Hudsonville
Protestant Reformed Church
5101 Beechtree
Hudsonville, Michigan 49426
Services: 9:30 a.m. and 6:00 p.m.
Homepage on Internet: http://www.prca.org
Vol. 8, No. 23
Contents:
God’s Hammer (12):
Unbreakable Scripture (Part 3)
Loved
With Everlasting Love
Is
Universal Atonement True? (2)
Last time we considered the fact that the phrase, "I said, Ye are gods" (Ps.
82:6) is a poetic hyperbole from an otherwise obscure portion of the OT. If this statement
"cannot be broken" (John 10:34-35), then surely no Scripture can be broken.
However, there is an argument against this interpretation—an argument even made by some leading evangelicals—which would nullify this testimony to the inerrancy of Scripture from Christ’s words in John 10:34-35. They say that when Jesus said, "the scripture cannot be broken" (John 10:35), he was making an ad hominum argument. That is, they say that Christ did not personally believe in the inerrancy of Scripture or at least that He was not affirming it here. Rather, they say that He knew that His Jewish opponents believed in the inerrancy of Scripture and (while He did not believe it Himself) He used this against them.
This interpretation fails for two main reasons. First, where Jesus disagreed with the Jews and their religious leaders, He told them plainly. He did not evade issues or let them pass. He spoke clearly against their erroneous understanding of God’s moral law (Matt. 5). He opposed their view of divorce and remarriage (Matt. 19). He rejected their earthy views of the Messiah (John 6). Against the Sadducees, He asserted the bodily resurrection of the dead; and against the Pharisees, He explained that the Christ was David’s son and David’s Lord (Matt. 22). Fearlessly, He told the unbelieving Jews that they were not sons of Abraham but sons of the devil (John 8). If the Jews were wrong in believing the OT to be inerrant, would not Christ have corrected them?
Second, we know that Jesus did not say "the scripture cannot be broken" (John 10:35) merely as an ad hominum argument, because He always wielded the Scriptures as God’s unbreakable Word. "For verily I say unto you," He declared, "Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled" (Matt. 5:18). His confession of Scripture was "thy word is truth"—all of it, absolutely (John 17:17). In the wilderness He triumphed over the devil with the Scriptures as His final, unassailable authority ("It is written;" Matt. 4:4, 7, 10). How could He have said these things if He believed that the Bible contains errors? How could He have said these things if He did not believe that God’s Word is inerrant?
Saints of God, we have a wonderful gift from our Father: the unbreakable Scriptures!
You can trust its proclamations for your salvation. You can rest on its promises for your
hope beyond the grave. Place your full confidence in the Holy Bible and in the glorious
Savior whom it presents! Rev. Angus Stewart
The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I
have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee
(Jer. 31:3).
Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh,
fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by
nature the children of wrath, even as
others (Eph. 2:3).
The question asked is: "Is
God both loving and angry with a Christian at the same time before his
conversion?"
The problem which the questioner raises is rooted in a very common misconception.
That misconception is: Anger is incompatible with love. But is this really true? Let us
think about it for a moment. Even in human relationships it is possible to be angry with a
friend, while one's love for the friend remains constant. Perhaps the friend has done
something cruel and we are justly angry at this unexpected act of cruelty. The same is
true of the relationship between parents and children. Parents, especially covenant
parents, love their children dearly. But does this love exclude anger when the children
are disobedient? By no means. So also in
God's relationship to His people. He can both love them and be angry with them at the same
time. We may even carry this one step further. God is angry with them because He
loves them.
We must look at the matter a little more closely, howevcr, so that we understand it
well, for it touches on an important aspect of our own life of fellowship with God.
God loves His people with an eternal love. This is the clear and unmistakable language of
Jeremiah 31:3, which text the reader included with the question.
This eternal love which God has for His people is not, however, in any way rooted
in them or based upon them. These people have not only not done one thing to merit that
love; they have done everything to make themselves unworthy of that love, for they have
sinned in Adam and their sinful flesh always brings forth evil works.
God's
love is rooted in His own divine being. He loves Himself with a perfect love
as the triune God. He sovereignly and freely chooses to reveal that love in such a way
that He loves wholly unworthy sinners whom He makes the object of that love. Those whom He
makes the objects of His love are those whom He chooses to be His own elect people.
These elect people are, by nature and through birth, utterly depraved. God cannot
and does not love them as sinners; this would be impossible. He loves them in Jesus
Christ, His own Son, whom He gave to make the perfect sacrifice for sin that only God's
Son could make. "Herein is love, nor that we loved God, but that he loved us, and
sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins" (I John 4:10).
This eternal love of God does not mean that God can never be angry with His people.
He is angry ... frequently. He is angry with them when they are as yet unconverted. He is
angry with them when they turn their backs on His law and walk in their own ways; when
they are ungrateful for all His blessings; when they despise the good things He gives to
them.
But this anger of God is shown to them so that it is their experience. While
they are unconverted, they know only the anger and wrath of God. But it is equally their
experience when, after they have been converted, they turn to sinful ways and will not
confess their sins. (Read Psalm 32.)
But anger is not incompatible with love. God causes His people to experience His anger in
order to restore them and lead them back to Himself. Knowing His anger, they cry out in
sorrow for sin and seek forgiveness in God's mercy. Any child who loves his parents does
the same. He cannot bear to have his parents angry with him; thus anger becomes a means to
bring him to repentance.
Especially when God chastises us do we experience His anger upon us. This explains why the
Psalmist cries out, "O Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thy
hot displeasure" (Ps. 6:1). Remember, this is a converted David who prays this.
But it is quite different with the wicked. God is angry with them too, of course.
But God's anger is nor the correcting anger of love, but the destroying anger of hatred
and the curse. God loved Jacob, but He hated Esau (Rom 9:13). Upon Esau He poured out His
fierce anger. This too is rooted in God's own being: His love for Himself as the only true
and holy God; His hatred of sin; His fierce avenging fury against the workers of iniquity.
It is because God's wrath is poured out upon His Son that the believer runs with
speed to the cross to hide beneath its shadow. The cross is the pre-eminent display of how
God deals with us. The cross is the awful suffering that it was for Christ because all the
fury of God's wrath for the sin of all the elect was poured out on Christ. It was the full
wrath of God as revealed in Hell. It came upon Christ in such full measure that He knew
nothing but wrath, and was so swallowed up in it that He momentarily could not understand
why this awful maelstrom of fury should engulf Him: "My God, my God, why... ?" And
yet at that moment when Christ knew only God's anger, God, as it were, loved
Him the most. For Christ, even in that black hour, loved His God with all His heart and
mind and soul and strength. Christ, even at the bottom of Hell said: "I cannot
understand such awful agony, nor why Thou art angry with me; but, oh my God, I love Thee
still." How is it possible that God could have anything else but love for His own
dear Son? -- even when Christ knew nothing but wrath? It was the display of God's love for
Himself revealed in love for sinners such as you and I.
Every child of God knows something of God's anger. Let us not conclude from this
anger that God no longer loves us or that we are not one of His children; let us repent of
our sins, forsake our evil ways, and flee to the cross for refuge. There we will find the
love of God in all its amazing blessedness.
Prof. Herman Hanko
Is Universal Atonement True? (2)
In the last article we began to critique the widely held position that Christ shed His blood to redeem everyone head for head. Now we shall add to the previous four arguments, three others based upon Scriptural designations of those for whom Christ died.
(5) Christ died for His "people" (Matt.1:21) and His "friends" (John 15:13). The "people" whom Christ redeemed are further described as "his seed" (Isa. 53:10) and not the seed of the serpent (Gen. 3:15); His "sons," "children" and "brethren" (Heb. 2:10- 14) and not "bastards" (Heb.12:8); His "sheep" (John 10:15) and not "the goats" (Matt. 25:33); His "church" (Acts 20:28; Eph. 5:25) and not the "synagogue of Satan" (Rev. 3:9); and the "man” (Isa. 53:11-12; Matt. 26:28) and not everybody head for head.
(6) In John 10, Jesus teaches that He, the good shepherd, died for His sheep (11, 15). Later Jesus told some people that they were not His sheep and that this was the reason why they did not believe: "But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep" (26). Our argument is simple: Jesus died for His sheep; He told certain people that they were not His sheep; therefore Jesus did not die for them. Jesus also said that His sheep were given to Him by His Father ("My Father, which gave them me;" 29). The Father gave the sheep to Christ in His eternal purpose of election so that He might die for them and gather them out of all nations (16). Since Christ died for His sheep, and His sheep are the elect, Christ died for the elect.
(7) In His high priestly prayer, Christ says, "I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine" (John 17:9). If Jesus did not do the lesser thing (pray for the world), is it likely that He did the greater thing (die for the world)? Moreover, intercession is one of the two aspects of Christ's priestly work. If Christ did not pray for the world (one aspect of his priestly work), is it possible that He died for the world (the other aspect of his priestly work)? This would destroy the unity of Christ's priestly office for He would be dying for those for whom He did not (and does not) intercede. Consider also that Christ prays on the basis of His finished work of redemption. Therefore if Christ did not pray for the world, it is because He did not die to redeem the world.
Remember also that Jesus is here praying
just hours before the cross and with a view to His sacrificial death, for He says,
"Father, the hour is come" (1). Throughout John 17, Christ's prayers (and
therefore His redeeming work) are particular, only for the elect, those whom the Father
gave Him (2, 6, 9, 11, 12, 24). Christ says, "And for their sakes I sanctify
myself, that they also might be sanctified" (19). Christ's sanctifying Himself is His
setting Himself apart from all sin to do the will of Him who sent Him. Christ
especially set Himself apart as our willing sacrifice on the cross. And this, He tells us,
was "for their sakes," those whom the Father gave Him, the elect. Thus
Christ's prayers and sacrifice are not only particular - "for them which thou hast
given me" (9) - but also exclusive, "nor for the world" (9). Rev. Angus
Stewart