> 3. As Christ and the Apostles acted on this principle, so have all faithful ministers and missionaries from that day to this They do not expect to convince and convert men by historical evidence or by philosophical arguments. They depend on the demonstration of the Spirit.
> 
> Proof from Analogy
> 
> 4. This doctrine, that the true and immediate ground of faith in the things of the Spirit is the testimony of the Spirit, producing spiritual discernment, is sustained by analogy. *If a man cannot see the splendour of the sun, it is because he is blind. If he cannot perceive the beauties of nature and of art, it is because he has no taste. If he cannot apprehend “the concord of sweet sounds,” it is because he has not a musical ear. If he cannot see the beauty of virtue, or the divine authority of the moral law, it is because his moral sense is blunted. If he cannot see the glory of God in his works and in his Word, it is because his religious nature is perverted. And in like manner, if he cannot see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, it is because the god of this world has blinded his eyes.*
> 
> No one excuses the man who can see no excellence in virtue, and who repudiates the authority of the moral law. The Bible and the instinctive judgment of men, condemn the atheist. In like manner the Scriptures pronounce accursed all who do not believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of the living God. This is the denial of supreme excellence; the rejection of the clearest manifestation of God ever made to man. The solemn judgment of God is, “If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema maranatha.” (1 Cor. 16:22.) In this judgment the whole intelligent universe will ultimately acquiesce.
> 
> Faith in the Scriptures, therefore, is founded on the testimony of God. By testimony, as before stated, is meant attestation, anything which pledges the authority of the attester in support of the truth to be established. *As this testimony is of different kinds, so the faith which it produces, is also different. So far as the testimony is merely external, the faith it produces is simply historical or speculative. So far as the testimony is moral, consisting in the power which the Spirit gives to the truth over the natural conscience, the faith is temporary, depending on the state of mind which is its proximate cause. Besides these, there is the inward testimony of the Spirit, which is of such a nature and of such power as to produce a perfect revolution in the soul, compared in Scripture to that effected by opening the eyes of the blind to the reality, the wonders, and glories of creation. There is, therefore, all the difference between a faith resting on this inward testimony of the Spirit, and mere speculative faith, that there is between the conviction a blind man has of the beauties of nature, before and after the opening of his eyes. As this testimony is informing, enabling the soul to see the truth and excellence of the “things of the Spirit,” so far as the consciousness of the believer is concerned, his faith is a form of knowledge He sees to be true, what the Spirit reveals and authenticates.*
> 
> 
> Hodge, C. (1997). Systematic theology (Vol. 3, pp. 67–74). Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.


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## MW

Thomas Watson, Body of Divinity (1838 ed.), p. 323:

The moral law requires obedience, but gives no strength, as Pharaoh required brick, but gave no straw; but *the gospel bestows faith on the elect*; *the gospel sweetens the law*, *it makes us serve God with delight*.


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## MW

Thomas Watson, Body of Divinity (1838 ed.), p. 357:

God gives strength to do what he requires. The law called for obedience; but though it required brick, it gave no straw; *but in the gospel*, *God*, *with his commands*, *gives power*, Ezek. xviii. 31, "Make you a new heart." Alas! it is above our strength; we may as well make a new world, Ezek. xxxvi. 26, "I will give you a new heart." God commands to cleanse ourselves, Isa. i. 16, "Wash you, make you clean." "But who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?" Job xiv. 4. *Therefore the precept is turned into a promise*, Ezek. xxxvi. 25, "From all your filthiness will I cleanse you." When the child cannot go, the nurse takes it by the hand, Hos. xi. 3, "I taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by their arms."


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## MW

Herman Witsius, The economy of the covenants, volume 1, pp. 367-368:

XII. Besides, when God proposes the form of the covenant of grace, his words, to this purpose, are mere promises, as we have lately seen from Jer. xxxi. and xxxii. Our divines therefore, who, in consequence of the quirks of the Socinians and Remonstrants, have learned to speak with the greatest caution, justly maintain that *the gospel*, *strictly taken*, *consists of pure promise of grace and glory*.

XIII. And indeed, if we are to take the promises of the covenant of grace altogether without exception, we could not, so much as in thought, devise any thing in us, as the condition of these promises. *For whatever can be conceived as a condition*, *is all included in the universality of the promises*. Should God only promise eternal life, there might be some pretence for saying, that repentance, faith, and the like, were the conditions of this covenant. But seeing God does, in the same breath, as it were ratify both the beginning, progress, uninterrupted continuance, and, in a word, the consummation of the new life; *nothing remains in this universality of the promises*, *which can be looked upon as a condition of the whole covenant*.


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## MW

Herman Witsius, The economy of the covenants, volume 1, pp. 370:

The covenant of grace, or the gospel, strictly so called, which is the model of that covenant, *since it consists in mere promises*, *prescribes nothing properly as duty*, *requires nothing*, *commands nothing*; not even this, Believe, trust, hope in the Lord, and the like. But it declares, sets forth, and signifies to us, what God promises in Christ, what he would have done, and what he is about to do. *All prescription of duty belongs to the law*, as, after others, the venerable Voetius has very well inculcated. And we are by all means, to maintain this, if, with the whole body of the reformed, we would constantly defend the perfection of the law, which comprehends all virtues, and all the duties of holiness.


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## MW

Ebenezer Erskine, Works, 1:300:

For if this be so, then inevitably we must first obey Christ as a king, by repenting and believing, in order to our being justified by him as a priest; besides many other dangerous consequences which are unavoidable upon this new law-scheme. All which are avoided, by teaching, with the strain of orthodox divines, that *there are no precepts in the gospel strictly taken*; *and that Christ in the gospel gives no new laws*, but enforces the old law, namely, the moral, which being adapted to the gospel-dispensation, obliges us to believe in Christ upon his being revealed to us in the gospel, and consequently to repent also in an evangelical manner. For that these duties of faith and repentance, as to their essence, are required in the very first commandment of the moral law, is indisputably evident; and I do think it strange, to find it controverted by any who embrace and own the doctrine of the church of Scotland, particularly the Larger Catechism, where that point is plainly determined, in the explication of the foresaid first commandment.


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## MW

Ebenezer Erskine, Works, 1:527-528:

You would know, that *the gospel*, strictly taken, *is a word of promise*. The first gospel that ever was preached to our first parents, when a dismal cloud of wrath was hanging over their heads in Paradise after the fall, was in a promise, Gen. iii. 15: "The seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent." The gospel preached to Abraham, what was it but a promise of Christ? "In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed," Gal. iii. 8. And I think it observable, that the same thing which the apostle calls the gospel, ver. 8, he calls the promise, and the covenant, ver. 17—19. So that the gospel, strictly taken, is a word of promise: so Heb. iv. 1, 2, compared, -- what the apostle calls "a promise of entering into God's rest" in the 1st verse, he calls the gospel in the 2nd verse. And *a God of love and grace dispenses his grace in a promise*, *for our encouragement to take hold of it in a way of believing*; for there is nothing in which the faithfulness of God is so much engaged as in a promise, the very design of which is to be believed.


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## MW

Ebenezer Erskine, Works, 1:383:

The unbeliever is already condemned in the gospel-court. Now, do not mistake this way of speaking, as if, when I speak of the gospel-court, I meant, that the gospel, strictly considered, condemned any man: the gospel, like its glorious Author, "comes not into the world to condemn the world, but that the world, through" it, "might be saved." Neither do I mean, as if there were new precepts and penalties in the gospel, considered in a strict sense, which were never found in the book or court of the law. This is an assertion which has laid the foundation for a train of damnable and soul-ruining errors; as of the Antinomian error, in discarding the whole moral law as a rule of obedience under the gospel; the Baxterian error, of an evangelical righteousness different from the imputed righteousness of Christ; the Pelagian and Arminian error, of a sufficient grace given to every man that hears the gospel, to believe and repent by his own power.


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## MW

James Fisher, Shorter Catechism explained, question 45:

...*in the gospel*, strictly and properly-taken, as it is contra-distinct from the law, *there can be no precept*; *because the gospel in this strict sense*, *is nothing else than a promise*, or glad tidings of a Saviour, with grace, mercy, and salvation in him, for lost sinners of Adam's family: according to the following scriptures, Gen. iii. 15; Isa. lxi. 1, 2, 3; Luke ii. 10, 11.


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## MW

Ralph Erskine, Sermons 1:213:

Hence we may see, if Christ be given for a covenant of the people, that *the gospel* strictly and properly taken, *is a bundle of good news*, *glad tidings*, *and gracious promises*; our text is a sum of the gospel, and it is *a free promise*, "I will give thee for a covenant of the people:" there is no precept nor commandment here. *The law is properly a word of precept*, *but not the gospel*: *the law commands all*, *and the gospel promises all*. It were a disparagement to the divine law, if it were not perfect and exceeding broad, if there were any duty we are called unto not enjoined therein.


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## timfost

Rev. Matthew,

Thank you for the quotes. They seem very relevant to the conversation. I've downloaded the Witsius as that has been on my mental "to read" list since the early summer. 

Rich,

I'm having a little bit of trouble understanding the reason for your quotes. I thoroughly agree with all of them, and am little bit confused what you were trying to argue. I have never denied that faith is a gift, so it seems you are arguing something that we both agree on. 

Honestly, I think you have made an erroneous distinction between faith and belief, if I understand you correctly.

Rom. 3:4 "Abraham *believed* God, and it was *accounted* to him for righteousness."

9 "For we say that *faith* was *accounted* to Abraham for righteousness."

This allows Paul to use them interchangeably in 5:

"But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness."

In English, we simply have different words for πίστις (pístis) when it is a noun and when it is a verb. I am fairly confident that you have erred in this distinction. Have you found support for distinguishing from any reformed writings? You might want to look into that...

I really do appreciate you engaging me on this subject and for your time.

Blessings


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## Semper Fidelis

Tim,

The point I'm making is that there is faith and there is saving faith. There is belief that natural man is capable of and there is belief that is the gift of God. Hodge's quotes demonstrate the different kinds of faith that exist and demonstrates that saving faith is a gift. Thus we can say that all men are commanded to believe the Gospel but saving faith is an evangelical grace. There's no way to jump from the command to believe (which natural man is condemned for unbelief) to making _saving faith_ a duty/work. It is not, it is something created. It is something that (as quoted) is created in the hearts of men by the Spirit through the proclamation of the Gospel.


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## timfost

I'm not trying to be a pain, but when Christ calls people to repent and believe (Mark 1:15), is it not unto salvation? Paul says: "For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, *not only to believe in Him*, but also to suffer for His sake..." (Phil. 1:29) Obviously that belief granted is an evangelical grace, but does this mean that it is also not the the duty of all men, or put differently what all men ought to do since it is commanded? I'm not trying to say that any man can exercise saving faith by himself, but all men are commanded to exercise saving faith. The marvel of the grace of God is that He would provide us with that which we cannot produce so that we (the elect) meet the condition held forth in the gospel.

I'm also confused... what is the difference between faith and saving faith? Are you saying that just faith is historical faith or temporary faith? Faith in Christ is always saving faith as I understand it. Or is the faith that's commanded in scripture non-salvific?


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## MW

Tim, I think Witsius will be beneficial. His work on the Covenants provides a more systematic treatment. His Irenical Animadversions makes the same points but specifically addresses the dispute between Antinomianism and Neonomianism.


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## timfost

MW said:


> Tim, I think Witsius will be beneficial. His work on the Covenants provides a more systematic treatment. His Irenical Animadversions makes the same points but specifically addresses the dispute between Antinomianism and Neonomianism.



Thanks again for providing! I appreciate your thoughts.


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## timfost

Rich,

Here is a quote from A W Pink from his writing on duty-faith:



> It is the bounden duty of all who hear the Gospel to savingly trust in Christ, otherwise their rejection of Him would be no sin. Many of our readers will be surprised to hear that this self-evident truth is denied by some who are, otherwise, sound in the Faith. They reason that it is "inconsistent" to call upon the spiritually dead to perform spiritual duties.


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## JimmyH

Forgive me for jumping in the middle. I'm not trying to prove a point, merely seeking a clarification. When Paul says, "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are Spiritually discerned" (1 Corinthians 2:14) Doesn't that preclude 'all' mankind being capable of belief without the intercession of the Spirit ? 

The quote in Philippians 1:29, isn't Paul speaking to believer exclusively there ? Martyn Lloyd-Jones frequently pointed out that it wasn't fair to expect an unregenerate man to live as a Christian is asked to live.


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## timfost

JimmyH said:


> Forgive me for jumping in the middle. I'm not trying to prove a point, merely seeking a clarification. When Paul says, "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are Spiritually discerned" (1 Corinthians 2:14) Doesn't that preclude 'all' mankind being capable of belief without the intercession of the Spirit ?



Yes 



> The quote in Philippians 1:29, isn't Paul speaking to believer exclusively there ?



Yes



> Martyn Lloyd-Jones frequently pointed out that it wasn't fair to expect an unregenerate man to live as a Christian is asked to live.



I haven't read Jones on this, but there is no expectation that the unregenerate man can, though he is required to. (Rom. 9:19-21)


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## timfost

Here is another helpful quote from Andrew Fuller's _The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation; or, The Duty of Sinners to Believe in Jesus Christ_ p. 59:



> But unbelief cannot be a sin, if faith were not a duty. I know of no answer to this argument, but what must be *drawn from a distinction between believing the report of the Gospel, and saving faith* ; allowing the want of the one to be sinful, but not of the other.


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## MW

timfost said:


> Here is a quote from A W Pink from his writing on duty-faith:



I just went back through the list of Puritans which Arthur Pink quoted in that article. The mention of Thomas Goodwin reminded me of an excellent treatment of this subject in his work on Justifying Faith, which might be of help, and shows that the object of faith is an absolute promise made indefinitely to all, not a conditional promise made universally to all. It is as follows:



> Now that which I would establish is this, that indefinite promises may be, and are sufficient ground to draw the heart in to believe. By indefinite promises I understand such as are not made universally to all men, as some would have the promises run, as that God hath loved all, and Christ died for all; nor such as particularly design out the persons that shall be saved, or are intended (as conditional promises do, and the promise first made to Abraham personally did design out himself as intended); but *they are called indefinite*, *because they mention that only some of the sons of men are intended by God*, *not all*, *and that without mentioning particularly or personally who those persons are*; *so as they are not indefinite as leaving the thing promised uncertain*, *for salvation is absolutely pronounced unto some of the sons of men*, *but only because they design not the persons who are certainly intended*. Such are those promises, 'Christ came into the world to save sinners,' 'God was in Christ reconciling the world,' which is made the matter of the gospel's ministry; and though the promulgation of this be made to all men, 'Preach the gospel to every creature,' yet *this is not the gospel to be preached*, *that God hath promised to save every creature*, *though*, *upon this promulgation of them*, *it becomes the duty of every one to come to Christ*, *and a command is laid on men to do it*. Now a soul that is newly humbled looks out for a promise upon which he may come to Christ. *He cannot rest on promises conditional*, *for he sees no qualifications of faith or any grace in himself*. It is true, says that soul, 'he that believeth shall be saved,' but I am now to begin to believe, and have not faith yet; and what ground will you give me of believing? For this there is no answer, but to lay such promises before him: 'God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son,' 'Christ came into the world to save sinners,' etc. But how, will the soul say, should I know I am one? That, I say, all the world cannot yet assure thee of; no promise is so general as certainly to include thee, none so certain as to design thee. How then? says the soul. Say I, *they are all indefinite*, *and exclude thee not*; they leave thee with an it may be, thou mayest be the man; and it is certain some shall be saved, and there is nothing in thee shuts thee out, for God hath and will save such as thou art, and he may intend thee.


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## MW

Another one of Pink's sources is Stephen Charnock, who shows that the duty to believe is founded on the law:



> *The law of nature teaches us* that we are bound to believe every revelation from God, when it is made known to us; and not only to assent to it as true, but embrace it as good. *This nature dictates* that we are as much obliged to believe God, because of his truth, as to love him because of his goodness. *Every man's reason tells him* he cannot obey a precept, nor depend upon a promise, unless he believes both the one and the other; *no man's conscience but will inform him*, upon hearing the revelation of God, concerning his excellent contrivance of redemption, and the way to enjoy it, that it is very reasonable he should strip off all affections to sin, lie down in sorrow, and bewail what he hath done amiss against so tender a God.


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## timfost

Thanks for the quote. I'm starting to wonder if we're all working off of the same definition of the gospel. I'll look into it. 

Just an interesting note: I believe that Goodwin used the expression "atonement by faith." I think that's a helpful way to understand atonement, since it is not until faith that we are _covered_ in the righteousness of Christ. Thoughts?


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## MW

Pink also quoted William Perkins:



> With the promises *there is joined an exhortation or command to believe*, *which is more general than the promise*; *because the promise is only made to believers*; but the commandment is given to believers and unbelievers also. For the elect are mingled with the wicked in the same assemblies, and therefore the ministers of the Gospel ought indiscriminately to exhort all and every one to repent.


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## timfost

MW said:


> Pink also quoted William Perkins:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> With the promises *there is joined an exhortation or command to believe*, *which is more general than the promise*; *because the promise is only made to believers*; but the commandment is given to believers and unbelievers also. For the elect are mingled with the wicked in the same assemblies, and therefore the ministers of the Gospel ought indiscriminately to exhort all and every one to repent.
Click to expand...


I'll look into this one. This might help clarify some of our differences.


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## MW

timfost said:


> Just an interesting note: I believe that Goodwin used the expression "atonement by faith." I think that's a helpful way to understand atonement, since it is not until faith that we are _covered_ in the righteousness of Christ. Thoughts?



Yes; good point. It is called a propitiation through faith in His blood. For Goodwin, the covenant with Christ provided that the instrumentality of faith would be merited by the righteousness of Christ. So the atonement could not have an universal reference.


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## timfost

It seems that the promise you are referring to is in accord with the covenant of redemption. I would heartily agree that _this_ promise is only for the elect. Again, I'm not trying to say that there is a _condition_ in the covenant of redemption or more broadly in the eternal decree of God. I'm simply trying to understand how unbelief relates to condemnation in regards to second causes. Dort does seem to suggest that _atonement is rejected_.


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## timfost

MW said:


> So the atonement could not have an universal reference.



I see your point, but if the reprobate reject the atonement through the eternal decree of God, is there a discrepancy by stating that in His eternal decree he planned to show His kindness (common grace if you will) through the death of Christ, legitimately offer atonement to many, and add to the condemnation of those who reject it? In terms of His decree, it doesn't seem necessary to add a _conditional_ element to say that it has reference to all. Thoughts?


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## MW

timfost said:


> MW said:
> 
> 
> 
> So the atonement could not have an universal reference.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I see your point, but if the reprobate reject the atonement through the eternal decree of God, is there a discrepancy by stating that in His eternal decree he planned to show His kindness (common grace if you will) through the death of Christ, legitimately offer atonement to many, and add to the condemnation of those who reject it? In terms of His decree, it doesn't seem necessary to add a _conditional_ element to say that it has reference to all. Thoughts?
Click to expand...


If we were exact in our terms, "reprobate" would represent those who have been "passed by" with respect to salvation. It is best not to bring elect or reprobate into it as it only raises perplexing questions. Pink quotes Zanchius to this effect. The distinction would have no bearing on the call of the gospel as such. It constructs an artificial covering over the glory of the gospel and only serves to circumvent the historical process by which the eternal decree is brought to pass in time. We cover everything by simply saying the promise is "indefinite," that is, it comes to sinners as sinners.


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## timfost

MW said:


> If we were exact in our terms, "reprobate" would represent those who have been "passed by" with respect to salvation. It is best not to bring elect or reprobate into it as it only raises perplexing questions.



I agree that we need to be careful when and _when not_ to use the terms _elect_ and _reprobate_. But since we are discussing the question _for whom_ or _in reference to whom_ in relation to the satisfaction of Christ, doesn't this by necessity come out of the decree of God? As I understand it, the terms elect and reprobate proceed from the decree. For this reason is seems relevant to speak of reprobates when we are discussing the design of Christ's death since they both have to do with His decree. Since God decreed that the reprobate would reject the gospel (His "passing by" was by no means simply inactive permission), can we not also say that they rejected the atonement through God's decree? If so, then the atonement would seem to reference even reprobates as it was rejected by them. If no reference to them, how could they reject it?


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## MW

timfost said:


> I agree that we need to be careful when and _when not_ to use the terms _elect_ and _reprobate_. But since we are discussing the question _for whom_ or _in reference to whom_ in relation to the satisfaction of Christ, doesn't this by necessity come out of the decree of God?



I thought we were discussing the gospel offer in relation to the duty to believe. In that context, Many are called but few are chosen. We should be careful to keep calling and election distinct so as not to cover the gospel call with artificial concerns.



timfost said:


> As I understand it, the terms elect and reprobate proceed from the decree. For this reason is seems relevant to speak of reprobates when we are discussing the design of Christ's death since they both have to do with His decree. Since God decreed that the reprobate would reject the gospel (His "passing by" was by no means simply inactive permission), can we not also say that they rejected the atonement through God's decree? If so, then the atonement would seem to reference even reprobates as it was rejected by them. If no reference to them, how could they reject it?



This would charge God with the reprobates' rejection of the gospel. As noted, it is best to leave reprobation out of it.

If we have to bring in the order of the things decreed, how capricious would it be to reprobate men after providing atonement for them? The infralapsarian and supralapsarian schemes are protected from this inference because election and reprobation precede the atonement in the order of things decreed.


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## timfost

I'll think about it. As you know, I'm not a fan of the supra/infra positions, as I think speaking of a logical ordering of decrees is only for the human linear mindset. How God interacts with ordering outside of time is above my pay-grade. I like Bavinck's article on that subject.

Thanks for an irenic conversation! I've really enjoyed talking about these things.


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## PaulMc

How would the Gospel Standard article below fit into this discussion of how all are commanded to believe? They deny that man's duty is to "spiritually and savingly repent and believe".

DUTY FAITH AND DUTY REPENTANCE DENIED

XXVI We deny duty faith and duty repentance – these terms signifying that it is every man’s duty to spiritually and
savingly repent and believe1. We deny also that there is any capability in man by nature to any spiritual good whatever. So that we reject the doctrine that men in a state of nature should be exhorted to believe in or turn to God2 _of themselves_*.

1 Gen. 6. 5; Gen. 8. 21; Matt. 15. 19; Jer. 17. 9; John 6. 44, 65.
2 John 12. 39, 40; Eph. 2. 8; Rom. 8. 7, 8; 1 Cor. 4. 7.
*The words supplied in italics are suggested by Mr. J. K. Popham in the Gospel Standard for December 1906, to clarify the intended meaning of the Article.


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## timfost

PaulMc said:


> How would the Gospel Standard article below fit into this discussion of how all are commanded to believe? They deny that man's duty is to "spiritually and savingly repent and believe".
> 
> DUTY FAITH AND DUTY REPENTANCE DENIED
> 
> XXVI We deny duty faith and duty repentance – these terms signifying that it is every man’s duty to spiritually and
> savingly repent and believe1. We deny also that there is any capability in man by nature to any spiritual good whatever. So that we reject the doctrine that men in a state of nature should be exhorted to believe in or turn to God2 _of themselves_*.
> 
> 1 Gen. 6. 5; Gen. 8. 21; Matt. 15. 19; Jer. 17. 9; John 6. 44, 65.
> 2 John 12. 39, 40; Eph. 2. 8; Rom. 8. 7, 8; 1 Cor. 4. 7.
> *The words supplied in italics are suggested by Mr. J. K. Popham in the Gospel Standard for December 1906, to clarify the intended meaning of the Article.



Yes, it fits really well. In regards to the command to repent and believe, we should always differentiate between _responsibility_ and _ability_. The hyper-Calvinist reasons that since we have no _ability_, therefore we could not be _responsible_ (and they say that to offer indiscriminately would be to promote "creature power"). The Arminian reasons that if we have the _responsibility_ we must also by necessity have an _ability_. Both hyper-Calvinism and Arminianism are logical errors that stem from confusion about these terms, seeking to reconcile them by human reason against biblical revelation. The Gospel Standard article that you quoted demonstrates exactly that, which is why hyper-Calvinism has to bring election into evangelism to the extent that they do. 

Having been a hyper-Calvinism myself, when talking to people about "the gospel," the question that was most often asked of me was "how do I know I'm elect?" rather than the biblical question "what must I do to be saved?" (Acts 16:30). If our evangelism evokes the question "how do I know if I'm elect," chances are we have to one extent or another embodied the hyper-Calvinist error.


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## Semper Fidelis

timfost said:


> Having been a hyper-Calvinism myself, when talking to people about "the gospel," the question that was most often asked of me was "how do I know I'm elect?" rather than the biblical question "what must I do to be saved?" (Acts 16:30). If our evangelism evokes the question "how do I know if I'm elect," chances are we have to one extent or another embodied the hyper-Calvinist error.



But that's precisely the point that Matthew is trying to get you to see. He kept bringing you back to the historical question of call (which man knows he is called by the Gospel to believe) and then you wanted to tie that question to election/reprobation. You say you want to avoid the error of the sinner thinking about election/reprobation and wondering: "Am I elect". Yet, when Matthew says it is not appropriate to bring the inscrutable decision of God into the question of the indefinite call you insist that it has to be part of it.

In other words, it seems you're approaching the theological problem created by a hyper-Calvinist's improper importing of God's decree into the Gospel call (how can I know if I can respond) by improperly importing God's decree but determining a way where all inscrutability is removed in order for the call to be real.

I hope what I wrote makes sense.

There is a theology of the Creator as He knows it in Himself and there is the theology of the creature where we can only know what is appropriate for creaturely capacity. As has been pointed out, we know from Revelation that Christ has made an atonement to atone for sinners who repent. It is sufficient to that task. It is enough for the creature to know that and reject the Gospel for him to be condemned for unbelief. That condemnation is of a sort of "law-breaking" in rejecting Christ. It does not matter whether the atonement itself is offered. He is still rejecting his Creator and his work in his rebellion and sin. It is one more example of his rebellion.

The exercise of saving faith, as demonstrated by the quotes, cannot be said to be something that is at the "threshold" of man's ability. To say it's a duty/work is to expressly contradict all of the activity of the Spirit that accompanies the Gospel proclamation. It's making the unbelief of the unbeliever and the belielf/saving faith of the redeemed to be "symmetrical". They are not symmetrical. They do not differ merely by some symmetrical act of the will where one says "yes" and the other "no". The unbeliever is condemned for his unbelief but it is not the case that the believer is praiseworthy for his faith for the faith he exercises is one of the Spirit reaching out through him to cling to Christ.

My mind is distracted right now and I'm having trouble articulating this so I apologize. I do think that if you think through some of the issues you might find it helpful to "reset" and ask yourself if you're trying to avoid being a hyper-Calvinist but approaching the problem from the same manner of thinking too much about election/reprobation when it gets down to the historical question of what a sinner, as a creature, is responsible for.


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## timfost

Rich,

I appreciate your comments, but I actually felt like Matthew and I had a good discussion last night. Our discussion extended beyond the call of the gospel as we discussed the eternal decree of God. I'm concerned that you don't seem to think that _saving faith_ is every man's duty. Do you agree with the Pink and Fuller quotes? You seem to distinguish simply _faith_ from _saving faith_. You've distinguished _faith_ from _believe_. Saving faith is the duty of all sinners individually, regardless of election or reprobation. "Sinners" is inclusive of both elect and reprobate. If you want to say that the _gospel promises_ go out indefinitely, that's fine, but we cannot say the same that the duty of all men to all of the commands of God are indefinite, as all decendants of Adam are obligated to God's commands, including "repent and believe the gospel."

I've repeatedly said that *man has no ability to exercise saving faith*. I mean that. I think you have confused _ability_ and _responsibility_. I think on this issue, Matthew and I are in agreement.

I don't want to misrepresent what you're saying, but if I'm interpreting your words correctly, I think you are hung-up on the above distinction.


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## Toasty

People are commanded to repent (Acts 2:38, Acts 17:30). People are commanded to believe in Jesus (Acts 16:31). They have the responsibility to repent and to believe in Jesus. Having this responsibility does not conflict with the biblical teaching that unbelievers are spiritually dead.


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## timfost

Toasty said:


> People are commanded to repent (Acts 2:38, Acts 17:30). People are commanded to believe in Jesus (Acts 16:31). They have the responsibility to repent and to believe in Jesus. Having this responsibility does not conflict with the biblical teaching that unbelievers are spiritually dead.



Amen!


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## Semper Fidelis

timfost said:


> I appreciate your comments, but I actually felt like Matthew and I had a good discussion last night. Our discussion extended beyond the call of the gospel as we discussed the eternal decree of God. I'm concerned that you don't seem to think that saving faith is every man's duty. Do you agree with the Pink and Fuller quotes?



I don't think the discussion was completed with Matthew. I think he was trying to demonstrate a distinction between a command to all that is attended with a Promise to some. I agree that man is commanded to believe and trust in Christ (something that intellectually sounds just like saving faith) but I also think that saving faith itself (which is an evangelical grace) does not attend the Gospel as duty/work but arises out of Promise as the Gospel creates that faith in the believer. I don't know how to state it better.


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## PaulMc

Semper Fidelis said:


> The exercise of saving faith, as demonstrated by the quotes, cannot be said to be something that is at the "threshold" of man's ability. To say it's a duty/work is to expressly contradict all of the activity of the Spirit that accompanies the Gospel proclamation.



Rich, would you then agree with the Gospel Standard article in post 98?


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## PaulMc

I had thought that the article denying duty faith and repentance was one of the contributing factors to the Gospel Standards' Hyper Calvinism, but am happy to be shown to be wrong on that count.


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## MW

I think we will end up like a dog chasing its tail if we bring the decree into the call. Many are called but few are chosen. We are bound to keep them distinct. Every attempt to treat them as one thing ends up universalising the decree or particularising the call.

The Gospel Standard statement brings the decree into the call. It is hyper-Calvinist because it denies the duty of faith. Faith is a moral duty. It is commanded by the law. It presupposes man once had the ability to obey it and is not able to obey it now because of his fall; therefore it is man's own fault that he does not believe.

"Saving faith" is decreed by God to the elect. It is not a condition of salvation, but God has made faith a part of the order of salvation, and it is therefore necessary. The gospel teaches it, but the command and authority to believe comes from the claims of the moral law on man as a creature made in the image of God.

In sum, to particularise "saving faith" in the gospel call is hyper-Calvinist because it takes something which is offered indefnitely to all and makes it particular to a few.


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## Semper Fidelis

MW said:


> "Saving faith" is decreed by God to the elect. It is not a condition of salvation, but God has made faith a part of the order of salvation, and it is therefore necessary. The gospel teaches it, but the command and authority to believe comes from the claims of the moral law on man as a creature made in the image of God.



I think I understand what you're saying. I may be drawing too fine a distinction in focusing on this point. I certainly am not denying that men are commanded to believe in the gospel nor that there is a duty for men to believe God (and that this is found in the Law itself). The rejection of the external call of the Gospel is condemned as unbelief because man is bound to obey everything that God commands. That is, the Word says that all who place their trust in Christ will be saved. When a man rejects that he is condemned by the law (which requires belief in what God reveals). Am I making an improper distinction when I say he is condemned for unbelief under the CoW but not for the duty to have saving faith which the Gospel produces?

The reason I ask is because I agree that man is required to have faith in God in the CoW and his inability to believe God is found in himself because he sinned in Adam. His condition is self-inflicted. The CoG, however, recognizes that man is no longer capable of believing God and Christ our Mediator merits righteousness for us and procures the saving faith by which we may believe in His saving work. Thus, saving faith is decreed for the elect to believe on Christ and not to have belief according to the Law (because man has already failed the conditions of the CoW).

So, am I wrong to conclude that man is duty bound to believe God under the CoW but that saving faith is an evangelical grace that is given to fulfill the condition of the CoG and is not a duty of the same sort as man has under the CoW?

Does that make sense?


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## MW

Semper Fidelis said:


> So, am I wrong to conclude that man is duty bound to believe God under the CoW but that saving faith is an evangelical grace that is given to fulfill the condition of the CoG and is not a duty of the same sort as man has under the CoW?



That is not wrong at all. It is the blessed gospel in which we find every encouragement to take to heart and lay hold of the precious promises of God. The only thing I would say is that the term "evangelical grace" indicates that faith itself is given as an empty hand to freely receive Christ. As such it is not a "duty" or a "condition." It is merely the blessed instrument of appropriating the free gift.

When the Larger Catechism speaks of the covenant of grace "requiring" faith as a "condition," it is merely the condition of interest (or personal claim) in the Saviour. Once the Saviour Himself is ours, His salvation is ours also. So faith is in no sense a condition of salvation.


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## PaulMc

Apologies for suddenly entering myself into this discussion, but it has been helpful for me!



MW said:


> The Gospel Standard statement brings the decree into the call. It is hyper-Calvinist because it denies the duty of faith. Faith is a moral duty. It is commanded by the law. It presupposes man once had the ability to obey it and is not able to obey it now because of his fall; therefore it is man's own fault that he does not believe.
> 
> "Saving faith" is decreed by God to the elect. It is not a condition of salvation, but God has made faith a part of the order of salvation, and it is therefore necessary. The gospel teaches it, but the command and authority to believe comes from the claims of the moral law on man as a creature made in the image of God.
> 
> In sum, to particularise "saving faith" in the gospel call is hyper-Calvinist because it takes something which is offered indefnitely to all and makes it particular to a few.



Thanks for this. The Gospel Standards then make an unwarranted distinction when it comes to what men are called to do in obeying the gospel (Acts. 17.30, 2 Thess 1.8) by bringing the decree into it?

Am I right in understanding that the atonement is in reference to the elect (definite), and that the gospel offer goes all out to all on the grounds of the true promise of God that all who believe will be saved (indefinite)?


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## Semper Fidelis

MW said:


> Semper Fidelis said:
> 
> 
> 
> So, am I wrong to conclude that man is duty bound to believe God under the CoW but that saving faith is an evangelical grace that is given to fulfill the condition of the CoG and is not a duty of the same sort as man has under the CoW?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That is not wrong at all. It is the blessed gospel in which we find every encouragement to take to heart and lay hold of the precious promises of God. The only thing I would say is that the term "evangelical grace" indicates that faith itself is given as an empty hand to freely receive Christ. As such it is not a "duty" or a "condition." It is merely the blessed instrument of appropriating the free gift.
> 
> When the Larger Catechism speaks of the covenant of grace "requiring" faith as a "condition," it is merely the condition of interest (or personal claim) in the Saviour. Once the Saviour Himself is ours, His salvation is ours also. So faith is in no sense a condition of salvation.
Click to expand...


Thanks. This discussion has been sharpened my thinking in trying to articulate "natural" faith and saving faith. It's interesting how much we miss that's on the surface of the Confessions (or even in theological writings) but we have to do a little digging into the overall background of their writing to understand how words are being used differently. The natural question, which Tim has been asking, is "How can it be a duty to believe (or exercise faith if you will) in one sense but not be a duty for man to have "saving faith" in another.

I was struggling to articulate this through the course of this thread because "saving faith" is not describing a "quality" of faith per se but a faith that arises out of evangelical grace. I think the typical notitia, assensus, and fidcuia categories are useful in determining whether or not faith is what it is required to be but it neglects the Covenant of Works/Covenant of Grace distinction that is in faith itself. From A Puritan Theology:



> Reformed divines spoke of Adam’s faith in the garden, but at the same time they were always careful to distinguish between Adam’s faith in the covenant of works and his faith in the covenant of grace.82 To be sure, there were similarities, but there were also important differences. According to John Ball, Adam’s faith in both covenants was theocentric. In both contexts his faith is evident from the love he had for God, “because if faith abounds, love abounds.”83 However, the foundation for faith in each respective context differs. The righteousness of nature presupposes a certain type of faith based on mutual love between the Creator and the creature. After the fall, however, faith leans upon the promise made in Christ because man, in himself, falls under the judgment of God. In the next place, faith in the covenant of works is natural, whereas in the covenant of grace it is supernatural.84 Finally, Ball notes that faith in the covenant of works was mutable, and thus, so was Adam’s holiness, but faith in the covenant of grace “is eternal and unchangeable, because it comes from an eternal and unchangeable beginning, the Spirit of Grace.”85 Burgess considers not only whether Adam had faith, but also whether repentance belongs to his being made in the image of God. Adam had a power to believe, “so far as it did not imply an imperfection in the subject.”86 After the fall, Adam needed a greater power to believe in Christ, which some divines called “supernatural” faith as opposed to “natural” faith.87 Concerning repentance, Burgess reasons that it cannot belong to the image of God because “it denoteth an imperfection in the subject … yet as it floweth from a regenerated nature, so far it is reductively the image of God.”88
> 
> Beeke, J. R., & Jones, M. (2012). A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life (pp. 226–227). Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books.



I think I had always thought that "saving faith" simply meant a type of faith in the past but when we say that Adam had faith in God (believed Him) in his state of innocence, it is not proper to say he possess "saving faith" because Adam doesn't need to be saved. Adam's faith is a natural trust - something required of the creature. Man, still being in that CoW, is required to have natural faith in the Creator and is not excused from that natural faith simply because of his want of original righteousness. Thus, the call of the Gospel presents what God has said about Christ and there is, in fact, a duty of belief but unbelief is condemned not for lack of "saving faith" but "natural faith". 

Saving faith belongs to the "realm" of the Covenant of Grace. A man is not even in that realm unless he has been brought to that realm by the Spirit. It arises out of the Spirit's work.


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## earl40

Semper Fidelis said:


> Thus, the call of the Gospel presents what God has said about Christ and there is, in fact, a duty of belief but unbelief is condemned not for lack of "saving faith" but "natural faith".



The above brought to mind the first three chapters of Romans. This has been a deep and very profitable discussion.


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## timfost

I'm still not completely happy with the conclusions of this discussion. Let me provide an excerpt from Berkhof on external calling:



> The external call also contains a promise of acceptance for all that you comply with the *conditions*, not in their own strength, but by the power of the grace of God wrought in their hearts by the Holy Spirit. They who by grace repent of their sins and accept Christ by faith receive the assurance of the forgiveness of sins and eternal salvation. *This promise, it should be noticed, is never absolute, but always conditional*. No one can expect its fulfillment, except in the way of a faith and repentance that is truly wrought by God. (_Systematic Theology_ p. 460)



I think we need to be careful in articulating conditions in God's decree and conditions according to second causes. When we consider second causes, we by necessity create conditions. This is biblical. (E.g. Gen. 4:6-7, John 3:18, 2 Thes. 2:10, etc.)

To eliminate conditions is to try to reconcile human responsibility and God's sovereignty. The explanation given for WLC 32 is a very unnatural reading. Since our subject is primarily centered on external calling, we need to be careful to uphold conditions under second causes. I absolutely agree, however, that conditions have no part in God's decree unless we are saying that He conditions on Himself. Certainly His decrees are not changed or conditioned based on acts outside of his decree.

What concerns me about the distinctions that have been made is that when we seek to reconcile human responsibility with God's sovereignty, we begin to go farther than what the scripture allows. This is the fundamental and foundational error of hyper-Calvinism.

I don't think anybody here is a hyper-Calvinist, but I simply want to state what line of reasoning concerns me, especially considering my past and hyper-Calvinism.


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## timfost

Unfortunately, our positions on the free offer of the Gospel probably bear into this discussion. I want to be careful not to start a debate on that, but simply state that the sincerity of God's offer probably directly affects this conversation.


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## Toasty

timfost said:


> I'm still not completely happy with the conclusions of this discussion. Let me provide an excerpt from Berkhof on external calling:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The external call also contains a promise of acceptance for all that you comply with the *conditions*, not in their own strength, but by the power of the grace of God wrought in their hearts by the Holy Spirit. They who by grace repent of their sins and accept Christ by faith receive the assurance of the forgiveness of sins and eternal salvation. *This promise, it should be noticed, is never absolute, but always conditional*. No one can expect its fulfillment, except in the way of a faith and repentance that is truly wrought by God. (_Systematic Theology_ p. 460)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I think we need to be careful in articulating conditions in God's decree and conditions according to second causes. When we consider second causes, we by necessity create conditions. This is biblical. (E.g. Gen. 4:6-7, John 3:18, 2 Thes. 2:10, etc.)
> 
> To eliminate conditions is to try to reconcile human responsibility and God's sovereignty. The explanation given for WLC 32 is a very unnatural reading. Since our subject is primarily centered on external calling, we need to be careful to uphold conditions under second causes. I absolutely agree, however, that conditions have no part in God's decree unless we are saying that He conditions on Himself. Certainly His decrees are not changed or conditioned based on acts outside of his decree.
> 
> What concerns me about the distinctions that have been made is that when we seek to reconcile human responsibility with God's sovereignty, we begin to go farther than what the scripture allows. This is the fundamental and foundational error of hyper-Calvinism.
> 
> I don't think anybody here is a hyper-Calvinist, but I simply want to state what line of reasoning concerns me, especially considering my past and hyper-Calvinism.
Click to expand...


Faith is the means or instrument that justification is received. Eternal life is received by placing our faith in Christ for our salvation. Moreover, whether or not someone will place their faith is ultimately dependent upon God. God causes people to place their faith in Christ and faith is the means by which we receive justification. Just because God causes people to place their faith in Christ does not mean that people do not have the responsibility to believe in Jesus. All people are commanded to believe in Jesus. All people have the responsibility to believe in Jesus. Moreover, God draws His people to Himself and causes them to believe in Jesus.


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## timfost

Henry, I agree with you. A means is also the condition that God uses in accordance with His decree. The condition set forth was met in God's decree as He provides faith for all the regenerate elect.


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## Semper Fidelis

timfost said:


> I'm still not completely happy with the conclusions of this discussion. Let me provide an excerpt from Berkhof on external calling:
> 
> The external call also contains a promise of acceptance for all that you comply with the conditions, not in their own strength, but by the power of the grace of God wrought in their hearts by the Holy Spirit. They who by grace repent of their sins and accept Christ by faith receive the assurance of the forgiveness of sins and eternal salvation. This promise, it should be noticed, is never absolute, but always conditional. No one can expect its fulfillment, except in the way of a faith and repentance that is truly wrought by God. (Systematic Theology p. 460)
> I think we need to be careful in articulating conditions in God's decree and conditions according to second causes. When we consider second causes, we by necessity create conditions. This is biblical. (E.g. Gen. 4:6-7, John 3:18, 2 Thes. 2:10, etc.)
> 
> To eliminate conditions is to try to reconcile human responsibility and God's sovereignty. The explanation given for WLC 32 is a very unnatural reading. Since our subject is primarily centered on external calling, we need to be careful to uphold conditions under second causes. I absolutely agree, however, that conditions have no part in God's decree unless we are saying that He conditions on Himself. Certainly His decrees are not changed or conditioned based on acts outside of his decree.
> 
> What concerns me about the distinctions that have been made is that when we seek to reconcile human responsibility with God's sovereignty, we begin to go farther than what the scripture allows. This is the fundamental and foundational error of hyper-Calvinism.
> 
> I don't think anybody here is a hyper-Calvinist, but I simply want to state what line of reasoning concerns me, especially considering my past and hyper-Calvinism.



I'm not sure I understand your concern. Where have conditions been removed in trying to distinguish saving faith from belief and trust that all creatures are required of under the CoW?


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## timfost

Semper Fidelis said:


> I'm not sure I understand your concern. Where have conditions been removed in trying to distinguish saving faith from belief and trust that all creatures are required of under the CoW?



This is what I'm referring to:



MW said:


> That is not wrong at all. It is the blessed gospel in which we find every encouragement to take to heart and lay hold of the precious promises of God. The only thing I would say is that the term "evangelical grace" indicates that faith itself is given as an empty hand to freely receive Christ. As such it is not a "duty" or a "condition." It is merely the blessed instrument of appropriating the free gift.
> 
> When the Larger Catechism speaks of the covenant of grace "requiring" faith as a "condition," it is merely the condition of interest (or personal claim) in the Saviour. Once the Saviour Himself is ours, His salvation is ours also. So faith is in no sense a condition of salvation.



Even though it is rightly said that faith is the empty hand that receives Christ and his righteousness, it is still nevertheless a condition of salvation. It seems like the clear thrust and meaning of catechism question and answer 32 is not that faith is required of the law is of any interest to sinners, but rather is a condition of salvation that should be of interest to sinners.

Again, I'm not suggesting that God's decrees are conditional (and therefore mutable), but since we are not talking about decrees but second causes in receiving that which is freely offered, I think talking about conditions is proper and right. This is why I quoted Berkhof.


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## timfost

Here are some quotes that I think are helpful:

Hodge

"This general call of the gospel is not inconsistent with the doctrine of predestination. For predestination concerns only the purpose of God to render effectual in particular cases, a call addressed to all. *A general amnesty on certain conditions may be offered by a sovereign to rebellious subjects, although he knows that through pride or malice many will refuse to accept it*; and even although, for wise reasons, he should determine not to constrain their assent, supposing that such influence over their minds were within his power. It is evident from the nature of the call that it has nothing to do with the secret purpose of God to grant his effectual grace to some and not to others. All the call contains is true. The plan of salvation is designed for men. It is adapted to the condition of all. *It makes abundant provision for the salvation of all. The promise of acceptance on the condition of faith is made to all*."

"And an offering is no sacrifice unless it actually expiates and propitiates. *The effect of a ransom and sacrifice may indeed be conditional, but the occurrence of the condition will be rendered certain before the costly sacrifice is offered*."

"The righteousness of Christ being of infinite value or merit, and being in its nature precisely what all men need, may be offered to all men. *It is thus offered to the elect and to the non-elect; and it is offered to both classes conditionally. That condition is a cordial acceptance of it as the only ground of justification*.

Rutherford

"The promises to the Elect as intended of God, reveal that both the Lord minds to give the blessing promised, *and the condition that is grace to perform the condition, and so they are promises Evangelick both in the matter, and in the intention of the Lord; But as proponed to the reprobate, who are alwayes from their birth to their death under a Covenant of Works, really as touching the LORDS holy Decree, they are materially Evangelick promises, but formally and in the Lords intention legall, as every dispensation to them is legall, forasmuch as the Lord hath decreed to deny the grace, by which they may or can fulfill the condition of the promise, which is proper to the Law, as it is peculiar to the Gospel, that the Lord both gives the mercy promised and also the grace to fulfill the condition of the promise*."

Shedd

"The following then, are some of the marks of distinction between common and special grace: (a) In common grace God demands faith in Christ, but does not give it; in special grace God both demands and gives faith, for “faith is the gift of God.”Eph. 2: 8. When God says to a sinner: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved,”he makes no promise or pledge to originate faith in him. The sinner, in this case, must originate his own faith, and any sinner that originates it will find that God will be true to his word, (b) In common grace man must of himself fulfil the *condition of salvation, namely, believe and repent; in special grace God persuades and enables him to fulfil it*. (c) In common grace the call to believe and repent is invariably ineffectual, because man is averse to faith and repentance and in bondage to sin; in special grace the call is invariably effectual, because his aversion and bondage are changed into willingness and true freedom by the operation of the Holy Spirit."


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## Semper Fidelis

Tim,

I think we may be dealing with another nuance. I think Matthew is using condition in two different ways. He's clearly saying that saving faith is a condition but says it's a condition of interest (being identified as being with Christ) but then says that faith is not a condition so I find the sentence confusing myself but am trying to get a sense of the different ways he might be using the word condition.


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## Ask Mr. Religion

Ridgely's Commentary on the Larger Catechism, volume 1 is perhaps helpful here as pertains to WLC 32.

Beginning on page 454..

It is farther said, in this Answer, that the grace of God is manifested in the second covenant, in his ' requiring faith as the condition to interest' believers in Christ. This expression may be allowed, or excepted against, according to the method taken to explain it. We shall endeavour to show what it means ; and shall point out in what sense we deny the covenant of grace to be conditional. We shall next inquire, whether there be not another sense, agreeable to the divine perfections, in which these words may be understood as well as other expressions of a similar nature, in which faith is styled a condition, and which are frequently used by divines.

Now a person's having an interest in Christ, implies his having a right to claim him, as his Mediator, Surety, Advocate, and Saviour, and with him all those spiritual blessings which are purchased and applied by him to those whom he has redeemed ; so that such an one may say, on good grounds,' Christ is mine, together with all spiritual blessings in heavenly things in him.' 

Here let it be considered, that it is one thing to say, that Christ is the Redeemer and Saviour of man, or, in particular, of his elect, who are given to him that he may save them ; and another thing for a person to say. He is my Redeemer or Saviour. The former is a truth founded in scripture-revelation. Accordingly every one may say, as Moses expresses it, ' Yea, he loved the people,' or his peculiar chosen people ; or, as the apostle says, 'Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it'. But he who has an interest in Christ, has a right to claim him as his Saviour, and therefore may say, with the apostle, ' He loved me, and gave himself for me.' This I rather choose to express, by a believer's having a right to claim him as his Saviour, than by his being actually enabled so to do; inasmuch as many have an interest in Christ, who are destitute of that assurance which would give them a comfortable sense of it in their own souls.

We are now to consider how faith is said to be required, as the condition to interest us in Christ ; or how far this expression may be qualified and explained, without asserting any thing derogatory to the glory of God or the grace of the covenant. The word 'condition,' though often used when we speak of contracts between man and man, as an essential ingredient in them, is not so plainly contained in those explanations of the covenant of grace which we have in scripture; and, whenever we use it with a particular application to this, we must understand it in such a sense as is agreeable to the divine perfections.

Now, that we may compare these two senses of the word 'condition,' in order to our determining how far, in explaining this doctrine, it may be used or laid aside, let us consider that in human covenants, in which things are promised on certain conditions, these conditions are supposed to be possible to be performed; otherwise the promise depending on the performance of them is rendered void, and contains no other than a virtual denial to make it good. Thus the king of Israel did not at first, understand the message sent him by the king of Syria requiring of him to heal Naaman o f his leprosy, as a condition of peace and friendship between them and the inference he makes from it was, that he had a design to seek a quarrel against him. And his reasoning would have been just, had it been intended in this sense ; since the condition was not in his own power. Moreover, if a master should tell his servant, that he would give him a reward, in case he would perform the work of ten days in one, the servant would conclude nothing else from it but that he was resolved not to give him any thing. 

Now, to apply this to our present purpose, we must consider whether faith, when it is a condition of the covenant of grace, be in our own power or not. There are some external acts of it, indeed which are so ; but these are too low to be deemed conditions of salvation, or of the blessings of the covenant of grace. As for those acts which are supernatural or the effects of the exceeding greatness of the power of God, though they are inseparably connected with salvation, yet they are not in such a manner in our power that we may conclude them to be proposed as conditions, in the same sense as those things are said to be, which are properly conditions. In this respect, the covenant of grace, as to the conditionality of it, differs from the covenant of innocency. In the latter covenant, perfect obedience, which was the condition of it, was so far in man's power, that he could have performed it without the superadded assistance of divine grace. But when, on the other hand, perfect obedience is considered as a condition of fallen man's 'entering into life,' in which sense our Saviour's reply to the young man's question is understood by many, a plain intimation is made that eternal life is not to be obtained in this way, inasmuch as the condition is impossible.

Again, when conditions are insisted on in human covenants, it is generally supposed that, though it be possible for the person who enjoins them to assist and enable him who is under this obligation to perform them, yet he will not give him that assistance; for, if he does, the contract can hardly be reckoned conditional but absolute. Thus, if a creditor should tell an insolvent debtor, that he will discharge him, provided he pay the debt, and, at the same time, gives him to understand that he will supply him with a sum of money which shall enable him to pay it , the transaction is altogether the same as if he had discharged him without anv conditional demand of payment. This I cannot but mention, because there are some persons, who speak of faith as a condition of the covenant of grace and at the same time, take it for granted, that it is not in our own power to perform it and who, because God has promised that he will work it in us, conclude it to be conditional,—though such a promise renders the covenant absolute, or, at least, not conditional in the same sense in which human covenants are ; and they infer only, what we do not deny, that there is a necessary connection between that grace which God will enable us to perform, and salvation which he has promised in the covenant.

Further , when any thing is promised to another on condition that he do what is enjoined on him, it is generally supposed to be a dubious and uncertain matter whether this condition shall be fulfilled, and the premise take place; or, as I may express it, every condition contains, not a necessary, but an uncertain connection between the promised advantage and the duty enjoined. Th e reason of this is, that all human covenants depend on the power and will of men, who are under conditional engagements to perform what is demanded in them; that, as these are supposed to be mutable and defective, as far as they are so, the performance of the condition may be reckoned dubious; and that he who made the promise is liable to the same uncertainty, whether he shall make it good or not. This view of the matter will hardly be denied by those who defend the other side of the question ; who, in explaining tlie nature of human liberty, generally suppose that «very one who acts freely, might do the contrary. They must hence conclude that, if the performing of the conditions of a covenant be the result of man's freewill, it is possible for him not to perform them; and that, therefore, it must be a matter of uncertainty, whether a person who promises a reward on the performance of these conditions will confer it or not. But, however this may be applied to human covenants, we are not to suppose that faith or any other grace, is in this respect, a condition of the covenant of grace ; as though God's conferring the blessings promised in it were dependent on the will of man, as determining itself to the exercise of these grapes. In this respect, we cannot but deny that the covenant of grace is conditional.​

He concludes the discussion on page 458, but the above should give a sense of the distinctions made.


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## Semper Fidelis




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## timfost

Thank you AMR!

So can we conclude that:

1. Election unto salvation is unconditional, and in this sense the certain salvation is not conditional.

2. The purchased redemption of the elect is appropriated by faith, a condition that God certainly meets when He regenerates a person and gives them faith.

3: Since faith is a condition of salvation _in this sense_, it can be offered to all upon this condition and truly rejected because the reprobate refuse to accept Christ by faith to meet this requirement (they are not able). Therefore they truly reject salvation.

Are we agreed on these things?


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## Ask Mr. Religion

timfost said:


> Thank you AMR!
> 
> 
> So can we conclude that:
> 
> 
> 1. Election unto salvation is unconditional, and in this sense the certain salvation is not conditional.
> 
> 
> 2. The purchased redemption of the elect is appropriated by faith, a condition that God certainly meets when He regenerates a person and gives them faith.
> 
> 
> 3: Since faith is a condition of salvation in this sense, it can be offered to all upon this condition and truly rejected because the reprobate refuse to accept Christ by faith to meet this requirement (they are not able). Therefore they truly reject salvation.
> 
> 
> Are we agreed on these things?


Perhaps I should have posted more of Ridgeley, wherein he concludes his treatment of WLC #32 with (emphasis mine):


Further, if we assert more than this, namely, that faith is a condition of the covenant of grace, or, as it is expressed in this Answer, a condition to interest believers in Christ, *we must distinguish between God's bestowing the blessings of the covenant of grace, pursuant to his secret will or his eternal purpose, and our having a visible ground or reason to claim an interest in them*. The former of these *cannot be supposed to be conditional*, without making God dependent on our act; the latter may, and, I think, ought, to be deemed so. *Thus faith is a condition, or an internal qualification, without which no one has a warrant to conclude his interest in, or lay claim to, the saving blessings of the covenant of grace*. 


Hence, when it is said to be a *condition to interest* believers in Christ, we are to understand it *as that which evinces our claim to him*, or *which gives us ground* to conclude that we are redeemed by him, and to expect that he will bestow upon us complete salvation. *To deny this, would be to suppose that an unbeliever has a warrant to conclude that Christ loved him and gave himself for him, or that he shall be saved by him*. But that is a doctrine which I cannot but oppose with the greatest detestation, as what contains an unwarrantable presumption, and leads to licentiousness; which, I hope, nothing that has been said on this subject has the least tendency to do. We have thus considered how faith may be said to be a condition of our laying claim to an interest in Christ.​

Your #1 brings the decree into the discussion and we should avoid this for the discussion at hand.


In your #2, I am wondering why you lay "a condition" upon God.


Taking your #2 and #3 and attempting to substitute your terms for clarity:


"The purchased redemption of the elect is appropriated by faith, _a condition_ that God certainly meets when He regenerates a person and gives them faith, _hence_ *it* can be offered to all upon _appropriation by faith_ and truly rejected because the reprobate refuse to accept Christ by faith to meet *this requirement* (they are not able). Therefore they truly reject salvation."


What is "it"?
What is "this requirement"?


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## Semper Fidelis

timfost said:


> Thank you AMR!
> 
> So can we conclude that:
> 
> 1. Election unto salvation is unconditional, and in this sense the certain salvation is not conditional.
> 
> 2. The purchased redemption of the elect is appropriated by faith, a condition that God certainly meets when He regenerates a person and gives them faith.
> 
> 3: Since faith is a condition of salvation _in this sense_, it can be offered to all upon this condition and truly rejected because the reprobate refuse to accept Christ by faith to meet this requirement (they are not able). Therefore they truly reject salvation.
> 
> Are we agreed on these things?



Tim,

It seems like you're mixing the CoW and the CoG in this formulation. Faith is a condition to interest in the CoG. It is something that the Holy Spirit works in the believer. The unbeliever is not being offered salvation by faith as a condition to interest in the CoG. The unbeliever is required to believe and trust Christ because he is required to believe and trust everything God says.

We cannot say that, because faith is a condition to interest for the elect, that the Gospel is to be offered to all. It's mixing apples and oranges. It's the equivalent of saying this: "On the basis that faith is given as a gift to the elect as the condition to interest in the Covenant of Grace, unbelievers are bound to believe the Gospel and are under duty to believe it."

It is both true that unbelievers are duty bound to believe the Gospel and that believers are united to Christ on the condition of faith but the two are operating under different spheres.


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## timfost

Dear AMR and Rich,

I don't believe I put a condition on God at all. I believe God obligated Himself to the conditions laid out in the CoG. Hodge:



> First, salvation is offered to all men on the condition of faith in Christ. Our Lord commanded his disciples to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. The gospel, however, is the offer of salvation upon the conditions of the covenant of grace. In this sense, the covenant of grace is formed with all mankind.



But in saying this, Hodge does not deny the certainty of Christ's substitutionary work and the certainty of the conditions being met.



> For it is undoubtedly true that God offers to all and every man eternal life on condition of faith in Jesus Christ. But as it is no less true that the whole scheme of redemption has special reference to those given by the Father to the Son, and of whom our Lord says, "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out" (John vi. 37), it follows, secondly, from the nature of the covenant between the Father and the Son, that the covenant of grace has also special reference to the elect. To them God has promised to give his Spirit in order that they may believe; and to them alone all the promises made to believers belong.



Hodge is able to do this because He distinguishes between the CoG and covenant of redemption (CoR). The WLC synthesizes the covenants and calls Christ both the Mediator _and_ a party in the CoG (31-32). By distinguishing, Hodge is able to speak about conditions on all of mankind under the CoG, but not in the CoR. Therefore Christ is a party in the CoR and not a Mediator, and a Mediator in the CoG, not a party. I think this distinction is helpful and makes for a more organic reading of scripture. 

Certainly we don't want to miss the connection between both covenants, but it does help to explain the conditions of salvation that seem clear in scripture (e.g. John 3:18. 2 Thes. 2:10) without denying the particular work of Christ.


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## Semper Fidelis

Tim,

Let me quote Hodge a little more:


> If this, therefore, were all that is meant by those who make the parties to the covenant of grace, God and mankind in general and all mankind equally, there would be no objection to the doctrine. For it is undoubtedly true that God offers to all and every man eternal life on condition of faith in Jesus Christ. But as it is no less true that the whole scheme of redemption has special reference to those given by the Father to the Son, and of whom our Lord says, “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37), it follows, secondly, from the nature of the covenant between the Father and the Son, that the covenant of grace has also special reference to the elect. To them God has promised to give his Spirit in order that they may believe; and to them alone all the promises made to believers belong. Those who ignore the distinction between the covenants of redemption and of grace, merging the latter in the former, of course represent the parties to the covenant to be God and Christ as the head and representative of his own people. And therefore mankind, as such, are in no sense parties. All that is important is, that we should adopt such a mode of representation as will comprehend the various facts recognized in the Scriptures. It is one of those facts that salvation is offered to all men on the condition of faith in Christ. And therefore to that extent, or, in a sense which accounts for that fact, the covenant of grace is made with all men. The great sin of those who hear the gospel is that they refuse to accept of that covenant, and therefore place themselves without its pale.
> 
> Hodge, C. (1997). Systematic theology (Vol. 2, pp. 363–364). Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.



I actually wonder if Hodge is taking an exception to the Westminster Standards on this point because they state:


> Q. 30. Doth God leave all mankind to perish in the estate of sin and misery?
> A. God doth not leave all men to perish in the estate of sin and misery,111 into which they fell by the breach of the first covenant, commonly called the covenant of works;112 but of his mere love and mercy delivereth his elect out of it, and bringeth them into an estate of salvation by the second covenant, commonly called the covenant of grace.113
> Q. 31. With whom was the covenant of grace made?
> A. The covenant of grace was made with Christ as the second Adam, and in him with all the elect as his seed.114



Now if Hodge wants to include his own Confesison in this charge I suppose his Systematic theology is seen as a corrector to the Standards on this point. I don't know why he wouldn't make that plain.

Assuming, however, that he agrees with the above, I think all that Hodge is saying is that, _in some sense_, the CoG is made with all men. Namely, that it is the CoG that offers salvation to sinners and there is a historical sense in which the offer is made. Someone may be a party to the external call and administration of the New Covenant, for example, but is not in Christ and, as such, the CoG was not made with all.

With respect to conditions, I find Hodge's reasoning to be odd. Quoting him:


> A blessing may be promised on condition that it is asked for; or that there is a willingness to receive it. There is no merit in the asking or in the willingness, which is the ground of the gift. It remains a gratuitous favour; but it is, nevertheless, suspended upon the act of asking. It is in this last sense only that faith is the condition of the covenant of grace. There is no merit in believing. It is only the act of receiving a proffered favour. In either case the necessity is equally absolute. Without the work of Christ there would be no salvation; and without faith there is no salvation. He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life. He that believeth not, shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.
> 
> Hodge, C. (1997). Systematic theology (Vol. 2, p. 365). Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.



If we again assume Hodge is not departing from the Westminster standards does he mean "condition to interest"? He makes the same kind of distinction as earlier quoted about the fulfillment of a debt as one way of thinking of condition (thereby rejecting that faith is a condition of salvation in that respect) while noting that the type of condition he is referring to here is an empty hand that reaches out by the Spirit's power (which he puts forth elsewhere in his discussion on the nature of saving faith).

While it is true that the reprobate don't fulfill this condition (and the wrath of God abideth on him), it doesn't follow that the person is _in_ the CoG in the fuller sense and that wrath is being meted out in the CoG. I think it's important to note that Hodge doesn't say the person is outside the CoW (wrath abideth). One can still note that a person is externally amongst the administration of the CoG and does not fulfill the conditions of the CoG without saying that he is therefore "outside the CoW" and "in the CoG" when wrath abides for the failure to meet the condition of the CoG.


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## JimmyH

Tim, I am a novice in theology, and I wonder how your exposition fits in with 'TULIP' ? If we are totally depraved before regeneration how to accept the gift of faith unless through God's election/regeneration ? Since election is unconditional, if _all_ men were 'elect' they would receive the regeneration and faith. 

As I understand it limited atonement declares that all are not elect, and irresistible grace, as I understand it, says that whoever God sees fit to elect _will_ receive the gift of faith and believe. Is my explanation correct, and am I understanding it rightly ?


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## timfost

JimmyH said:


> Tim, I am a novice in theology, and I wonder how your exposition fits in with 'TULIP' ? If we are totally depraved before regeneration how to accept the gift of faith unless through God's election/regeneration ? Since election is unconditional, if _all_ men were 'elect' they would receive the regeneration and faith.
> 
> As I understand it limited atonement declares that all are not elect, and irresistible grace, as I understand it, says that whoever God sees fit to elect _will_ receive the gift of faith and believe. Is my explanation correct, and am I understanding it rightly ?



Yes, I agree with you. I'm not disputing particular redemption or total depravity in any way. I'm trying to account for "He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." I'm dissatisfied with the theological gymnastics (from my perspective) we have to jump through to qualify what seems to be a simple truth. Ursinus said:

"The reason of the former lies in this, that the atonement of Christ is sufficient for expiating all the sins of all men, or of the whole world, if only all men will make application thereof unto themselves by faith. For it cannot be said to be insufficient, unless we give countenance to that horrible blasphemy (which God forbid!) that some blame of the destruction of the ungodly results from a defect in the merit of the mediator. The reason of the latter is, because all the elect, or such as believe, and they alone, do apply unto themselves by faith the merit of Christ's death, together with the efficacy thereof, by which they obtain righteousness, and life according as it is said."

This almost exactly echoes Dort 2nd head articles 3-8.

I'm going to give it a rest at least through Sunday. Perhaps I'm just not stating things very clearly...


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## Semper Fidelis

timfost said:


> I'm dissatisfied with the theological gymnastics (from my perspective) we have to jump through to qualify what seems to be a simple truth.



The truth is simple enough and has been repeatedly affirmed as true that he who believes in Him is not condemned but he who believes is condemned already.

Some might consider your own position "gymnastics" to agree that faith is an open hand of reception given by the Spirit and not of the "debt" sort. The kind of distinctions your calling for are no less complicated from Hodge (trying to parse out how the CoG is at the same time for all men but not at the same time for all men). Some would wonder how Hodge could affirm the WLC quotes I made that the COG is made with Christ and, in Him, all the elect. That seems pretty simple to me.

It's when we get into some distinctions that are not gymnastics but important qualifications.

Can a person be "in" the CoG who has never exercised saving faith?
Is a person "condemned already" because they were given the external offer of the CoG and were therefore in the CoG and are therefore condemned _by_ their failure to obey the CoG?

Is the nature of the CoG itself one where men obey conditions of obedience and, failing those conditions of obedience, are promised either life or death?

I ask because it requires no mental gymnastics when we consider the simple truth of the nature of the Covenants themselves. As I stated, it is not at all unusual to think of men being externally called by the CoG and to speak of it in a manner of speaking. I don't know that I would speak that way as men being of the CoG in a certain sense but Hodge also qualifies that the substance (being in) the CoG is not true of them and so men are still in the CoW. You can't be in both at the same time. You are either in Christ or in Adam. There is no "halfway house" and there is no jumping back and forth such that the offer of the Gospel places a man temporarily *in* the CoG for the purposes of the exercise of faith and then condemns them therein to thrust them back into the CoW.

So let's stop talking of gymnastics and think through this Biblically and theologically. I certainly haven't seen any of the people you're quoting speak in a manner that makes me believe they've fully bought into the idea of a "condition of faith" in the CoG other than a condition of interest and I don't see how the rejection of Christ by the reprobate condemns them under the CoG when they're never _in_ the CoG.


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## JimmyH

timfost said:


> Yes, I agree with you. I'm not disputing particular redemption or total depravity in any way. I'm trying to account for "He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." I'm dissatisfied with the theological gymnastics (from my perspective) we have to jump through to qualify what seems to be a simple truth.



Speaking with my Pastor on the topic, and the above quoted verses this morning, he said see Romans chapter 9. Of course he hasn't read the thread, and I may have given him a simplified version of your question, but he pretty much went to Romans 9:20, Romans 9:21.


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## MW

PaulMc said:


> Thanks for this. The Gospel Standards then make an unwarranted distinction when it comes to what men are called to do in obeying the gospel (Acts. 17.30, 2 Thess 1.8) by bringing the decree into it?



Yes. The gospel is "good news." It is sent from heaven with the intention to save sinners and it is indiscriminately proclaimed to all without making any qualifications. If election is made a qualifying mark for preaching the gospel, it will cease to be good news to sinners. At that point it would become something other than a message of grace and a promise of salvation. It might reveal something in the experience of the "elected" in relation to their deliverance from sin and judgment, but it could never be the means by which they are delivered. It could not address them as sinners and offer Christ with His benefits as the way of salvation. They would always have to be assured of their election in the first place.



PaulMc said:


> Am I right in understanding that the atonement is in reference to the elect (definite), and that the gospel offer goes all out to all on the grounds of the true promise of God that all who believe will be saved (indefinite)?



That is it in a nutshell. If the atonement were indefinite the gospel would have to require something to make it definite. At that point the gospel would be a new law offering salvation on moral conditions to be fulfilled by men. The sinner could never receive this as good news because he would never feel he has adequately fulfilled the conditions imposed on him by the justice of God. This so-called gospel would then just be another witness accusing his conscience that he is a sinner.

On the other hand, if the gospel were definite it could not address men as sinners. It would always require some pre-existing quality which distinguished one sinner from another. At that point no sinner could know the gospel was for him without first finding some qualification in himself.

Arminianism and Hyper-Calvinism fall in opposite directions from the evangelical reformed faith, but they end up together at the bottom of the circle.


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## MW

Semper Fidelis said:


> it neglects the Covenant of Works/Covenant of Grace distinction that is in faith itself.



Yes; well noted, Rich. We have had a quotation from Rutherford's Covenant of Life which makes this very point: "the Lord hath decreed to deny the grace, by which they may or can fulfill the condition of the promise, *which is proper to the Law*, as it is peculiar to the Gospel, that the Lord both gives the mercy promised and also the grace to fulfill the condition of the promise."

If one denies that the law commands faith and the gospel gives grace there will be a confusion of the two covenants and the nature of saving faith will be misunderstood.


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## MW

timfost said:


> Even though it is rightly said that faith is the empty hand that receives Christ and his righteousness, it is still nevertheless a condition of salvation.



Have you fulfilled this condition, Tim?

How is a sinner ever going to fulfil a moral condition laid upon his conscience by the righteous Lord?

Every time I think about faith as a condition of salvation, I end up crying, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.

Consider Thomas Boston:

"in the order of the covenant of grace, forasmuch as the having of the Spirit must go before faith, faith before justification, justification before sanctification, holiness before heaven's happiness; these may be called conditions in the covenant of grace, to wit, *conditions of certain connection*: and this belongs to the established order of the promises of the covenant, which are contradistinguished to the condition of the covenant. Howbeit such conditions can in no proper sense be called the condition or conditions of the covenant of grace, more than the buyer's receiving of the commodity can be called the condition of the covenant or bargain of sale. But the condition of the covenant of grace, properly so called, is, Christ in the form of a bond-servant, as last Adam, Representative, Kinsman-Redeemer, Surety, and Priest, his fulfilling all righteousness owing in virtue of the broken covenant of works, unto God, by his spiritual seed."


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## timfost

MW said:


> Have you fulfilled this condition, Tim?



The way I understand it, yes, by the grace of God that met the condition when He gave me faith. Certainly this faith was not produced by me because I have no moral ability to produce it left to myself.

Rich,

I was under the impression that even though the CoG is unilaterally imposed, by definition it contains conditions, responsibilities and vows/promises from both parties. Am I wrong on this?

"And the uncircumcised male child, who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant." (Gen. 17:14)

I'm wondering how it's possible to break this covenant when it had nothing to do with those who break it?

I agree that we are either in or out of the CoG, but it seems that you are not seeing the relationship that the covenant has to those outside of it. I think Hodge is exceptionally helpful on this point. Also, I'm not saying that the way we understand these doctrines systematially are necessarily simple to understand (e.g. CoG, CoR), but the simple truth that I see are the conditions set forth.

I've formulated some questions that may be helpful so that we're on the same page. Again, I am not trying to come across as one who has this all figured out. I am simply trying to understand how our systematics works with scripture. Again, I'm willing to be wrong but would like to understand it before simply agreeing for the sake of agreement.

1. When are the elect in the CoG, upon election or faith?

2. When do the elect receive atonement?

3. Is the Noahic Covenant part of the CoG?
3a. If "yes," then does the CoG have reference to all men though they are not in that covenant? 
3b. Do all men receive blessings from the CoG? 
3c. If "yes," is this coincidental or by design? 

I really do appreciate you engaging me in this. I'm really not trying to be argumentative.


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## Ask Mr. Religion

Boston is helpful concerning the above...

4. The covenant of grace is absolute, and not conditional to us. For being made with Christ, as representative of his seed, all the conditions of it were laid on him, and fulfilled by him. Wherefore all that remains of it to be accomplished, is, the fulfilling of the promises unto him and his spiritual seed; even as it would have been in the case of the first covenant, if once the first Adam had fulfilled the condition thereof.

6. Lastly, The way to enter personally into the covenant of grace so as to partake of the benefits thereof, unto salvation, is, to unite with Christ the head of the covenant by faith. Being thus ingrafted into him, ye shall partake of all that happiness which is secured to Christ mystical, in the everlasting covenant: even as through your becoming children of Adam, by natural generation, ye are personally entered into the first covenant, so as to fall under that sin and death which passed upon all men, by the breach thereof, Rom. 5:12.

Inf. 1. What remains for sinners, that they may be personally and savingly in covenant with God, is not, as parties contractors and undertakers, to make a covenant with him for life and salvation; but only, to take hold of God’s covenant already made from eternity, between the Father and Christ the second Adam, and revealed and offered to us in the gospel, Isa. 56:4, 6.

Our part then, in this case, is only to take hold of God’s covenant made already, and offered and exhibited to us in the gospel. This hold is taken by faith; which is, in Scripture account, the hand of the soul, John 1:12.

And this you do by taking hold of Christ in the free promise of the gospel; believing that he is held forth to you in particular, confiding and trusting in him as your Saviour, for your salvation from sin and wrath, upon the ground of God’s faithfulness in the promise, that whosoever believeth in him, shall not perish, but have everlasting life, for he is given for a covenant to you, Isa. 49:8; and to receive him, is to believe on his name, John 1:12.

The object of the administration of the covenant, is, sinners of mankind indefinitely: that is to say, Christ is empowered, by commission from his Father, to administrate the covenant of grace to any of all mankind, the sinners of the family of Adam without exception: he is authorized to receive them into the covenant, and to confer on them all the benefits thereof, to their eternal salvation; according to the settled order of the covenant. The election of particular persons is a secret, not to be discovered in the administration of the covenant, according to the established order thereof, till such time as the sinner have received the covenant, by coming personally into it. And the extent of the administration is not founded on election, but on the sufficiency of Christ’s obedience and death for the salvation of all; neither is it regulated thereby, but by the fulness of power in heaven and earth given to Jesus Christ, as a reward of his becoming obedient even unto death.

Wherefore we conclude, that sinners of mankind indefinitely are the object of Christ’s administration of the covenant; that he is empowered to administer it to you, and every one of you, whatever you are, or have been; and that you must either take hold of the covenant for life and salvation, or perish as despisers of it, since ye have heard the gospel.

Thus, from eternity, the covenant of works, in all the parts and appurtenances thereof, was before the eternal mind; though being made with a mere man, it could not actually be entered into, till once man was created.

1. The unseen guard of the covenant is under his hand. There is given unto him all power over natural and spiritual things, to manage the same for the preservation, protection, and restraint of those sometime to be brought into the covenant; while yet they are strangers from it, and neither perceive the guard about them, nor the commander thereof: John 5:22, “The Father—hath committed all judgment unto the Son.” Hos. 11:3, “I taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by their arms, but they knew not that I healed them.”

2. The quickening Spirit of the covenant is in him, whereby to quicken dead sinners, and cause them to live. The Spirit of life behoved to be purchased for sinners, otherwise there was no life for them. Now, the fulness thereof is purchased, and actually lodged in the Mediator, according to the covenant.

3. The righteousness of the covenant is in him, whereby to justify the ungodly that have no righteousness of their own

5. The covenant fulness of the Spirit of sanctification is in him, whereby to make sinners holy: Col. 1:19, “It pleased the Father, that in him should all fulness dwell.” John 1:16, “And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.”

6. The establishing grace of the covenant is in him, whereby to cause the most fickle and inconstant, once in him, to persevere unto the end: Jude, ver. 1, “Them that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ.”

7. The temporal things of the covenant are all in his hand, whereby to provide for, and afford protection to his people, during their continuance in this world.

8. The covenant-fulness of power over death and the grave is in his hand, whereby to disarm death of its sting, and bring about a glorious resurrection. “I,” saith he, “have the keys of hell and of death,” Rev. 1:18.

9. Lastly, The eternal consummate happiness of the covenant is in his hand, whereby to render the souls of his people happy immediately after death, and then soul and body together happy at the last day: for all power in heaven is given him.

Boston, Thomas. _The Whole Works of Thomas Boston: Human Nature in Its Fourfold State and a View of the Covenant of Grace_. Ed. Samuel M‘Millan. Vol. 8. Aberdeen: George and Robert King, 1850. Print.


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## MW

timfost said:


> MW said:
> 
> 
> 
> Have you fulfilled this condition, Tim?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The way I understand it, yes, by the grace of God that met the condition when He gave me faith. Certainly this faith was not produced by me because I have no moral ability to produce it left to myself.
Click to expand...


God does not accept, receive, and rest upon Christ alone for salvation. This is something the sinner does. Faith is a gift of God, but it is exercised by the sinner. As a gift of God it is perfect, as with all God's gifts. As exercised by the sinner it is imperfect, and thus requires the righteousness of Christ in order to be acceptable. The sinner, even as enabled by grace, is never able to fulfil his duty to believe and meet the condition you are laying on him for his salvation. This is a burden grievous to be borne. That is why Jesus invited the heavy laden to come unto Him to find rest for their souls.


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## PaulMc

timfost said:


> I was under the impression that even though the CoG is unilaterally imposed, by definition it contains conditions, responsibilities and vows/promises from both parties



The way I understand it to have been explained by the Puritans and Reformed writers generally is that viewed as a testament, the CofG is unconditional, but viewed as a covenant (ie. the administration) it is conditional.

If we don't understand the administration of the covenant to be conditional, how can it be made with us and our children (Gen 17:7), or how can we be broken off (Rom 11), or how can God's people be accused of not being "steadfast in covenant"?


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## Semper Fidelis

timfost said:


> 1. When are the elect in the CoG, upon election or faith?
> 
> 2. When do the elect receive atonement?
> 
> 3. Is the Noahic Covenant part of the CoG?
> 3a. If "yes," then does the CoG have reference to all men though they are not in that covenant?
> 3b. Do all men receive blessings from the CoG?
> 3c. If "yes," is this coincidental or by design?



Let's see if these quotes help:



> Reformed theologians did not deny the conditionality or two-sidedness of the covenant of grace. They all agreed that faith in Christ was the condition required for a sinner to be translated from a state of wrath to a state of grace. As Stephen Charnock (1628–1680) notes, “Faith is the condition God requires to justification; but not a dead, but an active faith.”14 They were also careful to distinguish between certain types of conditions, namely, antecedent and consequent conditions. This important distinction sheds light on the various theological debates that took place in seventeenth-century England, particularly with reference to the Antinomians, who taught that faith followed justification.15 According to views expressed in the sermons of Tobias Crisp (1600–1643) on John 2:1–2, the elect are justified and reconciled to God before they believe, so that faith is not the instrumental cause of justification
> 
> Beeke, J. R., & Jones, M. (2012). A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life (p. 307). Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books.





> In his response to Crisp and the Antinomians, John Flavel claims that the controversy is not about consequent conditions (things required after the believer is instated into covenant with God), but rather about whether we may speak of antecedent conditions (things required beforehand, in order to being instated into covenant with God) in the covenant of grace. He considers this discussion from two distinct vantage points: (1) the covenant made with Christ and (2) the application of the benefits of the covenant to sinners.17 With regard to the former, Flavel acknowledges that no condition is required on man’s part, “but depends purely and only upon the Grace of God, and Merit of Christ.”18 Francis Roberts likewise affirms that there are no antecedent conditions on man’s part, because there is nothing that sinners can do to merit anything from God or move God to action, such as bringing man into covenant with God: “All such Antecedent Conditions we utterly disclaim, as wholly inconsistent with this gratuitous Gospel-Covenant of Faith. Antecedent Impulsives or Motives in man, we leave to the Remonstrants and Papists.”19 But Flavel considers whether the condition of faith may be understood as antecedent in the application of salvation. Thus he distinguishes between meritorious acts and nonmeritorious acts:
> 
> 1. Such Antecedent Conditions which have the force of a meritorious and impulsive Cause, which being performed by the proper strength of Nature, or at most by the help of common assisting Grace, do give a Man a right to the reward or blessings of the Covenant. And in this sense we utterly disclaim antecedent Conditions.…
> 2. An Antecedent Condition signifying no more than an Act of ours, which though it be neither perfect in every degree, nor in the least meritorious of the benefit conferred; nor performed in our own natural strength; yet according to the constitution of the Covenant, is required of us in order to the blessings consequent thereupon by virtue of the Promise: and consequently the benefits and mercies granted in the Promise in this order are, and must be suspended by the Donor or Disposer of them, until it be performed. Such a Condition we affirm Faith to be.20
> 
> Based upon this distinction, Flavel affirms faith to be an antecedent condition in terms of a nonmeritorious act required of us in order to receive the application of the benefits of the covenant of grace. But given the controversy that surrounds this subject, he makes a further (important) distinction between faith “essentially” considered and faith considered “organically and instrumentally.” Faith essentially (i.e., in terms of the essence of faith) considered refers to obedience, “and in that respect we exclude it from justifying our persons, or entitling us to the saving-mercies of the New Covenant.”21 However, faith “organically” considered refers to its instrumentality, “as it receives Christ … and so gives us power to become the Sons of God; it being impossible for any Man to partake of the saving benefits of the Covenant, but as he is united to Christ.”22 Faith is the necessary antecedent condition—the causa sine qua non—of the covenant. Many Antinomians denied that faith was an antecedent condition of the covenant, and thus they held to a personal justification either from eternity or from the time of the death of Christ.
> 
> 
> Beeke, J. R., & Jones, M. (2012). A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life (pp. 307–308). Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books.





> On the surface, there appears to be disagreement among the Reformed orthodox theologians on whether faith may be understood as an antecedent condition of salvation. For example, Patrick Gillespie (1617–1675) argues that the conditions of the covenant of grace are consequent conditions, but notes that these conditions, including faith, “denote no causality, nor proper efficiency in the condition, with respect to the thing promised, but an instrumentality and connexion, and thus faith hath no proper efficiency in our Justification, but only an instrumentality.”24 When Gillespie and Roberts affirm that there are no antecedent conditions in our salvation, they have in mind the same concept that Flavel speaks of when he refers to conditions that are either meritorious or “impulsive” (motivating) causes of God’s covenant blessings.
> 
> Beeke, J. R., & Jones, M. (2012). A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life (pp. 308–309). Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books.





> The claim that receiving the benefits of the covenant of grace depends on meeting the condition of faith in the Mediator, Jesus Christ, is expressed in the Westminster Confession of Faith, which describes the covenant of grace as God’s offer to sinners of life and salvation, but “requiring of them faith in [Christ], that they may be saved” (7.3). More explicitly, the Larger Catechism, Question 32, asks, “How is the grace of God manifested in the second covenant?” The answer likewise describes the covenant as God’s offer to sinners of life and salvation in His Son, “and requiring faith as the condition to interest them in him” (see also Q. 153). Whatever reservations they may have had about referring to conditions in the covenant, the aforementioned Reformed theologians clearly saw the need to speak of the condition or requirement of faith for a sinner to receive the benefits of Christ’s mediatorial work. They did so on exegetical grounds and in response to the rising influence of antinomianism during the mid-seventeenth century. But they affirmed more than the necessity of faith; closely tied to the antecedent condition of faith was the consequent condition of evangelical obedience to God’s law.
> 
> Beeke, J. R., & Jones, M. (2012). A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life (pp. 309–310). Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books.


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## Toasty

MW said:


> timfost said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> MW said:
> 
> 
> 
> Have you fulfilled this condition, Tim?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The way I understand it, yes, by the grace of God that met the condition when He gave me faith. Certainly this faith was not produced by me because I have no moral ability to produce it left to myself.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> God does not accept, receive, and rest upon Christ alone for salvation. This is something the sinner does. Faith is a gift of God, but it is exercised by the sinner. As a gift of God it is perfect, as with all God's gifts. As exercised by the sinner it is imperfect, and thus requires the righteousness of Christ in order to be acceptable. The sinner, even as enabled by grace, is never able to fulfil his duty to believe and meet the condition you are laying on him for his salvation. This is a burden grievous to be borne. That is why Jesus invited the heavy laden to come unto Him to find rest for their souls.
Click to expand...


I would like to add that faith is the means by which salvation is received. Faith is the instrument that receives salvation. 

We are not declared righteous on the basis of our faith. We are declared righteous on the basis of Christ's righteousness credited to our account.


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## Toasty

"The purchased redemption of the elect is appropriated by faith, a condition that God certainly meets when He regenerates a person and gives them faith, hence it can be offered to all upon appropriation by faith and truly rejected because the reprobate refuse to accept Christ by faith to meet this requirement (they are not able). Therefore they truly reject salvation."

When you say that faith is a condition that God meets, do you mean that God causes the elect to place their faith in Christ?

It is true that God causes the elect to place their faith in Christ, but it is not appropriate to say that faith is a condition that God certainly meets. Sinners need to place their faith in Christ for their salvation, but God doesn't need to do that.

God commands everyone to believe in Christ for their salvation. 

Faith is the means by which salvation is received. However, this does not mean that we are justified on the basis of our faith.


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## timfost

Rich,

Thanks for quoting Beeke. I agree with it. I really don't know how anything I said would not be in agreement with it...

I'm just trying to understand how scripture can speak about rejecting salvation when salvation is not offered on any conditions? Is it not biblical to say that someone is condemned because they did not believe? If this does not hold forth a condition, what would you prefer to call it?

Also, I still think it makes things clearer to not say that Christ is the Mediator _and_ a party in the CoG. Did Christ need a Mediator? If He was a party and the Mediator between the parties, it seems like we would have to say that He mediated between Himself and God. It seems like many of the problems of this conversation arise from this point which is where I think Hodge is helpful...


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## Semper Fidelis

timfost said:


> I'm just trying to understand how scripture can speak about rejecting salvation when salvation is not offered on any conditions? Is it not biblical to say that someone is condemned because they did not believe? If this does not hold forth a condition, what would you prefer to call it?


I think it's both true that the person who rejects Christ has rejected a free offer to sinners. Yes, they are condemned for not believing. Keep in mind, however, that the issue dealing with conditions _within_ the CoG is whether the person to whom the promises belong exercises a condition to interest antecedent to his being brought into the CoG in a historical sense. It's confusing, I know, but we need not doubt that a person is under duty to believe the Gospel call without also saying that his failure to obey the Gospel is equivalent to him doing the opposite of exercising a condition to interest. The CoG has an external administration in Word and Sacrament and all who are brought near that external administration are called to believe - they are called to press in. They are not,in themselves, able to do so but they are nevertheless called. The call either condemns those who remain in rebellious unbelief or it is used of the Spirit to bring the sinner near to Christ.

IWith respect to Christ being the Mediator of the CoG, I don't know that anyone has ever implied that He mediated grace to Himself. He fulfilled all righteousness. He was not a subject of grace but, it is by His mediation that we are the recipients of grace.


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## timfost

What exactly is a condition of interest?


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## Semper Fidelis

timfost said:


> What exactly is a condition of interest?



Faith as a condition _to_ interest is what you agreed with in the quotes from A Puritan Theology. It is faith "organically" considered.



> faith “organically” considered refers to its instrumentality, “as it receives Christ … and so gives us power to become the Sons of God; it being impossible for any Man to partake of the saving benefits of the Covenant, but as he is united to Christ.”22 Faith is the necessary antecedent condition—the causa sine qua non—of the covenant.


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## Covenant Joel

I wrote a blog post on the topic some time ago. I've copied some of the content below:

In 1 Corinthians 8, Paul is talking about the issue of brothers and sisters in Christ who have different convictions about issues, using the language of “weak consciences.” He encourages the believers to not be a stumbling block to others in their own choices. And then in verse 10-12, he makes an interesting point:
For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol’s temple, will he not be encouraged, if his conscience is weak, to eat food offered to idols? And so by your knowledge this weak person is destroyed, *the brother for whom Christ died*. Thus, sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ.​Notice the reason that Paul gives for not being a stumbling block to a brother: _he is one for whom Christ died_. In other words, how can you trample on another brother so as to cause him to sin when he is one of the very people for whom Christ’s precious blood was spilt? How can you not take great care to love and build up that brother rather than tear him down?
Thus limited atonement, the teaching that Jesus died for his elect, _ought_ to be one of the greatest motivators of church unity that we have. Jesus died for our brothers and sisters. That fact ought to give us great pause in the midst of conflict, in the midst of division, in situations requiring reconciliation. The doctrine ought to be a motivator to greater love and kindness for those who name the name of Christ.
Ironically, those who hold to limited atonement have at times had the label of being ungracious and unloving in the way they present their beliefs. All we can say to that is what Paul says about sin abounding in Romans 6: _may it never be!_ Perhaps one way to see whether or not we have really understood limited atonement is to see if we can present in such a way that our love for the brothers and sisters for whom Christ died simply shines through. And perhaps, when we Reformed people explain what we believe to be Scripture’s teaching on this topic, this ought to be a repeated reminder to make sure that right beliefs are ever accompanied by right behavior.


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## timfost

Semper Fidelis said:


> timfost said:
> 
> 
> 
> What exactly is a condition of interest?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Faith as a condition _to_ interest is what you agreed with in the quotes from A Puritan Theology. It is faith "organically" considered.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> faith “organically” considered refers to its instrumentality, “as it receives Christ … and so gives us power to become the Sons of God; it being impossible for any Man to partake of the saving benefits of the Covenant, but as he is united to Christ.”22 Faith is the necessary antecedent condition—the causa sine qua non—of the covenant.
> 
> Click to expand...
Click to expand...


Sorry, I didn't mean to change the word. Yes, still confused as to the distinction. I'm trying to figure out why it was so wrong for me to say that faith was any kind of a condition while you provided:



> The claim that receiving the benefits of the covenant of grace depends on meeting the condition of faith in the Mediator, Jesus Christ, is expressed in the Westminster Confession of Faith...



Haven't I been saying all along that faith was a condition of being in the CoG? I thought I made it clear that the condition had nothing to do with merit. Is there a difference between saying "receiving the benefits of the covenant of grace depends on meeting the condition of faith in the Mediator" and "faith is a condition of salvation"? I'm really struggling to see a difference...

I'm certainly not using the word "condition" to mean that God looked through time to see who would meet the condition in themselves and elected them in response to His foreknowledge.


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## timfost

Another question: Would you say that God is in covenant with the elect in eternity?

(I may be dense, but I'm trying to understand how you're describing it. Thanks for your patience!)


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## Semper Fidelis

timfost said:


> Haven't I been saying all along that faith was a condition of being in the CoG? I thought I made it clear that the condition had nothing to do with merit. Is there a difference between saying "receiving the benefits of the covenant of grace depends on meeting the condition of faith in the Mediator" and "faith is a condition of salvation"? I'm really struggling to see a difference...


It seems to me that we needed to come to understand each other on this. If you agreed with Flavel (and others') distinction above then you would need to qualify what you mean by the word "condition". The idea of "condition" here is used antecedantly to describe a receiving action that belongs to the elect along opening up their hands to the Savior offered. That's what saving faith is. You can't take that category of condition and look at it and say: "Well the elect exercise saving faith as a condition to interest in the Covenant and, therefore, it is a condition and sinners are condemned as a result that they don't meet that condition."

I'm not trying to be mean here but summarizing where we've sort of twisted and turned.


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## timfost

If I agree with Hodge below, would this be concerning to you?



> *Those who ignore the distinction between the covenants of redemption and of grace, merging the latter in the former, of course represent the parties to the covenant to be God and Christ as the head and representative of his own people. And therefore mankind, as such, are in no sense parties.* All that is important is, that we should adopt such a mode of representation as will *comprehend the various facts recognized in the Scriptures*. It is *one of those facts that salvation is offered to all men on the condition of faith in Christ*. And therefore to that extent, or, in a sense which accounts for that fact, the covenant of grace is made with all men. *The great sin of those who hear the gospel is that they refuse to accept of that covenant and therefore place themselves without its pale*.


This is a faithful saying:

"For if we died with Him,
We shall also live with Him.
If we endure,
We shall also reign with Him.
If we deny Him,
He also will deny us.
If we are faithless,
He remains faithful;
He cannot deny Himself." (2 Tim. 2:11-13)


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## MW

To say "unbelievers" refuse to accept the covenant misses the point that the covenant promise is only made to "believers." There is no promise to save those who do not believe. The gospel finds unbelievers condemned already, and where the gospel is not believed it leaves its hearers in the same state in which it found them -- under the condemnation of the law.

There are two covenants as there are two Adams. Every man is either condemned under the first Adam or saved under the second Adam.


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## timfost

MW said:


> To say "unbelievers" refuse to accept the covenant misses the point that the covenant promise is only made to "believers." There is no promise to save those who do not believe. The gospel finds unbelievers condemned already, and where the gospel is not believed it leaves its hearers in the same state in which it found them -- under the condemnation of the law.



God does not promise salvation to unbelievers, though promises that if they would believe He would forgive them. Even though they cannot repent and believe, He has not spoken deceitfully. His eternal purpose and promise to grant salvation to the elect remains certain and unchanged because He grants that belief. Am I contradicting Calvin?



> Therefore, he does not will his death, in so far as he wills repentance. *But experience shows that this will, for the repentance of those whom he invites to himself, is not such as to make him touch all their hearts. Still, it cannot be said that he acts deceitfully; for though the external word only renders, those who hear its and do not obey it, inexcusable*, it is still truly regarded as an evidence of the grace by which he reconciles men to himself. Let us therefore hold the doctrine of the prophet, that God has no pleasure in the death of the sinner; that the godly may feel confident that whenever they repent God is ready to pardon them; *and that the wicked may feel that their guilt is doubled, when they respond not to the great mercy and condescension of God.* The mercy of God, therefore will ever be ready to meet the penitent; but all the prophets, and apostles, and Ezekiel himself, clearly tell us who they are to whom repentance is given. (_Institutes_ 3.24.15)


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## MW

timfost said:


> God does not promise salvation to unbelievers, though promises that if they would believe He would forgive them. Even though they cannot repent and believe, He has not spoken deceitfully.



He has not spoken deceitfully because He has not promised anything outside of the terms in which He has determined to bestow what is promised. The word "would," as you have expressed it, is not indicative. It expresses something hypothetical. One should not draw a real conclusion from an hypothetical condition.



timfost said:


> Am I contradicting Calvin?



Calvin says, "in so far as he wills repentance." That is, the means and the end are joined together. We should not sever the end (salvation) from the means (repentance) in the revealed will of God. Both must be held together. The promise does not extend any further than the terms in which God has declared He will fulfil the promise. To extend the promise further would be deceitful.


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## timfost

It seems that a hypothetical only creates a problem when we try to reconcile everything with the decree.


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## MW

timfost said:


> It seems that a hypothetical only creates a problem when we try to reconcile everything with the decree.



Hypotheticals function in the case of one who is under varying conditions and contingencies. In the case of man, who bears an accountability to the Lawgiver and Providential Governor of all things, there is no difficulty conceiving of hypotheticals. When the attempt is made to apply these to God, however, they leave the impression that He is a variable being who is under the control of something greater than Himself, and this conflicts with the basic revelation of God as the great I AM; the Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come. He that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. To conceive of a God in whom there is shadow of turning would be destructive to faith.


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## OneOfHisElect

If this person you are speaking of claims to only be a 4 point Calvinist then he is no Calvinist at all. You must accept all 5 points. If one is left out then the other 4 will logically break down.


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## Semper Fidelis

On the CoR in the Puritans:


> A chapter on the covenant of redemption in relation to the theology of the Westminster Assembly may seem out of place, since the term is not used in the Confession or Catechisms.5 However, a number of reasons justify including this chapter. In the first place, the Savoy Confession adds eight words—“according to a covenant made between them both”—to Westminster Confession 8.1 in an attempt to clarify and highlight the nature of salvation in explicitly covenantal terms. Additionally, the basic teaching of the covenant of redemption can be located in several places in the Westminster Confession though not in explicit terms. Indeed, the Scottish divine David Dickson, in his commentary on the Westminster Confession, “had no difficulty finding the doctrine there.”6 Dickson speaks of the covenant of redemption as the basis for the temporal covenant of grace: “for the accomplishment of this Covenant of Redemption, and making the Elect partakers of the benefits thereof in the Covenant of Grace, Christ Jesus was clad with the threefold Office of Prophet, Priest, and King.”7 John Brown of Haddington (1722–1787) takes a different approach, however, in his exposition of the Westminster Shorter Catechism (Q. 20). He asks, “Is the covenant of grace, and that of redemption, one and the same covenant?” He answers in the affirmative, though recognizing that some divines distinguish between the covenant of redemption and the covenant of grace.8 Brown seems to be arguing in a similar manner to Edmund Calamy (1600–1666), who suggested that the Father made the covenant of grace with Christ “from all eternity.”9 Calamy’s position, which is consistent with the teaching of the Westminster documents, maintains that the covenant of grace was not an afterthought of God in response to the fall but rather “was made with Jesus Christ from all eternity, being a contract or plot of God the Father with God the Son from all eternity as mediator for the salvation of the Elect.”10 Many Reformed theologians in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries agreed with Calamy’s position. However, toward the middle of the seventeenth century, a number of divines, including some of the more prominent Westminster theologians, did distinguish between the eternal covenant of redemption and the temporal covenant of grace.11
> 
> Beeke, J. R., & Jones, M. (2012). A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life (p. 238). Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books.





> Whatever view one takes on the matter, the question of the relation between the eternal and the temporal requires elaboration. This issue will be addressed in more detail in a subsequent chapter on the conditions of the covenant, but for now, a number of observations on the relationship between the covenants of redemption and grace will provide a useful link between this chapter and the next.
> The Reformed orthodox typically held to the threefold distinction of God’s immanent, transient, and applicatory acts.124 Thomas Goodwin describes these acts in the following manner:
> 
> 1. Immanent in God towards us, as his Eternal Love set and past upon us; out of which he chose us, and designed this and all Blessings to us.
> 2. Transient, in Christ done for us; in all he did or suffered representing of us, and in our stead.
> 3. Applicatory, wrought in us, and upon us, in the endowing us with all those Blessings by the Spirit: As Calling, Justification, Sanctification, Glorification.125
> 
> 
> Beeke, J. R., & Jones, M. (2012). A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life (p. 253). Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books.





> Therefore, whatever is said to have been ordained “in Christ” has particular reference to the covenant of redemption. However, that which is wrought “through Christ” has reference to the temporal covenant of grace as the context in which Christ performs His work.
> 
> Beeke, J. R., & Jones, M. (2012). A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life (p. 253). Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books.





> But although differences exist, Gillespie makes reference to eight similarities. The covenants of redemption and grace agree in the following ways: (1) pure grace gave rise to both covenants (Eph. 1:9; 2 Tim. 1:9); (2) both covenants aim to redeem sinners (Titus 1:2; 2 Cor. 5:19); (3) Christ is the main instrument of action (Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:20); (4) God elects in both covenants; in the first He elects Christ (Ps. 89:3), and in the second He elects sinners for salvation in Christ; (5) both covenants manifest the same attributes (mercy, justice, love, etc.) of God; (6) both covenants profit the elect; and both covenants honor God; (7) in both covenants, Christ exchanges places with His people (2 Cor. 5:21); and (8) both covenants are free, gracious, and everlasting.135
> 
> Beeke, J. R., & Jones, M. (2012). A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life (p. 254). Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books.





> Given the similarities enumerated by Gillespie, one can well understand why many Reformed theologians simply spoke of the covenant of grace having both eternal and temporal administrations. However, Gillespie manages to find nine differences between the two covenants in order to prove his point that they are distinct but not separate.136 They differ in the following ways: (1) though both covenants had their rise in the grace of God, the covenant of redemption sprang from grace in both parties, God and Christ, whereas in the covenant of grace only one side (God’s) acted out of grace (1 John 4:10, 19); (2) although both are everlasting covenants, only the covenant of redemption is eternal; the covenant of grace is concluded in time (Titus 1:2–3); (3) the parties differ in both covenants; the covenant of redemption concerns God and Christ, and the covenant of grace concerns the triune God and lost sinners; (4) the covenant of redemption is an equal covenant, whereas the covenant of grace is an unequal covenant; moreover, that which was required of Christ far exceeds that which is required of God’s elect; (5) there is no mediator in the covenant of redemption (Prov. 8:22–23), but in the covenant of grace, Christ acts as Mediator on behalf of the elect (1 Tim. 2:5); (6) the promises of the covenant of grace, for example, a new heart, cannot be promised to Christ; in the same way, Christ was promised a name above every name (Phil. 2:9), which was not promised to His people; (7) Christ was not threatened in the covenant of redemption since, as the God-man, He could not sin, but believers are threatened in the covenant of grace (Heb. 2:3; 1 Cor. 16:22); (8) the conditions in each covenant differ; Christ was required to become flesh and lay down His life (Heb. 10:5–7); His people are required to believe in Christ, repent of their sins, and work out their salvation with fear and trembling (Acts 16:31; Phil. 2:12);137 and (9) the covenant of redemption did not require man’s consent to be elected in Christ; however, the covenant of grace requires consent from those elected in eternity for the blessings of the covenant to be applied to them (John 6:37; Rev. 22:17, 20).138 As a result, for Gillespie, notwithstanding the similarities between the two covenants, the differences need to be taken into account. Having said that, they are “conjoined together by a five-fold connection.”139
> 
> Beeke, J. R., & Jones, M. (2012). A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life (pp. 254–255). Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books.



OK, having taken that up, let's return to Hodge. I agree with Matthew that I don't like Hodge's specific language that someone is "rejecting the Covenant" but your assumption that the Westminster Confession somehow "synthesizes" the CoG and CoR is not accurate. The Puritans understood this distinction. I think the three ways that God acts (immanent, transient, and applicatory) are helpful here to help you see what's going on here. Remember, that the "participants" _within_ the CoG which is made with all the elect in Christ are the elect themselves.

At best, when we are speaking of those who reject the Gospel they are participants in the external _administration_ of the CoG but are not _within_ the CoG. One might say they have spurned what they have tasted but they have never been _within_ its bounds for they are still _in_ Adam. If I assume that Hodge is not completely going off the reservation (since he doesn't claim to be departing from Reformed orthodoxy) then we can understand Hodge as saying that a person who rejects the Gospel has rejected the external administration of the CoG and, in that sense, has rejected the Covenant.

BUT, and this is important, there are conditions to interest that are solely _within_ the CoG. They are promises and inheritances that we receive as gifts that allow us to open up our hands to their reception in the CoG. _That is not the same thing as what the unsaved reject_. That is very important that we understand this. The rejection of a call to sinners is not the equal and opposite of the "condition to interest" of saving faith.


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## timfost

MW said:


> timfost said:
> 
> 
> 
> It seems that a hypothetical only creates a problem when we try to reconcile everything with the decree.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Hypotheticals function in the case of one who is under varying conditions and contingencies. In the case of man, who bears an accountability to the Lawgiver and Providential Governor of all things, there is no difficulty conceiving of hypotheticals. When the attempt is made to apply these to God, however, they leave the impression that He is a variable being who is under the control of something greater than Himself, and this conflicts with the basic revelation of God as the great I AM; the Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come. He that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. To conceive of a God in whom there is shadow of turning would be destructive to faith.
Click to expand...


From the passages below, I'm not sure if God is averse to hypotheticals:



> Oh, that My people *would* listen to Me,
> That Israel would walk in My ways!
> I would soon subdue their enemies,
> And turn My hand against their adversaries.
> The haters of the Lord would pretend submission to Him,
> But their fate would endure forever.
> He *would have* fed them also with the finest of wheat;
> And with honey from the rock I *would have* satisfied you. (Psalm 81:13-16)





> And Samuel said to Saul, “You have done foolishly. You have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which He commanded you. For now the Lord *would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. But now your kingdom shall not continue*. The Lord has sought for Himself a man after His own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be commander over His people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.” (1 Sam. 13:13-14)





> O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! (Matt. 23:37)



I agree with you that hypotheticals have no place in God's decree. But the verses I quoted above at least prove that hypotheticals are referenced by God. Can I explain the mind of God? No, I just seek to believe what He reveals. It seems that if we think we have God "figured out" in this regard, we have to neglect what He says about Himself or reduce Him to be more like man. I am bound by my conscience and His Word to do neither.


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## timfost

Rich,

Thank you! That information is really helpful (and I really need to get that book!). I don't think that Hodge was trying to remove himself from orthodoxy on this point, although I think he does recognize a difficulty in the wording of the WLC. I've spent a lot of time reading and trying to understand Hodge's position on this, and I firmly believe that he does not mean to say that one can be outside of the CoR and yet receive the blessings and promises _in_ the CoG. But since the CoG works out in time, there seems to be a reference to all since "it is the bounden duty of all who hear the Gospel to savingly trust in Christ, otherwise their rejection of Him would be no sin" (A.W. Pink). Even if we want to call it an "external administration," there would be no external administration apart from the CoG. Therefore the CoG has _reference_ to all, though the CoR does not. In other words, those who reject the gospel do not reject the conditions in the CoR but the condition of the CoG. Since the WLC says that Christ is both Mediator _and_ party in the CoG, I don't know what to call it besides a _synthesis_ of the two.

Does that mean that the WLC is wrong? I would rather say that it is imprecise on this issue. 

On a related note-- I know I've been playing hardball. Your research and references have been _tremendously helpful_. I want to be clear on these issues and your thoughts and quotes have been extremely helpful. 

Sometimes my wife asks me if there is a practical application to the doctrines that I study. Coming from a background in hyper-Calvinism, I've found that understanding Christ's work and speaking about it in a biblical context with biblical language has taken away huge distractions when speaking with those of an Arminian persuasion. Over the last couple summers I've spoken with a young man at length about the design of Christ's satisfaction. Removing unbiblical speculations has placed the emphasis on the actual differences and assumptions themselves, clearing the path for me to give an account of the hope that's in me.

I've contemplated this part of the conclusion to Dort often:



> Finally, this Synod exhorts all their brethren in the gospel of Christ to conduct themselves piously and religiously in handling this doctrine, both in the universities and churches; to direct it, as well in discourse as in writing, to the glory of the Divine name, to holiness of life, and to the consolation of afflicted souls; *to regulate, by the Scripture, according to the analogy of faith, not only their sentiments, but also their language, and to abstain from all those phrases which exceed the limits necessary to be observed in ascertaining the genuine sense of the Holy Scriptures*, and may furnish insolent sophists with a just pretext for violently assailing, or even vilifying, the doctrine of the Reformed Churches.



What was very attractive about Hodge's outlook on this issue is that it seemed to be much more easily reconciled to the wording of scripture. I'm not sure if we're completely in agreement, but it seems that we would _mostly_ agree.


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## Semper Fidelis

timfost said:


> Even if we want to call it an "external administration," there would be no external administration apart from the CoG. Therefore the CoG has reference to all, though the CoR does not. In other words, those who reject the gospel do not reject the conditions in the CoR but the condition of the CoG. Since the WLC says that Christ is both Mediator and party in the CoG, I don't know what to call it besides a synthesis of the two.



It seems we have covered this already and showed how Pink was quoting Puritans even when he spoke of conditions.

With respect to the _parties_ of the Covenant of Grace, of course Christ is a party, He is the "Mediator". That is a party of the Covenant of Grace. The parties of the Covenant of Grace are the Triune God and elect sinners. Christ is the Mediator as the second person of the Trinity and functions in the offices of Prophet, Priest, and King as the Mediator of the CoG. The whole point of the CoG is that Christ fulfills all righteousness. As far as what is left of the nature of the CoG itself is not in the fulfillment of some sort of added "condition" to fulfill it but the antecedent reception of the benefits unconditionally Promised to the elect in that Covenant. This is called the "condition to interest" where the sinner receives by an empty hand what Christ has procured.

To consider further the connection between the CoR and the CoG:


> First, these covenants bear such a “near and strict conjunction” that they cannot be separated; indeed, the covenant of grace fails to exist apart from the covenant of redemption, which amounts to “an inseparable connection.”140 Second, “an infallible connection” exists between the two covenants, “whereby one thing doth necessarily and certainly follow upon another.”141 In other words, “nothing is … transacted in time, which was not from eternity concluded in the counsel of God’s Will.”142 Third, the two covenants are joined by “an Insuperable connection,” that is to say, the covenant of redemption has such power and efficacy that nothing can thwart the outcome of the covenant of grace (John 17:2; Matt. 16:18).143 Samuel Rutherford makes a similar point by noting that the covenant of redemption is the “cause of the stability and firmness of the Covenant of Grace.”144 Fourth, Gillespie argues that the covenants of redemption and grace are joined together by a “secret and hidden connection.”145 Gillespie means to suggest that the covenant of redemption was “hid in God’s breast … kept close betwixt God and Christ” and then revealed to believers who, unlike carnal minds, can understand the great mysteries of God’s salvation in Christ.146 Finally, the two covenants are joined together by a “beautiful connection.”147 All that was plotted in the counsels between the Father and the Son are in the history of redemption beautifully executed. There is an organic cause and effect between the two covenants; that which was deliberated in eternity is performed by Christ in temporal history.148 This section on the relationship between the two covenants helps to explain the final clause in Westminster Confession 8.1, which reads, “[God] did from all eternity, give a people to be [Christ’s] seed, and to be by him in time redeemed, called, justified, sanctified, and glorified.”
> 
> Beeke, J. R., & Jones, M. (2012). A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life (p. 255). Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books.


Thus, we cannot say: "Well, all of that decree stuff is related to the CoR but the CoG works itself out in time so it's for all." The two are inseparably connected. The CoG is a working out in time of things promised but that does not mean that, because it is "in time", that parties are considered to be part of the CoG that were not promised to the Son by the Father. Thus, when we think about saving faith, it is something that is exercised in time by the application of Christ's work of redemption in time (planned in eternity) but we understand that the reason that saving faith is exercised is because it what promised that it would be the case for those who trust in Christ and lay hold of Him as their inheritance. Otherwise, it almost makes the parties who are actually _in_ the CoG to be sort of accidents of history. The elect don't just happen to be those who exercise saving faith but it is precisely because God knew us by name in eternity that we are parties in the CoG and receive the evangelical graces by which we lay hold of an eternal inheritance. That first act of our historical entry into Christ in his benefits is the empty hand of faith receiving our eternal inheritance.


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## timfost

Semper Fidelis said:


> Thus, we cannot say: "Well, all of that decree stuff is related to the CoR but the CoG works itself out in time so it's for all." The two are inseparably connected. The CoG is a working out in time of things promised but that does not mean that, because it is "in time", that parties are considered to be part of the CoG that were not promised to the Son by the Father. Thus, when we think about saving faith, it is something that is exercised in time by the application of Christ's work of redemption in time (planned in eternity) but we understand that the reason that saving faith is exercised is because it what promised that it would be the case for those who trust in Christ and lay hold of Him as their inheritance. Otherwise, it almost makes the parties who are actually _in_ the CoG to be sort of accidents of history. The elect don't just happen to be those who exercise saving faith but it is precisely because God knew us by name in eternity that we are parties in the CoG and receive the evangelical graces by which we lay hold of an eternal inheritance. That first act of our historical entry into Christ in his benefits is the empty hand of faith receiving our eternal inheritance.



Agreed!


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## MW

timfost said:


> From the passages below, I'm not sure if God is averse to hypotheticals:



As you seem willing to listen to Calvin, please consult his comments on the Psalm. The fact God speaks after the manner of men does not mean we should conceive of Him as a man.


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## Afterthought

In case his explanation turns out to be useful (although it repeats much that has already been quoted in this thread by, e.g., Thomas Boston), Robert Shaw on the use of "condition" language for faith http://www.reformed.org/documents/shaw/:

"In entering upon the exposition of this section, it is proper to remark, that, at the period when our Confession was framed, it was generally held by the most eminent divines, that there are two covenants connected with the salvation of men, which they called the covenant of redemption, and the covenant of grace; the former made with Christ from everlasting, the latter made with sinners in time; the righteousness of Christ being the condition of the former, and faith the condition of the latter covenant. This distinction, we conceive, has no foundation in the Sacred Scriptures, and it has long since been abandoned by all evangelical divines. The first Adam is said to have been a figure of Christ, who is called the second Adam. Now, there was not one covenant made with Adam, the condition of which he was to perform, and another made with his posterity, the condition of which they were to fulfil; but one covenant included both him and them. It was made with him as their representative, and with them as represented in and by him. In like manner, one covenant includes Christ and his spiritual seed. The Scriptures, accordingly, everywhere speak of it as one covenant, and the blood of Christ is repeatedly called "the blood of the covenant," not of the covenants, as we may presume it would have been called, if it had been the condition of a covenant of redemption and the foundation of a covenant of grace.—Heb. x. 29, xiii. 20. By the blood of the same covenant Christ made satisfaction, and we obtain deliverance.—Zech. ix. 11. We hold, therefore, that there is only one covenant for the salvation of fallen men, and that this covenant was made with Christ before the foundation of the world. The Scriptures, indeed, frequently speak of God making a covenant with believers, but this language admits of an easy explication, in consistency with the unity of the covenant. "The covenant of grace," says a judicious writer, "was made with Christ in a strict and proper sense, as he was the party-contractor in it, and undertook to fulfil the condition of it. It is made with believers in an improper sense, when they are taken into the bond of it, and come actually to enjoy the benefit of it. How it is made with them may be learned from the words of the apostle,—Acts xiii. 34: "I will give you the sure mercies of David,' which is a kind of paraphrase upon that passage,—Is. lv. 3: "I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.' God makes the covenant with them, not by requiring anything of them in order to entitle them or lay a foundation for their claim to the blessings of it, but by making these over to them as a free gift, and putting them in possession of them, as far as their present state will admit, by a faith of his own operation."

The supposition of two covenants for the salvation of mankind sinners, is encumbered with various difficulties. One is obvious. In every proper covenant, there are two essential parts—a conditionary and a promissory. If, therefore, there be a covenant made with sinners, different from the covenant made with Christ, it must have a condition which they themselves must perform. But though our old divines called faith the condition of the covenant made with sinners, they did not assign any merit to faith, but simply precedence. "The truth is," as Dr Dick has remarked, "that what these divines call the covenant of grace, is merely the administration of what they call the covenant of redemption, for the purpose of communicating its blessings to those for whom they were intended; and cannot be properly considered as a covenant, because it is not suspended upon a proper condition." The Westminster Assembly, in this section, appear to describe what was then usually designated the covenant of grace, as distinguished from the covenant of redemption. But, though they viewed the covenant under a twofold consideration, as made with the Surety from everlasting, and as made with sinners in time, they certainly regarded it as one and the same covenant. "The covenant of grace," say they, "was made with Christ as the second Adam, and in him with all the elect as his seed.""



"That God "requires of sinners faith in Christ that they may be saved," admits of no dispute. The part assigned to faith, however, has been much controverted. Many excellent divines, in consequence of the distinction which they made between the covenant of redemption and the covenant of grace, were led to speak of faith as the condition of the latter covenant. But the term, as used by them, signifies not a meritorious or procuring cause, but simply something which goes before, and without which the other cannot be obtained. They consider faith merely as a condition of order or connection, as it has been styled, and as an instrument or means of obtaining an interest in the salvation offered in the gospel. This is very different from the meaning attached to the term by Arminians and Neonomians, who represent faith as a condition on the fulfilment of which the promise is suspended.. The Westminster Assembly elsewhere affirm, that God requires of sinners faith in Christ, "as the condition to interest them in him." But this is very different from affirming that faith is the condition of the covenant of grace. That faith is indispensably necessary as the instrument by which we are savingly interested in Christ, and personally instated in the covenant, is a most important truth, and this is all that is intended by the Westminster Divines. They seem to have used the term condition as synonymous with instrument; for, while in one place they speak of faith as the condition to interest sinners in the Mediator, in other places they affirm, that "faith is the alone instrument of justification," and teach, that "faith justifies a sinner in the sight of God, only as it is an instrument by which he receiveth and applieth Christ and his righteousness." As the word condition is ambiguous, apt to be misunderstood, and is frequently employed in an unsound and dangerous sense, it is now disused by evangelical divines."


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## MW

Semper Fidelis said:


> Thus, we cannot say: "Well, all of that decree stuff is related to the CoR but the CoG works itself out in time so it's for all." The two are inseparably connected.



It is interesting you say this, Rich, because historically, it was owing to this tendency to separate redemption and grace, and the creation of working conditions to be fulfilled by men in the covenant of grace, that theologians abandoned the idea they are two different covenants. It was seen that the simpler language of the Confession and Catechisms in relation to a single covenant of grace avoids speculation and removes the problems connected with making redemption a distinct covenant on its own.


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## Semper Fidelis

MW said:


> Semper Fidelis said:
> 
> 
> 
> Thus, we cannot say: "Well, all of that decree stuff is related to the CoR but the CoG works itself out in time so it's for all." The two are inseparably connected.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> It is interesting you say this, Rich, because historically, it was owing to this tendency to separate redemption and grace, and the creation of working conditions to be fulfilled by men in the covenant of grace, that theologians abandoned the idea they are two different covenants. It was seen that the simpler language of the Confession and Catechisms in relation to a single covenant of grace avoids speculation and removes the problems connected with making redemption a distinct covenant on its own.
Click to expand...


Given the qualifications that are made by Gillespie I can understand why some would say that the styling of these Covenants as separate covenants is functionally irrelevant. The main thing that seems to differ between them is the fact that the "CoR" is an immanent act but the transient and applicatory "working out" come by a different name. Once we understand immanent, transient, and applicatory acts of the Triune God then how we name the Covenant seems more for the purposes of giving shorthand to what we understand. I think the bottom line is simply conceiving that the "parties" in God's immanent act differs from the parties in the transient and applicatory acts doesn't allow us to "change the scope" of the immanent act simply because it occurs in time.


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