The Gift of Free Grace

[JM]

“Evangelical repentance is the gift of free grace; faith is the gift of God. What is God’s, as a gift to bestow, cannot be man’s duty to perform as a condition of salvation. Those who are invited to look to Christ, to come to Him for salvation, are very minutely described: they are the weary and heavy laden with sin, the penitent, the hungry and thirsty soul, etc., etc.; these are the characters invited to come to and believe in Christ, and not all men (Mt 11:28; Isa 55:1; Mr 2:17).” - Christopher Ness

 

[NB3K]

Beautiful quote. When I was told that in order to be saved I must choose Jesus as my Lord & Savior, I simply quoted:

Isa 65:1 I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for me; I was ready to be found by those who did not seek me. I said, "Here am I, here am I," to a nation that was not called by my name.


Grace is God seeking you even when you will not seek Him.

 

[NB3K]

Check out this quote of Arminius:

Predestination, when thus explained, is

1. The foundation of Christianity, and of salvation and its certainty.

2. It is the sum and the matter of the gospel; nay, it is the gospel itself, and on that account necessary to be believed in order to salvation, as far as the two first articles are concerned.


Now Arminius's version of predestination to him was the Gospel, but the same said doctrine as held by us according to the Scriptures is not to be considered as the gospel???? I find it amazingly funny !

 

[py3ak]

“Evangelical repentance is the gift of free grace; faith is the gift of God. What is God’s, as a gift to bestow, cannot be man’s duty to perform as a condition of salvation. Those who are invited to look to Christ, to come to Him for salvation, are very minutely described: they are the weary and heavy laden with sin, the penitent, the hungry and thirsty soul, etc., etc.; these are the characters invited to come to and believe in Christ, and not all men (Mt 11:28; Isa 55:1; Mr 2:17).” - Christopher Ness

WLC 32

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; and to enable them unto all holy obedience, as the evidence of the truth of their faith and thankfulness to God, and as the way which he has appointed them to salvation.

Faith is a condition to interest sinners in the Mediator: that it is a gift does not make it any less of a sine qua non.

 

[GulfCoast Presbyterian]

Beautiful quote. When I was told that in order to be saved I must choose Jesus as my Lord & Savior, I simply quoted:

Isa 65:1 I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for me; I was ready to be found by those who did not seek me. I said, "Here am I, here am I," to a nation that was not called by my name.


Grace is God seeking you even when you will not seek Him.

Sort of along that line, I like when Paul says : Then Isaiah is so bold as to say,
“I have been found by those who did not seek me;
I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me.”
(Romans 10:20 ESV)

I appreciate the thought of "boldness" when the crusading arminian down the street is pesking at me like a mosquito.

 

[JM]

The work by Ness was recommended by John Owen, good stuff.

 

[py3ak]

The work by Ness was recommended by John Owen, good stuff.

First, Owen is not the doctrinal standard by which the Board is governed; the Westminster Standards are that.
Second, there may be contextual or circumstantial reasons for Ness to speak as he does, but the Larger Catechism shows that there is also an orthodox sense in which one may speak of faith as a condition of the second covenant.
Third, Owen himself acknowledges that there is a proper sense to speak of conditions of salvation. Which means that in his recommendation of Ness he either put a positive construction on Ness' words that you quoted, that he changed his mind between his recommendation of Ness and his own treatise on justification, or that he didn't mean to recommend every phrase and expression in Ness, or overlooked this one.

John Owen, The Doctrine of Justification by Faith, Chapter 3

Some do plead that faith is the condition of our justification, and that otherwise it is not to be conceived of. As I said before, so I say again, I shall not contend with any man about words, terms, or expressions, so long as what is intended by them is agreed upon. And there is an obvious sense wherein faith may he called the condition of our justification; for no more may be intended thereby, but that it is the duty on our part which God requires, that we may be justified. And this the whole Scripture bears witness unto. Yet this hinders not but that, as unto its use, it may be the instrument whereby we apprehend or receive Christ and his righteousness. But to assert it the condition of our justification, or that we are justified by it as the condition of the new covenant, so as, from a preconceived signification of that word, to give it another use in justification, exclusive of that pleaded for, as the instrumental cause thereof, is not easily to be admitted; because it supposes an alteration in the substance of the doctrine itself.

(...)

For instance, it is commonly said that faith and new obedience are the condition of the new covenant; but yet, because of the ambiguous signification and various use of that term (condition) we cannot certainly understand what is intended in the assertion. If no more be intended but that God, in and by the new covenant, does indispensably require these things of us, — that is, the restipulation of a good conscience towards God, by the resurrection of Christ from the dead, in order unto his own glory, and our full enjoyment of all the benefits of it, it is unquestionably true; but if it be intended that they are such a condition of the covenant as to be by us performed antecedently unto the participation of any grace, mercy, or privilege of it, so as that they should be the consideration and procuring causes of them, — that they should be all of them, as some speak, the reward of our faith and obedience, — it is most false, and not only contrary to express testimonies of Scripture, but destructive of the nature of the covenant itself.

If it be intended that these things, though promised in the covenant, and wrought in us by the grace of God, are yet duties required of us, in order unto the participation and enjoyment of the full end of the covenant in glory, it is the truth which is asserted; but if it be said that faith and new obedience — that is, the works of righteousness
which we do — are so the condition of the covenant, as that whatever the one is ordained of God as a means of, and in order to such or such an end, as justification, that the other is likewise ordained unto the same end, with the same kind of efficacy, or with the same respect unto the effect, it is expressly contrary to the whole scope and express design of the apostle on that subject.

But it will be said that a condition in the sense intended, when faith is said to be a condition of our justification, is no more but that it is “causa sine qua non”; which is easy enough to be apprehended. But yet neither are we so delivered out of uncertainties into a plain understanding of what is intended; for these “causa sine quibus non” may be taken largely or more strictly and precisely. So are they commonly distinguished by the masters in these arts. Those so called, in a larger sense, are all such causes, in any kind of efficiency or merit, as are inferior unto principal causes, and would operate nothing without them; but in conjunction with them, have a real effective influence, physical or moral, into the production of the effect. And if we take a condition to be a “causa sine qua non” in this sense, we are still at a loss what may be its use, efficiency, or merit, with respect unto our justification. If it be taken more strictly for that which is necessarily present, but has no causality in any kind, not that of a receptive instrument, I cannot understand how it should be an ordinance of God. For every thing that he has appointed unto any end, moral or spiritual, has, by virtue of that appointment, either a symbolical instructive efficacy, or an active efficiency, or a rewardable condecency, with respect unto that end. Other things may be generally and remotely necessary unto such an end, so far as it partakes of the order of natural beings, which are not ordinances of God with respect thereunto, and so have no kind of causality with respect unto it, as it is moral or spiritual. So the air we breathe is needful unto the preaching of the word, and consequently a “causa sine qua non” thereof; but an ordinance of God with especial respect thereunto it is not. But every thing that he appoints unto an especial spiritual end, has an efficacy or operation in one or other of the ways mentioned; for they either concur with the principal cause in its internal efficiency, or they operate externally in the removal of obstacles and hindrances that oppose the principal cause in its efficiency.
And this excludes all causes “sine quibus non,” strictly so taken, from any place among divine ordinances. God appoints nothing for an end that shall do nothing. His sacraments are not “arga semeia” but, by virtue of his institution, do exhibit that grace which they do not in themselves contain. The preaching of the word has a real efficiency unto all the ends of it. So have all the graces and duties that he works in us, and requires of us: by them all are “we made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light;” and our whole obedience, through his gracious appointment, has a rewardable condecency with respect unto eternal life. Wherefore, as faith may be allowed to be the condition of our justification, if no more be intended thereby but that it is what God requires of us that we may be justified; so, to confine the declaration of its use in our justification unto its being the condition of it, when so much as a determinate signification of it cannot be agreed upon, is subservient only unto the interest of unprofitable strife and contention.

 

[JM]

Yup. I understand.