Reprobation and God’s Good Pleasure (2)

Those who teach a gracious and well-meant gospel offer do not want sovereign reprobation. The curious defence of the defenders of a well-meant offer is not a pious defence of the gospel, nor are these defenders interested in true evangelism; their vendetta is against the doctrine of reprobation. They do not want a sovereign God who accomplishes all his good pleasure in the salvation of the elect and also in the damnation of the reprobate. They are willing to sell the latter in the interests of a god who loves all men and seeks their salvation.

But someone may say, How can God sovereignly accomplish His decree of reprobation and still earnestly and seriously insist that all men repent of sin and believe in Christ? Or, to put it bluntly, How can God’s eternal purpose and counsel sovereignly be realized in the damnation of the wicked and yet it also be true that God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Eze. 33:11)?

Such a formulation of the question clearly puts the whole matter on a different level. The question is no longer the rightness or wrongness of a gracious and well-meant gospel offer. The gracious gospel offer is out of the window and has no place in Reformed thought. The question is this: How can a sovereign God realize the counsel He has eternally determined, and yet leave man accountable for his sin? That is an entirely different question, and, as a matter of fact, one with which the church has struggled since the time of Augustine (354-430). It is a question Luther answers in his book, The Bondage of the Will. It is a question Calvin faces in his treatise on God’s eternal predestination. It is a question that is addressed in the Canons of Dordrecht.

Let me quote from the Canons. In the Conclusion of the Canons, the fathers at Dordt answer some vicious charges that were made by the Arminians against the teaching of the Canons on the truth of sovereign predestination. One of the objections that was made by the Arminians was that the doctrine of sovereign predestination (especially reprobation) makes God the author of sin. While that charge is repudiated in the Canonsproper, it is also repudiated in the Conclusion. We read there this statement: "[TheSynodrejectsthechargethatpredestinationteaches] that in the same manner in which the election is the fountain and the cause of faith and good works, reprobation is the cause of unbelief and impiety."

The meaning here is clear. Dordt said that election is "the fountain and the cause of faith and good works." That is strong language, and Dordt insists on it. But at the same time, Dordt also says that reprobation is not the cause of unbelief "in the same manner" as faith is the fountain and cause of faith. In other words, reprobation, though sovereign, cannot be said to be the cause of unbelief. The Canons proper say, "It is not the fault of the gospel, nor of Christ offered therein, nor of God, who calls men by the gospel and confers upon them various gifts, that those who are called by the ministry of the Word refuse to come and be converted. The fault lies in themselves ..." (III/IV:9)

In the history of Reformed theology, the orthodox have expressed the truth that God is sovereign and man remains accountable in this way: God sovereignly accomplishes reprobation in the way of man’s unbelief. Dordt rejects the idea that reprobation is the cause of unbelief. Dordt also rejects the error of saying that reprobation is because of unbelief, an idea that makes unbelief the ground for God’s reprobation. And so, the expression has been and is still used: God accomplishes sovereignly his eternal decree of reprobation in the way of unbelief. In this expression, God’s sovereignty is maintained and man’s accountability is preserved.

One may claim that this is hard to understand. I agree. At that point where God’s will touches the will of man in such a way that God’s will is accomplished and man remains accountable before God, we confront a great and wonderful work of God that is beyond our understanding.

But our inability to understand this work of God is, after all, not surprising. What works of God do we understand? Not one of them! We do not understand how a baby is conceived and formed in the womb of its mother and becomes a new person with a soul or spirit. We do not understand how a blade of grass grows in the field, for we do not understand the principle of life that makes this possible. We do not understand how God moves every drop of blood in our veins and arteries by his sovereign and omnipresent power and Godhead. We are feeble and small. We know almost nothing of the greatness of God. We stand in awe of the simplest of His works. We bow in humble adoration before His majesty.

Thus one problem persists in our understanding of the sovereign work of the gospel. Its difficulty may surely not be reason to corrupt the truth. We know with absolute certainty that the God of sovereign election and reprobation does not desire and long for the salvation of all men. We bow before the Scriptures that teach clearly that God has one will in Jesus Christ according to which He accomplishes all His good pleasure. We know to our everlasting shame that we are responsible for every sin we commit and that we deserve everlasting hell. We know that we cannot now, and never will be able to, lay the charge of our sin at God’s feet. And all the wicked in hell will have to confess that they are in hell because of their own refusal to repent of their sin. The righteous shall forever marvel at the greatness of God’s grace and mercy revealed in Jesus Christ that has given such glory to us poor sinners.

The theodicy is the goal of all history: that God is vindicated in all He does and justified in all His works. His righteousness and holiness are vindicated in the everlasting punishment of the wicked; His gracious gift of salvation is magnified in Jesus Christ in whom alone we have our salvation. God is God. To him is all praise and glory forever and ever, world without end.