The Gospel of Deceit - Dr George Ella

Beware of what lies behind the impressive mask!! There is deceit and death!!!

The Gospel of Deceit

http://evangelica.de/articles/doctrine/the-gospel-of-deceit/
By Dr George Ella

Calvinism confusedOur Lord tells us to be balanced in our teaching, not giving that which is holy to the dogs, nor giving stones where bread is needed. This balance has been broken severely by the modern pseudo-Free-Offer movement.

Spurgeon summed Calvinism up as ‘salvation by grace alone’, but views of Calvinists in relation to saving grace have drastically changed. Besides, Calvin would be appalled to learn that the saving Gospel which emanates from God but which is open to such contrary interpretations now bears his name. It would be thus better to drop the term. This article is therefore not a defence of Calvinism but a defence of the doctrine of salvation by grace alone.

Two factions have emerged amongst modern Calvinists. One teaches that all men are potentially saved by virtue of Christ’s atonement for sin. The other teaches that without the grace of God mankind is not only lost but absolutely and certainly damned. The first group teaches that in evangelising one must hide the ‘deep and secret’ elements of God’s grace from the sinner and reserve the full gospel for the already saved. The good news that God loves the sinner must be preached and his responsibility and duty appealed to so that he will love God back. The second group teaches that only the full gospel is the power of God unto salvation which includes God’s teaching on man’s doom, depravity, His eternal electing love for His people, effectual calling, efficacious atonement, sovereign grace and the perseverance in faith of the saints. The latter preach to all men everywhere as the Spirit leads, knowing that the gospel comes as a savour of life unto life to some but as a savour of death unto death to others.

The first group used to be called Arminians, Free-Willers or Wesleyans but many of them now claim they are ‘Moderate Calvinists’, though ‘Modernists’ would be a better word. These ‘Moderates’ call the second group ‘Hyper-Calvinists’, ‘Antinomians’ and ‘Hardshells’. It is symptomatic of man’s spiritual blindness that he prevents the truth from being seen by using terms and titles forged on the anvils of Babel. These Arminianisers of the doctrines of grace can only maintain their theory of God’s provisions being made effective by man’s agency in salvation by abandoning the Biblical doctrine of a full, particular, sufficient and entirely successful atonement. It is also plain that these ‘Calvinistic Arminians’ are increasingly rejecting the Authorised Version because it affirms strongly the sovereignty of God to the detriment of man’s agency. Instead, a bevy of translations are now used when they affirm the so-called ‘Moderate Calvinist’ position, though rejected when they do not. Indeed, those evangelicals who in their youth renounced the Liberal Higher Critical Movement are now happily using their more negative methods to place their own highly limited gospel in a more acceptable light.

This new Modernism does not openly reject the all-sufficiency of the atonement in salvation. What it does is claim that the all-sufficiency of the atonement does not refer to its application in the case of sinners. For them, salvation accomplished is not the same as salvation applied. The atonement, is only theoretically sufficient for all, but it only becomes a practical proposition when it is accepted. Thus salvation is not effected in Christ’s work on the cross but merely on the sinner’s reception of it. Christ’s work as such saves no one. It must be appropriated by man. Thus man is made the measure of all things. If some men are lost, Christ died in vain for them. If some refuse salvation, it is because they have thwarted God’s will.


Johnson’s Jinks

Several of these Babel forgeries have bothered the Christian Press recently under the guise of duty-faith and the free offer. One is an article by Phillip R. Johnson entitled A Primer on Hyper-Calvinism, published by the Sword and Trowel (March, 2002). Here, the author boasts that we must twist Scripture to disagree with him. There is no danger of this. The little he says based on Scripture would be accepted by most of those he opposes and everything he says against his opponents is unfounded, undocumented prejudice and silly name-calling. Johnson’s argument that all men are duty-bound to believe in Christ within the ‘Free Offer’ is as rationalistic as it is illogical and un-Biblical. His premise is not that man is spiritually fallen and has not the Spirit of God but that man has two natures, the moral and the natural. The moral nature is fallen, the natural nature is not. Thus he concludes "The defect (sic!) in man is his own fault, not God’s. Therefore man’s own inability is something he is guilty for, and that inability cannot therefore be seen as something that relieves the sinner of responsibility." There is much truth in this statement but where does it leave us? It leaves us with a man who is morally defective but bodily unfallen. All his inabilities are moral and not part of his natural make up. It appears that man’s ability to respond to the gospel is to be found in his unfallen natural capacities. But sin has marred all and man is fallen in all his capacities.

Furthermore, to divide man’s nature into the fallen moral and the unfallen natural is quite foreign to Scripture which tells us that the wages of sin is death, ie. sin brings with it spiritual, moral and natural corruption. Even if we could accept Johnson’s simplistic theory as Scriptural, how can we deduce from this that natural, fallen man, dead in trespasses and sins, has the known and given duty to exercise faith savingly? And from whence does he receive the power to quicken himself? Johnson does not tell us and he ends his ‘proof’ by merely stating that the sinner is responsible for his moral defects. Who would disagree? Our concern, however, is how to make a fallen sinner stand again. Even if Johnson’s echo of old Liberalism were true, we cannot appeal to the duties of a morally corrupt person to give him insight into salvation nor can we appeal to his fallen natural abilities. We must return to the definition of Calvinism given by Spurgeon. Salvation is by grace alone and we are called to preach this to all as the Spirit leads but we, of ourselves, cannot guarantee this Salvation to every man or even any man. Salvation is not a commodity to be offered to all under a guarantee, but it is the status of those placed in union with Christ before the foundation of the world. The presentation of the gospel can only be made in conjunction with this fact. We preach Christ and Him crucified and the Spirit offers salvation to those for whom it was purchased. We are to do our work dutifully, knowing that the Spirit does His.

Though Johnson’s grounds for his duty-faith cum free-offer is based on a philosophical approach to man which is firmly denied by Scripture, he makes equal shipwreck of his historical argument. Dealing with so-called Hyper-Calvinists who allegedly oppose "all forms of evangelism and preaching to the unsaved", he tells us that the most famous example of this kind is John Ryland Senior. Needless to say, Ryland took over a normal sized church-membership in Northampton and his evangelistic activities within very few years increased that membership seven-fold. His church-building had to be extended twice during his ministry. The busy preacher, friend of Hervey and Toplady, was not merely called to his own flock but evangelised in no less than twenty different surrounding villages. He constantly drove his coach to thickly populated areas or places of public recreation, stood on the driver’s seat and preach to the masses so that they trembled in their sin and pleaded to God for mercy. True, he criticised the use of the term ‘offer’ because of the philosophical approach to the atonement and man’s state newly associated with it. He affirmed, "The word offer is not so proper as declaration, proposal, or gift. The gospel is a declaration of the free grace of God. It is a proposal of salvation by Jesus Christ, and it proclaims Christ as the free and absolute gift of God." These very words reveal the heart of a man dedicated to God in fervent evangelism.

Johnson also seriously errs when he presents William Huntington sarcastically as the ‘godfather’ of those who deny the gospel call. Huntington filled his London church week after week with three thousand people, though taking great pains not to poach other ministers’ hearers. No other minister of his day had such evangelistic success! Conversions accompanied most services. Johnson’s ignorance of the many appeals Huntington made to sinners to flee from the wrath to come is inexcusable in a man who claims to have read his works. Nor can Johnson place Huntington amongst those who reject the term ‘offer of the gospel’ as his works show that he used the words freely, though not in the limited and Liberal way of the modern Free Offer abusers of the term.

Johnson links the offer of Christ in the gospel with common grace. This grace, common to all men, he argues, is the general call of the gospel. Johnson gives us Scriptural evidence for God allowing the sun to shine on the just and the unjust alike but if this is all that Johnson means by his duty-faith cum free-offer system, it is quite void of the gospel that makes unjust men just. This was the gospel that Ryland Sen. and Huntington preached which Johnson labels ‘Hardshellism`, Hyper-Calvinism’ and ‘Antinomianism’. One wonders what purpose this modern scoffer has in thus standing the gospel on its head and slandering the saints of God under the thin disguise of one who ‘is concerned’ about the modern ‘threat’ to gospel preaching. One would think he wished to abolish it!

Johnson concludes by stating that God loves all reprobates compassionately but is unable to love them redemptively - God’s love is neither compassionate nor powerful enough to redeem such stubborn sinners! This is the pure ‘God is Dead’ heresy of Dorothy Sölle and her band of sceptics. If man’s agency does not procure his salvation, Christ has died in vain and thus He is Christ no longer.


Watts’ Whims

The second Babel pronouncement is an essay-reprint by Malcolm Watts entitled The Free Offer of the Gospel, published in the magazine of Emmanuel Church, Salisbury (2001-2002). Watts defines the ‘offer’ as an expression of willingness to give a person something conditionally on his assent. He thus compares accepting Christ as someone who on buying goods at Bristol market, finds them free of charge and accepts them. His proof text is Isaiah 55:1 "Ho, every one that thirsteth . . . . . . by wine and milk without money and without price." He forgets that this passage is referring to the prepared Bride of Christ being called by the Bridegroom and not to every man jack. Striving to find backing not only in the above Scripture but also in the various Calvinistic tenets such as the Canons of Dort and Westminster Confession, Watts gets himself into difficulties. These documents speak of Jesus being freely offered to the elect in the gospel. This is what the Marrow Men believed when they used the word ‘offer’ and this is what Huntington taught. This offer, then, is not indiscriminately to all men, based on God’s common grace to all but for the elect only. Watt appears to admit this, yet contrary-wise teaches that ‘to offer’ means to be willing to give something to somebody if they are willing to receive it. Modern Free Offer Liberals call this the ‘well-meant offer’, i.e. you offer Christ as if you really have Him to offer people indiscriminately and you pretend that everybody can accept him and that salvation is truly for them. The preacher strives to hoodwink the hearer into imagining himself in a secure position and able to take advantage of the offer, though the only warrant (Watt’s word) for such action is in the deceptive call of the ill-intentioned preacher. Watt says he is not basing his theory on isolated texts. Evidently! He does not give any Scripture at all to back up his extraordinary psychological approach to preaching. Nor do I believe that he could find any.

Now Watts extends his deceit. He tells us that he is not talking about the whole revelation of God but merely the part that says Christ is Saviour – everybody’s Saviour! Here Watts quotes Boston for backing who tells us that a physician appointed to a particular society can be visited by any in that society. Watt’s is forgetting that Boston did not believe in the deceitful preaching of a ‘well-meant’ offer (nor do the other ‘experts’ he wrongly quotes) and, in Watt’s case, the comparison does not hold water. The physician was there to heal all, whereas the Scripture and Declarations of Faith Watts’ quotes say that only the elect are healed.

Quoting Isaac Watts, our Watts now tells us that "none of the sons and daughters of Adam" are excluded from the salvation offered in the gospel. He then asks "Does this surprise you? Well, frankly, yes. What need then for the Day of Judgement and hell’s torments? What need is there for God to have chosen an elect people in Christ before the foundation of the world? Again, Watts back-pedals, saying that he is only talking about those who ‘will’. But man’s fallen ‘will’ is a ‘will not’! Here Fullerism lurks with its slogan "I can if I will?" Now Watts tells us another tale of the Queen giving everyone invitations to walk into her palace. This is the Free Offer in the gospel. All may walk in! This is the warrant for faith, says Watts. Now the term ‘warrant’ means a written authorisation or guarantee. If Watts feels that he has a written authorisation and guarantee of salvation for all, he ought to produce it. If not, he ought to be honest and tell us that there are those for whom God neither authorises nor guarantees salvation.

Watts, like Johnson, ignores Christ’s atoning work with its adopting, justifying and sanctifying outcome. This is not part of his watered-down gospel which presents Christ as everybody’s saviour. He does tell us, however, that Christ is offered particularly. At once I thought that Watts was becoming orthodox and believed in particular atonement. No such thing! Watts tells us that salvation in the offer is not general to all but particular to each and every one of us.

This message from Babel’s tower ends with an assurance that Watts is sincere. This general offer which is for every particular one must be preached sincerely and lovingly, he tells us. When he speaks, hearers must feel that God is beseeching them! But how can Watts look a man in the face, whom he does not know from Adam and tell him that he is being given in loving sincerity an authorisation and guarantee of his own particular salvation. Would he tell this to Esau? Would he tell this to Dives? Would he tell this to Judas? Would he tell this to the devil?


Murray’s Morass

The third recent attempt to redesign and limit God’s saving grace is a reprint of John Murray’s essay on the Free Offer. Murray starts by telling us that God desires the salvation of all men and quotes a Presbyterian Church article which says that God loves the penitent and desires the salvation of the impenitent and reprobate. He then strives to back this up by quoting Ezekial 33:11 which does not say that God desires the salvation of reprobates but that he has pleasure in the wicked when they turn to him and are saved. Though he has not proven his point re God’s desire, Murray argues that God would not desire the salvation of all without distinction unless He had provided the means for them. Thus the free offer is not a mere offer but "God delights that those to whom the offer comes would enjoy what is offered in all its fullness". The question of how God could delight in offering what He knows will not be accepted is left unanswered.

Murray now turns to what he calls the Scriptural basis for his Free Offer preaching. He finds this in common grace as exhibited in Matthew 5:44-48, Luke 6:27, 28 and Acts 14:17 which allegedly proves that believers and reprobates alike are recipients of God’s favour. Again, we are reminded that the sun shines on both the just and unjust and that such passages are "redolent of the pity and compassion in the heart of God that overflow in the bestowment of kindness." But what has this to do with a warrant of salvation for both the unjust and the just provided in the Free Offer? Murray answers tantalisingly, "What bearing this may have upon the grace of God manifested in the free offer of the gospel to all without distinction remains to be seen". A good writer always keeps his audience in suspense!

Quoting Deuteronomy 5:29; 32:29; Psalm 81:13 and Isaiah 48:18, Murray expounds his Liberal ‘Two Wills’ teaching which is so much part of the free offer psychology. God, he tells us, has a decretive will and a will to save those whom He has not decreed to be saved. God is undecided about the fate of the wicked. He has two wills about it. The Father has one will and Christ has another, contradictory will. Murray spends some time arguing his case here, mostly based on his highly critical views of the Hebrew text. His conclusion is that Christ has a totally different view of salvation to the Father’s. This cannot be put down to the Fact that Jesus was human and that the Father was not, Murray assures us, but it must reflect two distinct Divine wills. It is obvious that Murray builds his doctrine of a warranty of salvation for all on his imagined Jesus side, rather than on the decretal side of the Father.

Murray concludes the section by saying that God clearly is pleased to will that all should turn to Him in repentance. This is, however, not the dividing line between orthodoxy and Murrayism and his Free Offer gospellers. The line is where Murray preaches salvation for all where God demands repentance from all. The Scriptural demand for repentance does not automatically bring with it the guarantee or grant of salvation. All must repent because all have broken the law. Salvation is only by grace and God’s grace is obviously discriminate, otherwise hell would be empty. However, what Murray means by ‘pleased to will’ is not easy to discern. He does not tell us whether he is speaking of (for him) God’s effective will or His ineffective will. If it is God’s ineffective, non-decretal will that guarantees the salvation of all men, we can safely forget it as then no man will be saved. Murray merely tells us that what he calls ‘overtures’ to men are made on the basis that the full gospel must not be preached (‘Why?’ we must ask) and that the call to repentance brings with it the wherewithal to repent.

Murray promised explanation comes at the end in a garbled version of 2 Peter 3:9. Murray here questions that Peter is writing to the elect, though Peter says this, and tells us that we must take ‘The Lord . . . . is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish’ as Peter’s message to all men. He then proceeds to retranslate the passage giving it an interpretation which even his re-translation cannot bear. His warrant for this, he tells us, is ‘the analogy of Scripture’. But he has given us no Scripture which is analogous to his theory of a warranted salvation for all which he forces on Peter’s words. The gospel which Peter is preaching, Murray affirms, is not the gospel that all the elect will certainly be saved but that God wishes all to be saved, providing they grasp out and accept him. Paul is thus not speaking words of comfort to the already saved but words of theological confusion to the unsaved based on the watered down gospel which says, "God loves you. What are you going to do about it?’ Never be specific in preaching the gospel, Murray argues but keep the fact that the reprobate are doomed from them. However, the very fact that sinners are told to flee from doom is the gospel way of driving some to Christ. In Murray’s gospel there is only God’s ‘delight’ and ‘love’ for all men which morally drives people to him.

The height of Murray’s total theological confusion comes in his conclusion. "The full and free offer of the gospel is a grace bestowed upon all . . . . . the grace offered is nothing less than salvation in its richness and fullness. The love or loving-kindness that lies back of that offer is not anything less; it is the will to that salvation." "The loving and benevolent will that is the source of that offer and that grounds its veracity and reality in the will to the possession of Christ and the enjoyment of the salvation that resides in him." However, Murray has so confused the issue up to now with his various wills that it is not clear which will of God he means, the effective will or the ineffective one. We are thus left with the question, if God wills the salvation of all men, why are all men not saved? The question is also valid, ‘What has Murray’s free offer system to do with the preaching of the gospel?


A painful conclusion

The Finneyite ‘offer’ presented by these ministers is a mockery of the gospel call. It is a sad and perverse con-trick. It is not a well-meant offer, nor can it be a sincere offer, nor can it be a loving offer as it is an offer of deceit. The ‘gospel’ that Johnson, Watts and Murray so freely offer does not come as a certain life-bringer to some and a condemning judge to others. It is all empty smiles and cheers and desires on their god’s part. It rejects the God who has decreed all to save the elect and accepts a god who has decreed nothing and wills what he knows he will never have. It rejects the God who will have His holiness and righteous judgement preached to the nations. It rejects the eternal love of God for the people of His choice. It rejects the entire work of Christ in choosing the Bride promised Him from eternity. It sees preaching as a mere moral persuasion, based on the idea of a doting god who only wills for all people to accept him but does not will their acceptance. This is truly a blasphemous religion.

A Gospel Unworthy of Any Acceptation - Fullerism

A Gospel Unworthy of Any Acceptation
(Fullerism)

The 18th century is often called the Century of Reason. This is because Newtonian scientists and philosophers such as Locke taught that the workings of the known world and the ways of the unknown God could all be demonstrated by logical deduction. Men of letters such as Beattie and Blair in Scotland and Lessing in Germany taught that following the paths of logic was akin to following in the footsteps of God. Lessing even went so far as to say that Christ had the right use of reason in mind when He promised that the Holy Spirit would come. In his Education of the Human Race, Lessing pointed out that by the aid of reason, man would go on to perfection and finally reach a state of being Christ-like. Many Christians accepted this philosophy, arguing that as it issued from the pens of practising Christians, it could not be wrong. Others, such as the poet William Cowper, saw through the faulty logic. If reason alone made gods out of men, he argued, then God was quite superfluous. Needless to say, Cowper denounced such a system. To him it was the logic of fallen man and not the reasoning of God as revealed in Scripture.

The 18th century also brought with it a strong desire to reform public manners. The so-called Restoration period, which raised a play-boy King to the throne and brought literature and language down to the bawdy-house floor was not to be tolerate long by Providence. Writers such as Addison and Young began to clean up the English language and the Church of England responded with a best-selling book called The Whole Duty of Man which taught the necessity of good conduct and respectability for right living. High moral principles were put forward as the mark of a Godly life but there was no Gospel in the book but rather a latent teaching of righteousness according to works. Now the moral law, not reason, was emphasised as the measure of all things. This emphasis on duty to the moral law as opposed to the Mosaic law, brought with it an upsurge in Neonomianism and Amyraldism. Sincere obedience to moral precepts became the new gospel.
Then God in His mercy poured out His Spirit on Europe, the British Isles and the American colonies and men were raised up such as Spener, Franke and Untereyck on the Continent, Hervey, Gill, Brine, Toplady, Romaine and Huntington in Britain and Frelinghusen and Whitefield in America commuted backwards and forwards across the Atlantic planting the Word of God wherever they came. These men, though men of learning , logic and highly moral lives, had found something greater. They believed in preaching the righteousness of Christ imputed to elect sinners through the free grace of God as the result of a Saviour's redemptive and vicarious death for His Church.

Church statistics show that between 1700 and 1785 Protestant churches had grown by well over four hundred percent in Germany. In England literally hundreds of clergymen and Dissenting pastors were now preaching Christ as the fulfilment of the Law for His elect. The American colonies were ablaze with the light of the Gospel. Nevertheless, there were still many human ostriches in the churches at this time. Men who could not accept the mainly Calvinistic beliefs of the pioneers of the Great Awakening. Men who had buried their heads in the sands of false doctrine and not noticed what a great work was going on. The date 1785 is a memorable one for these men. It is the publishing date of a book by a Baptist pastor named Andrew Fuller called The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation. According to Fuller`s followers, there was no awakening in the 18th century amongst Baptists until this book was published and Fuller entered the scene to fill the same role in England that Luther had filled in Germany.

These human ostriches also argued that there was no sign of spiritual life outside of the Baptist churches either and looked upon such Anglican pioneers of the Revival as James Hervey as arch heretics because they taught that faith was a gift of God and not a dutiful response to a Gospel invitation . In spite of the huge spread of the Awakening in the 18th century, Fullerites boast that nothing had really happened of spiritual value before "the shot heard around the world in this spiritual offensive was fired from the pen of Andrew Fuller (1754-1815), an English Particular Baptist ." Up to then, Fuller`s biographers tell us, the system of doctrine which had prevailed amongst believers was ´to a considerable extent a caricature of Calvinism, exercising under some of its forms a peculiarly degrading and pernicious influence ." This was also the opinion of Fuller who stresses time and time again that before he emerged theology had been degraded to a ´dunghill` and the ´Christian profession had sunk into contempt.` Fuller was particularly keen on challenging the theological credentials of his Baptist fathers in the faith such as Gill and Brine whom he accused of being ´High Calvinists` or ´Hyper-Calvinists` and of having a false view of the Law, the Gospel and redemption. In fact, when Fuller is finished with firing his furious guns at his Baptist brethren, and aiming many a salvo at evangelical Anglicans and Presbyterians, he leaves no one standing in the evangelical field but his own trusty followers.

1785 was a bad year for truth, sound sense, moral integrity and Gospel theology. This paper seeks to show how Andrew Fuller sought to put the clock back on at least 80 years of true Biblical teaching and how he left the beaten track trod by saints who were justified and sanctified by free-grace. He chose to return to the rational doctrines of moral duties and works-righteousness of pre-revival days. It will be shown that Andrew Fuller had a faulty view of man, a faulty view of God, a faulty view of the Law, a faulty view of the Gospel, a faulty view of redemption and a faulty view of Christ`s Church. Pointing out Fuller`s theological follies is no easy task. This is because Fuller delights in using a meta-language of his own invention to describe traditional theological concepts. Anyone trying to follow Fuller`s use of words must invariable lose his meaning at some time or other.

Much of Fuller`s writings is taken up with his trying to clean himself of the miry clay he fell into through leaving the rock of Biblical Calvinism and the plain meaning of Scripture. He accuses his numerous critics of misunderstanding him and reading into his words concepts which were far from his mind. He believed, however, that this was proof that his critics were ´Hyper-Calvinists and Antinomians` as his arguments were as clear as day to himself. He never seems to have suspected that the presence of so much ´misunderstanding` amongst many saintly men was a clear sign that something was wrong with his own arguments.

Furthermore, Fuller is in his element when boiling down words to what he calls their ´proper meaning` which he believes is their secular ´dictionary` meaning. This often leaves him with theological concepts quite robbed of their theological content. This is nowhere more clear than when Fuller is dealing with sin and atonement.
Then there is Fuller`s frustrating habit of stating that certain words such as imputation, punishment, debt, sin or phrases such as ´being made sin` were ´improperly` or ´metaphorically` used in the Bible, only to use them himself a few sentences further on apparently with the meaning he denied they contained. He often condemns the arguments of his opponents and then appears to argue in the self same way. Often he redefines a term, giving it an entirely different meaning and yet uses that same term with its usual meaning elsewhere. Not content with this, Fuller would take a critic to task for using words wrongly and then he would use the words in just the same way himself . Never was there such an example of Humpty Dumpty saying that he made words mean what he wanted them to mean!

Fuller`s basic ´world view` is outlined in his highly controversial book The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation. This work is a treatise in paradoxical reasoning claiming that on the one hand, Christ died to atone for all men, providing they wished to benefit from it. On the other hand, as the Father saw in advance that no one would wish to accept Christ of their own free will, He changed his original intention of a universal atonement and merely guaranteed that certain sinners would follow their inner sense of duty and repent and believe. Notwithstanding the change in plans, Christ still died for all men though His Father had now restricted salvation to a select few. This strange confusion of ideas is hailed by Fullerites as being true ´evangelical Calvinism` and the teaching that Christ died to save His flock and thus secured their full salvation without losing a soul is termed ´False Calvinism` or ´Hyper-Calvinism. When Fuller, however, develops his theory, he tones down the fact that only a remnant will be saved and emphasises that every human being has an inner awareness of the Gospel and feels an inner duty to accept it, should he wish. Unlike Calvin, who believed in preaching election, Fuller maintains that election is an inner secret of the Church and should not be preached openly.

Nowadays Fullerites tread carefully when dealing with their leader`s view that sinful man knows he has a duty to accept the Gospel. They say that God obliges man to accept it, using an ambiguous word. ´Oblige` can mean merely ´ought to` from God`s point of view rather than ´can` from man`s point of view . Fuller, however, argues strongly that fallen man ´can` accept the Gospel . The problem is that he will not. This led Huntington to say that Fuller teaches that God, who has concluded all in unbelief, expects them, in spite of themselves, to believe.

Fuller ranks those who believe that fallen man cannot accept the Gospel of himself as false Calvinists with a false view of man. He argues that God would never require of man what he cannot do and as God invites man to repent and believe, man must be capable of it. This would seem to be a direct refutation of I Corinthians 2:14 "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." But Fuller does not look to Scripture for his view of man but to natural revelation. His argument is that natural man can discern God`s glory in creation. This creates a love for God in him. When God, however, displays Himself at any time and love to Him is engendered, He also becomes recognisable regarding His spiritual work . When one reads this, one has to rub one`s eyes and ask oneself if this is really the belief of a man that calls himself a Calvinist and not some quote from Thomas Paine`s The Age of Reason.

The Scriptures clearly state that Christ and his disciples commanded their hearers to repent and believe the Gospel otherwise they would perish . Paul, too, commanded his hearers to repent and warned them of the consequences awaiting them if they did not . There is, however, a difference in commanding an action, which, if disobeyed, will bring damnation and if obeyed salvation and inviting men to perform an action which all are fully capable of doing. The former case is in keeping with the Scriptural teaching that the bondservants are separated from the true sons by responding or not responding to the Father`s voice. Christ`s sheep hear his voice and respond, the others do not. The second puts all on the same level. Sons and bondservants, sheep and goats, have all been given the same duties to perform to their Heavenly Father. This is indeed Fuller`s teaching in The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation. When Fuller`s book was read by faithful believers, they protested at once that Fuller did not distinguish between slaves and sons. In his defence Fuller accepted this criticism as proof of the truth of his ideas. Who has every heard, he asks his readers, of children who have no sense of duty to their parents? As all children have a sense of duty to their parents, so all sinners have a sense of duty to their Creator. This is a clear denial of Galatians 4 and its teaching that the Holy Spirit is put into the hearts of adopted sons to make them such and to make them aware of their relationship to their Father. Fuller argues in this way because he rejects Biblical teaching for his theory of natural religion and natural revelation. Elsewhere Fuller teaches that man is fallen. He cannot, however, according to Fuller, have fallen very far. This is hinted at in Fuller`s argument with Button concerning total depravity where he says that the term does not mean "totally unable to believe in Christ" in the sense of "unable in every respect" .

The doctrine of the imputed righteousness of Christ was the red flag which always made of John Wesley an angry bull. It is ´imputed nonsense`, he railed, "For Christ`s sake, don`t mention it! " Wesley realised exactly what James Hervey was getting at when he used such language against him. Man has no righteousness of his own and only Christ`s perfect righteousness can save him. Christ thus becomes ´Our Righteousness` for us. Fuller has grave difficulties, too, with this doctrine. Instead of refuting it, he partly accepts Wesley`s view of it and partly changes it. For him, the righteousness which Abraham obtained by faith was righteousness which came as a result of Abraham`s own faith not Christ`s righteousness which is given to true sons with the gift of faith and justification . Arguing that ´impute` as used in Romans 4 is used ´improperly` and ´figuratively`. Fuller explains that in its derived meaning the word rules out any actual imputation either of sin to Christ or righteousness to the elect. The whole is one big metaphorical play on words and by the time Fuller is finished with explaining what ´imputed` means, it can mean anything - or nothing.

The same word-juggling is shown when Fuller deals with the atonement. He rejects fully any ´commercial` or ´penal` sense in the atonement. There was no actual payment of a debt and no actual punishment for sin. After arguing that Christ`s been made sin is not to be taken literally he says, "Sin is a debt only in a metaphorical sense; properly speaking, it is a crime, and satisfaction for it requires to be made, not on pecuniary, but on moral principles ." Here Fuller strikes at the heart of penal substitution. There is nothing unbiblical or even illogical in believing that Christ paid our debts on the cross. Fuller, however, de-theologises sin to make it a mere legal crime and argues that it is wrong to say that Christ took upon himself our crimes. But nobody but Fuller argues in this senseless way. If Fuller were able to accept the fact literally that we are bought with the high price of Jesu`s blood, he would have no difficulty but his silliness in wanting to be clever and redefine theologically loaded words in a non-theological way causes him great difficulties. It is no wonder that Booth and Greatheed accused Fuller of trying to explain Biblical concepts with language borrowed from pagans instead of using the plain language of the Bible.

Fuller argues that Christ was not punished for the sinner`s sake but merely suffered. His ´proof` is as interesting as it is unconvincing. If a soldier has his hand cut off for striking an officer, that is punishment. If the soldiers hand gets blown off in battle, that is suffering. He compares Christ`s substitutionary suffering with the latter example. Are we to believe that Christ merely suffered in a moral battle against sin? This would make Him a moralist and a martyr but not a Saviour . Surely there is more to the atonement than this? If another officer had volunteered to take the soldier`s penalty for him in Fuller`s illustration, he would have been nearer the Biblical mark. It seems odd that though there are so many stories in the Bible of the righteous dying for the unrighteous (i.e. the Suffering Servant), Fuller should resort to illustrations quite foreign to the subject.. To Fuller, of course, such an illustration is not foreign as he empties the doctrine of the atonement of its penal and substitutionary ´proper` meaning and gives it the ´improper` meaning of a victory merely in the realms of morals. This is why Fuller claims that the moral law, standing alone without the promises, contains all that is required of the sinner to believe the Gospel. His Gospel is not a theological matter but a mere matter of morals .

Going on to examine Fuller`s theories of the Law and Gospel more closely, it soon becomes obvious that Fuller exchanges their functions. The sinner is saved through accepting the offer of the Gospel and the believer lives by being directed by the Law. Strictly speaking, there is no Mosaic Law in Fuller`s system. This is why he refers nearly always to the moral law as opposed to the Mosaic Law. For him, the Mosaic Law never existed as a means of life. It was never part of a Covenant of Works which said "Do this and live: break this and die" . The "This do and thou shalt live" of Christ in Luke 10:28 seems to have been removed from Fuller`s memory if not his Bible. Fuller is uncertain about when the Covenant of Works was abolished but seems to believe that it ceased to be upheld by God when Adam sinned. There is thus no condemning or commanding Law in the Old Testament but merely a moral code which points the sinner to his duties to love God as much as he can. One wonders why God allowed Christ to die under the curse of the Law if the Law no longer held a curse .

Fuller sees very little difference in the work of the Law and the work of the Gospel. Both, of course, are parts of the whole Council of God and thus belong together but the fact that God has seen fit to divide His plan of salvation into two distinct parts, often escapes Fuller. It is also true to say that Fuller`s conception of the Gospel is very much Old Testament orientated. This is seen clearly in Fuller`s works against Deists where he stresses the need for holiness . His pattern of holiness is not Christian but Jewish and his arguments, though theistically Biblical, are not Christian in any sense. This is because Fuller`s faulty views of imputed righteousness and substitutionary atonement do not allow for an indwelling of Christ in the believer. The ´holy` believer, in Fuller`s opinion, is one who is still invited to follow a modified law as if that were the only means of obtaining and keeping saving faith. William Huntington, Fuller`s contemporary, pointed out to Fullerites that if the Old Covenant had been all that was necessary for the believer`s walk with God, a New Covenant would not have been necessary. Fuller took no notice of Huntington, except to call him ugly names and claim there was nothing whatsoever of a Christian nature in his doctrine and teaching . Anyone familiar with Huntington`s works will know what an enormous amount of space he gives to the doctrines of Christ`s indwelling in the believer, of the New Man in Christ, of "Christ in us, our hope of glory", of being filled with the Holy Spirit and of the Law written on the believer`s heart. After painstakingly reading through hundreds and hundreds of pages of Fuller`s works, such doctrines are conspicuous by their absence. And yet such doctrines are at the heart of the Gospel. Fuller, however, denies time and time again that there is any partaking of Christ`s righteousness in the believer and any transference of Christ`s nature to the believer. What would Fuller say to Galatians 2:20 ff. "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 and gave himself for me."? This text is nowhere used in Fuller`s works. It is obvious, however, that he would claim that dying ´with Christ` and living ´in Christ` is merely a metaphorical way of saying that Christ gained a moral victory over our crimes .

Fuller`s adherence to the Old Testament and to God`s dealing with the Jews is apparently the reason for his ambiguous teaching on the atonement. He is convinced that, in the Old Testament the Jews as a nation were invited to believe in their capacity as sinners. Thus in The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation he quotes Psalm 2:12 "Kiss the son, lest he be angry" to prove that "unconverted sinners are commanded to believe in Christ for salvation; therefore believing in Christ for salvation is their duty". He then looks at Isaiah 55:1-7 "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy and eat" etc. to back up his theory arguing that all this is the language of a general invitation. In arguing in this way Fuller forgets an important piece of theology. The Jews were in covenant with God as His chosen people and thus were a ´type` of the true Israel to come. Fuller, however, argues concerning fallen sinners of his age that "God is not in covenant with them, nor they with him." Furthermore Fuller argues that there is now no Covenant of Works. Nevertheless, Fuller always deals with sinners in the same way as God dealt with his chosen people in the Old Testament.

This is applicable also to Fuller`s stress on following the Law as the sole rule of faith. He emphasises the fact that the Old Testament heroes did this - and thus so should we. Again Fuller forgets a very important theological distinction. David loved a different law to the one taught by Fuller. David`s law was Moses` law which had a command - not an invitation - attached to it. It also brought with it a curse, death if disobeyed and a reward - life, if obeyed. Fuller denies this but it is the obvious teaching of Deut. 6:24-25. "and the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive as it is this day. And it shall be our righteousness if we observe to do all these commandments before the Lord our God, as he hath commanded us." This was put even stronger by Christ, as shown above. Fuller, however, has lowered God`s standards. The Mosaic Law is done away with in Fuller`s system and he has sifted out of its theological concepts a mere moral law without any commanding and cursing power. This puts Fuller`s theology on a par with the ancient Greeks who also taught allegiance to a moral law as a means of reaching ideals. Now, for Fuller, a breach of the law is not sin but merely a moral slip or a crime. This is in stark contrast to the words of Christ in Matthew 5:18 where He says, "Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." This fulfilling of the Law is in Christ`s righteousness which is eternal and unchangeable. Christ, however, indwells the believer and makes His holy and eternal standards the believer`s own. The old man is dead but the new man is raised in newness of life in Christ`s righteousness. This is the only way to true holiness. Fuller`s gospel of a sub-standard law as a sole means of living a life in Christ is a gospel unworthy of any acceptance. It can find no acceptance with God as it robs him of His holiness and justice and betrays His plan of salvation and it is unworthy of the believer as it does not show him ´a better way` but the way of the world.
Is then Fuller the arch-heretic which he appears to be? Over half of Fuller`s works are taken up with defending himself as been orthodox or attacking others for being unorthodox. Whatever he said or wrote, he believed, was misunderstood. He always claimed that his views were not such as came over to his readers. In brotherly charity, we should be open to believe him. That he actually taught heresy, whether he realised it or not, cannot be denied. There is a glint of light, however, which might raise some hope in us that Fuller was a Calvinist by belief though a heretic by profession. Some time after the publication of The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptance, there appeared in print a series of letters to Andrew Fuller signed Agnostos. In these letters, which were aimed against the Arminian Rev. Dan Taylor of Yorkshire. Agnostos writes, speaking of husbands loving their wives as Christ loved the Church, "Did not I argue, particularly from Eph. v. 25,26, that the death of Christ is there represented as the result of his love to the church, in the character of a husband, and which must, therefore, be discriminating; - that the church could not here mean actual believers, because they are considered as unsanctified; he died that he might sanctify them; - that Christ did not die for believers as such; - he laid down his life for his enemies; - that, therefore it must mean all the elect of God - all those who are finally saved? " Over the page, Agnostos argues that Christ`s sacrifice was for the sins "of those, and those only, on whose behalf it was offered." indicating that the atonement was not for all mankind but for His Bride, the elect only.

What has this to do with Fuller? In his ´Advertisement` to the letters, Dr John Ryland informs his readers that Agnostos was no less than Fuller himself who had written the letters to himself! He explains that had Fuller used his own name, it would have complicated the issue at stake. This it would indeed have done as Fuller writes in the guise of a Calvinist and not in his usual Amyraldian and Neonomian way. Had Fuller as Agnostos, the unknown, a different faith to Fuller the public figure? Was Fuller thus orthodox at heart? Any hope is dampened by further information Ryland gives about the 13 letters. He tells us that `with the exception of one or two pages, they were written by Mr Fuller himself.` Are these ´one or two pages` from another hand the very pages which affirm belief in the Biblical doctrine of the atonement? We shall probably never know this side of Eternity.

John Gill and the Cause of God and Truth

John Gill and the Cause of God and Truth

by George Ella

So often when speaking about the work of the Holy Spirit which infused the churches with new life in the 18th century, mention is made of Anglican stalwarts such as Whitefield, Hervey, Toplady and Romaine. The works of these men through God's sovereign grace cannot be praised enough but the fact that recent biographers have highlighted their activities has tended to give the impression that other denominations, such as the Baptists, were quite inactive during this period. This is by no means the case as the testimony of John Gill shows.

John Gill was born in 1697 in the town of Kettering and became a member of the Particular Baptist church there before being called to the pastorate at Goat Yard Chapel, Horselydown, London. This church, now known as the Metropolitan Tabernacle, is famous in Baptist history for being pastored by such prominent men as Benjamin Keach, Benjamin Stinton, John Rippon and Charles H. Spurgeon besides Gill.

When Gill took over the Goat Yard church, its doctrines and methods of church government were far from Biblical. Too much emphasis was placed on the supervisory rights of extra-church affiliations which robbed local churches of their sovereignty. An association of ministers who met regularly at a Coffee House, of all places, had set themselves up as joint-elders of the Particular Baptist churches in London claiming the sole right to ordain pastors and deacons. Indeed, an influential minority in the churches maintained that they had no rights of their own regarding the choosing of deacons as this was entirely the task of the Coffee House fraternal. In effect, what came to be known as the Baptist Union was here in its infancy. Gill treated such a movement as a changeling child and no true offspring of the Gospel.

Once Gill was established in his new church, he denounced the assumed powers of the Coffee House clique and saw to it that his church chose and ordained its own deacons. Confronted with much anti-creed opposition, he bravely drew up a statement of faith which was thoroughly evangelical in its scope and thoroughly Calvinistic in its doctrine. This step was necessary as, along with lax ideas of church government, doctrine was being downgraded and heresies concerning the Trinity and the eternal sonship of Christ were being fostered in the churches. Once Gill put his church back on a Biblical footing, membership at Goat Yard grew by leaps and bounds and the church, which moved to Carter Lane for larger premises, became one of the most influential congregations in the country.

The brethren at Horselydown had been initially drawn to Gill because of his evangelistic gifts and now Gill began to systematically evangelise the Southwark area. His method was to divide the district into four parts and assign two brethren to each sub-area who were to visit and instruct the members. What started as a work amongst his own flock soon spread to a wider work and evangelical ministers of all denominations gave Gill their support. Soon Anglican pioneers of the Revival such as Hervey and Toplady were full of praise for the help they received through Gill's sermons and publications. Hervey was particularly fond of Gill as he taught the sinner's need of the imputed righteousness of Christ and Toplady loved Gill for the way he convicted Arminians of their faulty view of man. Hervey wrote of Gill who, "presents us with such rich and charming displays of the glory of Christ's person, the freeness of His grace to sinners, and the tenderness of His love to the church." What better report could be given of a Christian evangelist?

In order to give Gill more access to a wider field of hearers, denominational leaders begged him to give a weekly lecture at Great Eastcheap. This series, which was to last almost thirty years, was opened in 1729 by Gill preaching on Psalm 71:16, "I will go in the strength of the Lord God; I will make mention of thy righteousness, even of thine only." Many of these sermons formed the basis of Gill's fine book The Cause of God and Truth. The Great Eastcheap experiment proved a huge success and soon Baptists, Anglicans and Independents were subscribing to hire other halls so that Gill could give regular lectures there.

Contemporary evangelical authors looked on Gill's work with admiration writing how his message of joyful Christian experience spread far and wide amongst the Baptists and even influenced "all the evangelical denominations at home and abroad". This was to be expected as Gill had world-wide evangelism as his goal. Two of Gill's favourite texts were Isa. 24:16 "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth", and 2 Chron. 16:9 "For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect towards him." Preaching at the induction of John Davis, Gill told him, "Souls sensible to sin and danger, and who are crying out, What shall we do to be saved? you are to observe, and point out Christ the tree of life to them; and say, . . . . Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." He went on to say, "Your work is to lead men, under a sense of sin and guilt, to the blood of Christ, shed for many for the remission of sin, and in his name you are to preach the forgiveness of them." Perhaps having in mind those Arminians who told him mockingly that he could not believe in the need for repentance if men were predestined to believe, he told his hearers with Spirit-led power, "Be faithful, labour to shew the one and the other their wretched state by nature; the necessity of repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, in his blood, righteousness, and atoning sacrifice, for peace, pardon, justification, and salvation."

It was inevitable that John Wesley would clash with Gill and their debate on the question of the perseverance of the saints filled several books on both sides. Wesley claimed, "I believe a Saint may fall away; that one who is holy or righteous in the judgement of God himself, may nevertheless so fall from God, as to perish everlastingly." He further stated that "He who is a child of God today, may be a child of the devil tomorrow." Gill answered him by saying, "Those who are truly regenerated, effectually called, and really converted, and internally sanctified by the Spirit and grace of God, shall persevere in grace to the end, and shall be everlastingly saved; or shall never finally and totally fall, so as to perish everlastingly."

Wesley's mistake was that, as he did not believe in the imputed righteousness of Christ, he could not accept that Christ was indwelling the believer and preparing him for eternity. Quoting Job 17:9 "The righteous also shall hold on his way; and he that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger!" Gill tells Wesley, "By the righteous man is meant one that is made truly righteous, by the righteousness of Christ imputed to him, and which he receives by faith; in consequence of which he lives soberly and righteously: and by his way is meant, Christ the way; in which he walks as he has received him, as the Lord his Righteousness." Gill argues that as it is Christ who makes a man righteous by imputing His own righteousness to him, so it is Christ who keeps the righteous-one in that righteousness. It thus follows that even if the righteous-one slips, falls or stumbles because of the inner fight within all Christians, he cannot slip or fall or stumble out of fellowship with Christ as it is Christ who maintains that fellowship not the man himself. It is, after all, Christ who is our righteousness, not our own works.

Dr. Abraham Taylor argued that Gill could not possibly, as a Calvinist, believe in the holiness of the Law and in good works. Though the Principal of a theological college, he had no idea what Calvinism really was. Gill told him, "Though we say, that works are not necessary to salvation; do we say, that they are not necessary to anything else? Do we say, that they are not necessary to be done in obedience to the law of God? Do we say, that the commands of the law are not to be regarded by men? That they are things indifferent, that may be done, or not done? No; we say none of these things, but all the reverse. Do we make void the law through this doctrine? God forbid: Yea, we establish the law, as it is in the hands of Christ our Lawgiver; to which we desire to yield a cheerful obedience; to show our subjection to him as King of saints, and to testify our gratitude for the many blessings of every kind we receive from him."

Gill's emphasis on the insensitivity of the unsaved to his own state and his spiritual inability angered many an Arminian. One day Gill was preaching on the total depravity and spiritual inability of man when a hearer became deeply offended. The man decided to give Gill a piece of his mind. "You have degraded man and laid him much too low," he told the preacher. "Pray, sir, how much do you think men can contribute towards their own conversion and salvation?", Gill asked. This was the cue the man had been waiting for and he promptly gave Gill a long list of all that man could do to vouchsafe God's eternal favour. Gill listened patiently and then said, "Have you done all these things for yourself?" "No, I cannot say that I have," replied the man. Gill looked at him with some surprise and said, "If you really have all these things in your power and have not done them for yourself, you deserve to be doubly damned, and are but ill qualified to stand up for that imaginary free-will which, according to your own confession, has done you so little good. However, after you have made yourself spiritually whole (if ever you find yourself able to do it), be kind enough to come and let me know how you went about it; for at present I know but of one remedy for human depravation, namely, the efficacious grace of him who worketh in men both to will and do of his own good pleasure."

Great effort was made to silence Gill by a number of his free-will enemies and he was often cautioned by his own people to be less rigorous when preaching the truth. Spurgeon, who found a down-grade controversy on his own hands similar, though broader in scope, to the one Gill corrected, must have been greatly indebted to him Spurgeon says of his 'eminent predecessor', "Dr. Gill, was told, by a certain member of his congregation who ought to have known better, that, if he published his book, The Cause of God and Truth, he would lose some of his best friends, and that his income would fall off. The doctor said, "I can afford to be poor, but I cannot afford to injure my conscience." Spurgeon then added, " and he has left his mantle as well as his chair in our vestry."

Sadly the down-grading of doctrine amongst the Baptist Union churches during the time of Spurgeon got out of hand and Spurgeon's fight against it proved in vain. There is nothing new under the sun and the follies of Gill's times as those of Spurgeon's days are with us again, or rather with us still. This writer must confess that in reading Gill he has found a compendium of sound theology second to none which serves as a God-given armour against the down-grading going on in evangelicalism today.

A biblicist avoids simple questions!

 

A biblicist avoids biblical questions!

On Apr 23, 2008, at 10:37 AM, sing wrote:

Hello, Pastor We,

I am looking for a good church for my son who may be going to NUS soon, hopefully... I check the web for a conservative baptist church... and ended up with two choices of all that I checked and scrutinized.

I am glad X-BC uses KJV. Does your church has a fuller Doctrinal Statement? On the 'surface' I can agree with much of them. However, I do consider premillennialism as an error. The simple scheme of things from the Bible is that the second coming of Christ is accompanied by the general resurrection and the great judgment, and the eternal state of bliss and glory.

Could you please tell me a little more about X-BC?

I am not looking for a big church, Faithful biblical church does not usually attract true sheep - so I avoid a big church. I desire to look for a church where the Bible is preached FAITHFULLY, for that's the CHIEF cure appointed by God for all the evils both in the church and in the world - "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works. I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine." 2Tim 3:16-4:2.

There are many teachers of falsehood around, and they have many followers, 2Pet 2:1ff.

I don't mind a small church where the Bible is faithfully preached. I hope you don't mind me asking some simple questions to get an idea in my own mind about the matter. These are honest questions, needing simple answers. I would appreciate plain honest answers.

1. Does a person believe in order to get eternal life, or a person believes because he has been given eternal life (i.e. regenerated by the Spirit of God)?

2. Are repentance and faith the effects of eternal salvation by God's free grace, or the means to obtain eternal salvation from God?

3. Is "the just shall live by faith" a statement of fact about the just, i.e. the justified ones shall act in a certain way; OR is it a statement of an offer, i.e. what the condemned must do in order to be justified?

4. Is "whoever believes has eternal life' a statement of fact about the believing one or is it a statement of an offer, i.e. what the spiritually dead must do in order to have eternal life?

I would really appreciate your answers to the above question. They will give me an idea of how faithfully the Bible is preached.

Thank you.

In Christ Jesus,
Lau
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On Apr 23, 2008, at 12:39 PM, Pastor We wrote:

Dear Lau,

Thanks for your interest in having your son coming by to our church. No problem with those questions. We live in a day where falsehood is prevalent and it is always better to err on the safe side.

## I am glad X-BC uses KJV. Does your church has a fuller Doctrinal Statement? On the surface, I can agree with much of them. I do consider premillennialism as an error. The simple scheme of things from the Bible is that with the second of Christ, is accompanied by general resurrection and the great judgment, and the eternal state of bliss and glory.##
We believe there is a Christ coming for His saints ( the rapture and then the tribulation ); and a Christ coming with His saints ( after the tribulation, just before the Millennium ).

## Could you please tell me a little more about X-BC?
We are an Independent Baptist Church, not associated with any Mission Board; we believe in the local church, no universal church; believing in believer's baptism, no infant baptism; non-ecumenical; non-charismatics; presently support some 60 baptist missionaries; having 3 of our own out in the fields; believing in the succession of Christ's churches throughout all ages; believing that baptist churches are from this lineage of churches or Baptist churches have existed from the time of Christ; et al.

##I don't mind a small church where the Bible is faithfully preached. I hope you don't mind me asking some simple questions to get an idea in my own mind about the matter. These are honest questions, needing simple answers. I would appreciate plain honest answers.
The answer to your questions is that we are not Calvinists; nor Arminians; but biblicists, people who believe in the bible. We believe that there is the election of God as well as the free will of man. It is not our duty to reconcile them, and most of the problems came about when people tried to reconcile them. Only God knows of what criteria in which He 'elects'... perhaps, on the basis of the possibility or potential of the saved - like someone choosing football players to represent a school; he chooses the best. But the 'best' in the eyes of God may not be the 'best' in our eyes. God has His own 'criteria' and God sees the hearts.

## I would really appreciate your answers to the above question. They will give me an idea of how faithfully the Bible is preached.

We do our best to faithfully preach the Word of God.

God bless

Pastor We
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On Apr 23, 2008, at 3:48 PM, sing wrote:

Pastor We,

Thank you for your prompt reply.

## We are an Independent Baptist Church, not associated with any Mission Board; we believe in the local church, no universal church; believing in believer's baptism, no infant baptism; non-ecumenical; non-charismatics; presently support some 60 baptist missionaries; having 3 of our own out in the fields; believing in the succession of Christ's churches throughout all ages; believing that baptist churches are from this lineage of churches or Baptist churches have existed from the time of Christ; et al.

I am very pleased to read this paragraph.


## "The answer to your questions is that we are not Calvinists; nor Arminians; but biblicists, people who believe in the bible. We believe that there is the election of God as well as the free will of man. It is not our duty to reconcile them, and most of the problems came about when people tried to reconcile them. Only God knows of what criteria in which He 'elects'... perhaps, on the basis of the possibility or potential of the saved - like someone choosing football players to represent a school; he chooses the best. But the 'best' in the eyes of God may not be the 'best' in our eyes. God has His own 'criteria' and God sees the hearts."

I am not at all interested in whether X-BC is Calvinistic or Arminian. I am neither. I am very wary of Calvinists! Actually, labels are not helpful. Calvinists are such a mixed breed too. So also Arminians.

I believe the will of a man is determined by his nature.

I don't believe there is any contradiction in all that God has revealed. There is absolutely no need for reconciliation. To raise reconciliation presupposes contradiction, and that's a tacit admission that there are contradictions in God's inspired Scriptures. I know you don't mean that at all. I am indicating that words have implications.

I believe God has told us the basis of His electing sinner:
- "For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy."
- It is most certainly not "on the basis of the possibility or potential of the saved. There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one....."

I would really appreciate it because the question deals with fundamental issues of salvation.

As a biblicist, a man who believes in the Bible, could you please tell me the Bible's answer to my simple questions? If you think the Bible has no answer to my questions, then also indicate so. I would be very grateful. If my questions are not clear, please indicate and I will elaborate. I just wish to know what is a biblicist's answers to these questions would be.

1. Does a person believe in order to get eternal life, or a person believes because he has been given eternal life (i.e. regenerated by the Spirit of God)?

2. Are repentance and faith the effects of eternal salvation by God's free grace, or the means to obtain eternal salvation from God?

3. Is "the just shall live by faith" a statement of fact about the just, i.e. the justified ones shall act in a certain way; OR is it a statement of an offer, i.e. what the condemned must do in order to be justified?

4. Is "whoever believes has eternal life' a statement of fact about the believing one or is it a statement of an offer, i.e. what the spiritually dead must do in order to have eternal life?

5. When Christ says, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see... he cannot enter..." - is He saying that regeneration must precede the activities of 'seeing' and 'entering', OR is He saying that 'seeing' and 'entering' is in order to be born again?

Just indicate what you believe, so that I may know what you believe what the Bible teaches on these basic matters.

Thank you very much.

Lau
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On Apr 23, 2008, at 3:05 PM, Pastor We wrote:

Dear Lau,

## I believe God has told us the basis of His electing sinner:
- "For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy."
- It is most certainly not "on the basis of the possibility or potential of the saved" - "For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth... There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one....."

The election is not based on God's 'whims and fancies':
1 Peter 1:2 Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.
There are some criteria of God only known to Him in His electing process.

## As a biblicist, a man who believes in the Bible, could you please tell me the Bible's answer to my simple questions. If you think the Bible has no answer to my questions, then also indicate so. I would be very grateful. If my questions are not clear, please indicate and I will elaborate. I just wish to know what is a biblicist's answers to these questions would be.

## 1. Does a person believe in order to get eternal life, or a person believe because he has been given eternal life (i.e. regenerated by the Spirit of God)?

What you are asking is a Calvinistic question: does regeneration precede salvation or salvation precedes regeneration. I believe in the latter.

## 2. Are repentance and faith the effects of eternal salvation by God's free grace, or the means to obtain eternal salvation from God?

Same as above.

## 3. Is "the just shall live by faith" a statement of fact about the just, i.e. the justified ones shall act in a certain way; OR is it a statement of an offer, i.e. what the condemned must do in order to be justified?

Same as above

## 4. Is "whoever believes has eternal life' a statement of fact about the believing one or is it a statement of an offer, i.e. what the spiritually dead must do in order to have eternal life?

Same as above... I hold on to all the second statement.

## 5. When Christ says, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see... he cannot enter..." - is He saying that regeneration must precede the activities of 'seeing' and 'entering', OR is He saying that 'seeing' and 'entering' is in order to be born again?

Same as above.

## Just indicate what you believe, so that I may know what you believe what the Bible teaches on these basic matters.

We are not Reformed Baptists.

pastor we
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On Apr 23, 2008, at 7:07 PM, sing wrote:

Pastor Wee,

Thank you. I want to be sure. Please affirm if I understand you correctly.
After this, I won't ask any more questions.
Then I will forward the mail to Josiah Lau.

1. Does a person believe in order to get eternal life, or a person believes because he has been given eternal life (i.e. regenerated by the Spirit of God)?

We: What you are asking is a Calvinistic question: does regeneration precedes salvation or salvation precedes regeneration. I believe in the latter.

- I asked whether regeneration precedes BELIEVING or believing precedes REGENERATION. I didn't mention a word about salvation. I think you misunderstand my question unless you equate believing as 'salvation.'
- There are two parts to the question. I wonder which part is Calvinistic, and which part is not? I am asking a very simple question based on John 3:3-6. I am not interested in Calvinism. I oppose some of its heretical tenets.
- You might have a preconceived idea of where I am coming from.
The latter of the above question is: a person believes because he has been given eternal life (i.e. regenerated by the Spirit of God). You believe this part? Is this part Calvinistic?

2. Are repentance and faith the effects of eternal salvation by God's free grace, or the means to obtain eternal salvation from God?

We: Same as above.
- The latter of the above question is: repentance and faith are means to obtain eternal salvation from God. You believe this latter part?

3. Is "the just shall live by faith" a statement of fact about the just, i.e. the justified ones shall act in a certain way; OR is it a statement of an offer, i.e. what the condemned must do in order to be justified?

We: Same as above
- The latter of the above question is: "the just shall live by faith" is a statement of an offer, i.e. what the condemned must do in order to be justified.
- How would you understand a statement like, "the condemned who will believe shall be justified"? Do you believe this as the truth taught by the Bible?


4. Is "whoever believes has eternal life' a statement of fact about the believing one or is it a statement of an offer, i.e. what the spiritually dead must do in order to have eternal life?

We: Same as above... I hold on to all the second statement.
- The latter of the above question is: 'whoever believes has eternal life' means what the spiritually dead must do in order to have eternal life.
- How would you understand a statement like, "the dead who will believe shall have eternal life"? Do you believe this as the truth taught by the Bible?

5. When Christ says, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see... he cannot enter..." - is He saying that regeneration must precede the activities of 'seeing' and 'entering', OR is He saying that 'seeing' and 'entering' is in order to be born again?

We: Same as above.
- The latter of the above question is: "Except a man be born again, he cannot see... he cannot enter..." means He saying that 'seeing' and 'entering' is in order to be born again.
- How would you understand a statement like: "Except a man sees and enters, he cannot be born again"? Do you believe this as the truth taught by the Bible?

We: We are not Reformed Baptists.

Hello, I am not looking for an RB church. The RB believes much like you do!
I am looking for a church that teaches the Bible faithfully.
I know what the RBs believe. The RB believes much like you do!

Thanks for your patience.
If you are irritated by my simple and genuine inquiry, I apologize.

In Christ,
Lau
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On Apr 24, 2008, at 1:09 PM, Pastor We wrote:

Dear Lau,

Sorry, if I sound impatient. I didn't mean it that way. But the questions you asked are the usual questions that the Calvinists will ask and the verses you quoted are the same as the Calvinists will quote to support the belief that God elects without merits and based on His whims and fancies. The problem with writing is that we often ended up reading too much into it. Please accept my apologies if I sound impatient with your questioning. I believe you asked in all sincerity. It might be better if you call me to talk; it will surely leave out a lot of 'reading too much, both ways, for you and for me.

[Biblicist We believes in election, but he believes in a conditional election, an election based on human's MERITS. He sees God's sovereign election according to His grace and mercy as an election based on His whims and fancies!]

- I asked whether regeneration precedes BELIEVING or believing precedes REGENERATION. I didn't mention a word about salvation. I think you misunderstand my question unless you equate believing as 'salvation.'
- There are two parts in the question. I wonder which part is Calvinistic, and which part is not? I am asking a very simple question based on John 3:3-6. I am not interested in Calvinism. I oppose some of its heretical tenets.
- You might have a preconceived idea of where I am coming from.
The latter of the above question is: a person believes because he has been given eternal life (i.e. regenerated by the Spirit of God). You believe this part? Is this part Calvinistic?

This part is Calvinistic - because the logic is that he has to be 'regenerated first' or 'saved first' or 'elected before the foundation of the world' before he can believe. If he is not regenerated or saved first, he can't possibly believe because he is 'dead in sins'. And 'believing' has to logically lead one to salvation.

If one is 'regenerated first', he is already saved; so why the need to 'believe and be saved'? Regeneration is the same as 'salvation', that is the usual definition.

Our position is that believing precedes regeneration or believing leads to regeneration and not the other way around - 'And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house." ( Acts 16:30-31 )

2. Are repentance and faith the effects of eternal salvation by God's free grace, or the means to obtain eternal salvation from God?

Same as above.
- The latter of the above question is: repentance and faith are means to obtain eternal salvation from God. You believe this latter part?

Yes, repentance and faith are the means to obtain eternal salvation from God.

Acts 3:19 Repent ye, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord;

And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.

3. Is "the just shall live by faith" a statement of fact about the just, i.e. the justified ones shall act in a certain way; OR is it a statement of an offer, i.e. what the condemned must do in order to be justified?

Same as above
- The latter of the above question is: "the just shall live by faith" is a statement of an offer, i.e. what the condemned must do in order to be justified.
- How would you understand a statement like, "the condemned who will believe shall be justified"? Do you believe this as the truth taught by the Bible?

Yes, we believe the condemned who believe shall be justified.

Romans 3:28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.

For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God. For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. - Rom 4:2-7

Romans 5:1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:

Galatians 2:16 Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.

The verse you quoted in context has to do with the way a sinner is to be saved, that is, by faith:

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. - Rom 1:16-17

4. Is "whoever believes has eternal life' a statement of fact about the believing one or is it a statement of offer, i.e. what the spiritually dead must do in order to have eternal life?

- The latter of the above question is: "Except a man be born again, he cannot see... he cannot enter..." means He saying that 'seeing' and 'entering' is in order to be born again.
- How would you understand a statement like: "Except a man sees and enters, he cannot be born again"? Do you believe this as the truth taught by the Bible?

5. When Christ says, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see... he cannot enter..." - is He saying that regeneration must precede the activities of 'seeing' and 'entering', OR is He saying that 'seeing' and 'entering' is in order to be born again?

Same as above... I hold on to all the second statement.

- The latter of the above question is: 'whoever believes has eternal life' means what the spiritually dead must do in order to have eternal life.
- How would you understand a statement like, "the dead who will believe shall have eternal life"? Do you believe this as the truth taught by the Bible?

Your rephrasing means the same thing, if you look at it carefully. But your previous question indicates 2 different thoughts: The 'saved ones' will believe or will by believing it will lead one to salvation. We believe in the latter.

5. When Christ says, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see... he cannot enter..." - is He saying that regeneration must precede the activities of 'seeing' and 'entering', OR is He saying that 'seeing' and 'entering' is in order to be born again?

Same as above.
- The latter of the above question is: "Except a man be born again, he cannot see... he cannot enter..." means He saying that 'seeing' and 'entering' is in order to be born again.
- How would you understand a statement like: "Except a man sees and enters, he cannot be born again"? Do you believe this as the truth taught by the Bible?

We believe that it is through being 'born again', that is by repenting and believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, that one can then 'see' and one can then 'enter into the kingdom of God.'

Objectively, all the questions you have asked me revolves around this one prevailing thought: The predestinated 'saved ones' will eventually believe, or one needs to believe in order to be saved.

This will eventually lead to the issue of 'total inablility' or 'total depravity'. One, where the sinner is so dead he is unable to repent and be saved; and the other, he is so depraved that no matter how much good he does, he cannot saved himself, or salvation by works won't work.

Once again, my brief reply was because I see the whole thing is constantly revolving around the one same thought and to allay your apprehension, I thought it good to let you know that we are not Reformed Baptists; no intention to sound offensive.

God bless

pastor we
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On Apr 24, 2008, at 3:02 PM, sing wrote:

Pastor We,

Thank you for your kind reply. I do appreciate it.

I read from the Bible that God elected to save justly condemned sinners without merits in the condemned sinners whatsoever. There is no merit in the justly condemned whatsoever. That is why I believe that eternal salvation is by the free grace of God.

He who would attribute whims and fancies to God in any of His actions is much worse than a fool.

I am in Penang, so I don't think I will call you.

Should the Lord bring me to Singapore, I might just drop by your church.

I am too logical to accept any contradiction, real or apparent or imagined, in the Holy Scriptures. My basic premise is that God's inspired Scripture is absolutely harmonious and free from inconsistencies and contradictions. Inconsistencies, real or apparent, are to be attributed to wrongly dividing the word of truth.

Lau.
====
p/s I didn't make any further comments to your reply. Thanks again for entertaining my inquiries.

Duty-Faith vs Saving-Faith

Duty - Faith

An Internet Chat on Duty Faith and the PRC

by George Ella

Dear Brother J.,

Thank you so much for your detailed analysis of my attempt to illustrate saving faith as opposed to duty-faith. You brought many coals to Newcastle for me and your Athens-bound ships were full of wise old owls, all of which were welcome. It is good to find that though you may disagrees with me on terms, we have so very much agreement on contents, though we are only at the beginning of a debate. It is very obvious that you Presbyterians use many words that I do, yet with different meanings. Thomas Scott used to say that all denominations tend to inject their own particular meaning into words and thus distinguish themselves from others. This is a true observation but it makes it difficult for outsiders to understand what the insiders are talking about. Thus the churches continue the history of Babel. As an experiment, I sent my views on duty-faith to a Symposium of brethren who are insiders to my vocabulary and, as I expected, they all understood my words, and replied either in full agreement or with neighbouring interpretations. None saw the remotest signs of Hyper-Calvinism in my words but a fervent desire to preach the full gospel to the whole man as the Spirit leads. As your letter illustrates, I have greater difficulty with Presbyterians or those tied up in post-Reformation doctrine-building.

You obviously use your views of Calvinism as a yard-stick to judge my views. This is a very unstable basis to work on as the various, so-called Reformed bodies (which are often most popish) interpret Calvin differently and, indeed, it is not always their fault. Calvin is very much like Spurgeon and my favourite poet Cowper: they find friends in all camps. But the trouble occurs when these ‘friends’ cease to be friendly amongst themselves and cross-denomination-wise over their private interpretations. I do not use the term Calvinist of myself as I am a most moderate one at best. I look upon my old tutors such as Jewel, Bishop Hall (not the Roberts Hall), Davenant, Whitaker, Perkins, Gill, Toplady, Hervey etc. as my mentors in Christ and find them greater all-rounders than Calvin and didactically and expositionally more skilled. All these men, of course, had great respect for Calvin, as I do, too. I believe we are in agreement that Scripture is a better yardstick than even Calvinism.


Permit me to deal with your balanced appraisal paragraph-wise:

"Dr. George Ella has given his well-known views on the issue of saving faith and duty-faith. The controversy of "common grace" and the "well-meant offer" bears very much upon that issue; and as it is also part of the whole debate on the classic Antinomian, Neonomian and legalism controversy of bygone years.

Dr. Ella's views are clear enough and like those in opposing camps, unequivocal and unabashed. The PRC disagrees with Dr. Ella, and takes its stand against the notion of which "faith" is defined as a condition in which the sinner is not duty or legally bound to perform against the just and righteous demands of God as He makes known in His commands."

My comment: I feel that the discussion concerning common grace and a well-meant offer is more a Presbyterian problem and those non-Presbyterians who have adopted such views have, I believe, almost ship-wrecked their faith in doing so. Not many can handle common grace as Kuyper or the offer as Huntington. I have never been able to understand what moderns mean by them. My views cannot be known at all, never mind ‘well-known’ if they are brought into contact with common grace and the well-meant offer which are, I strongly believe, mere red-herrings to the debate. However, I feel that I have a great deal of agreement with the PRC on these terms and I was not aware that they had confessed, unilaterally, disagreement with me. I have never had anything to do with the PRC and have only crossed Bibles with Prof. Engelsma because he denies that Gill preached repentance and faith to the unregenerate, which, of course he did. I must admit that I have only recently seen that Engelsma believes in duty-faith and find this incongruous as duty-faith is the basis of the free offer which he denies.


"I make no apologies for disagreeing with the esteemed Dr. Ella for the simple fact that the hyper-Calvinistic error that he espouses must be rejected. It must be rejected as unScriptural and unReformed. Orthodoxy has no place for the hyper-Calvinistic error of the denial of the duty of the sinner which is incumbent upon him to exercise in repose on God in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. The PRC therefore must always disassociate itself from hyper-Calvinism."

My comment: As you have not shown me to be either in error or a Hyper-Calvinist, but merely postulated this myth, I cannot comment on this passage. However, since you bring the PRC into connection with Hyper-Calvinism, I must confess that, in this matter, I am far more a moderate Calvinist, being a Sublapsarian, than Prof. Engelsma, who, in my circles, has the reputation of being a most ardent Hyper-Calvinist. This shows how little the term is worth and perhaps we should be more careful in our use of such theological swear-words. I did not understand the English of your pen-ultimate sentence, so I cannot comment on it. Perhaps you would do me the favour of explaining its purport to my illiterate self.


"The notion that denies duty-faith to the sinner must of necessity also deny duty-repentance."

My comment: This does not follow. The Bible clearly speaks of duties to the law but faith cannot be gained by law-duties. I challenge you to find one Scripture passage that tells me that through obeying the call of a known duty which is within him, natural and fallen man can gain salvation through faith. Adam did not even succeed in natural salvation, so how can you think fallen man is better and is in a position to exercise saving, spiritual faith as if he had never apostatised? Faith shows a better and higher way of gaining a higher salvation than unfallen Adam’s. Romans 10:5-6 clearly distinguishes between Mosaic duty-righteousness and Christian faith-righteousness. Moses is the accuser, Christ the Redeemer. Gal. 3:12 shows us that the law is not of faith. Duties have to do with damning curses but grace with saving blessings. Acts 13:39, I believe, clearly shows the folly of duty-faith legalism.


"For what is faith but belief or trust on the Person of the Jesus Christ as He is revealed in the Word of God which is Holy Scripture and preached to men? How can a sinner believe on the Jesus Christ as the all-sufficient and trust-worthy Savior if he does not repent of his sins? For is it not that the word, "repentance" means to forsake one's wicked ways and walk the other way, i.e. in the opposite direction towards the God Who in old and present dispensation is always calling the human race in general and His people in particular?"

My comment: I am in full agreement.


"In fact, God's calling to repentance which in times ancient were confined mainly to the nation of Israel and the blood descendants of Abraham is now extended to embrace all the world without exception. Acts 17:30 records for us this truth, that "God...now commandeth all men everywhere to repent". This is a sober fact for humanity and represents all the more the clarion demand of God."

My comment: I am in full agreement.


"The revelation of God in Christ reached its apex in Christ's crucifixion. The Gospel or good tidings or good news can now be proclaimed with clarity and simplicity. Christ has empowered the Church to enable it to carry out the great commission to preach the Gospel to every creature wherever the Gospel is sent."

My comment: I am in full agreement. Well put!


"How then can the Church fulfil its mandate if the preaching of the Gospel is limited only to "sensible" sinners?"

My comment: How indeed? It was ever Bunyan’s, Gill’s and Hervey’s aim (and mine), to make people sensible to the gospel by preaching it. Andrew Fuller also used the term in this sense. However, the word ‘sensible’ has become another modern theological swear-word to be thrown at suspected Hypers. Anyone familiar with the writings of the 17th and 18th century knows that this word was used by preachers of all persuasions. It is a pity to make such a good word bad by negative historical revisionism. Notice, however, that those who are quick to cry "Hyper" of others, so often leave out the full gospel to the whole man everywhere themselves. Fullerites will only preach the full gospel to believers and Engelsmanians will only preach the law to believers. Between them, they thus leave the unregenerate with nothing! I believe in preaching the whole counsel of God to all men everywhere – especially to the unregenerate. I was rather surprised how little Prof. Engelsma preached the new birth, which is a major component of my witness, though I am no preacher. I was told, be it right or wrong, that he always addressed his congregation as being saved and treated them as believers only. I reserve judgement in his case, though his friends tell me this is correct. I know, however, many of those close to Engelsma who treat their mixed congregations as ‘pure churches’ and are not famed for their evangelistic outreach. Note, on the other hand, that those great men of the past who denied duty-faith, packed their churches with thousands. Ryland Sen, alone added to his church seven-fold. Gill built up and maintained the largest Baptist Church in England for at least forty-odd years, Hawker’s Anglican church burst its seams, as did Gadsby’s Strict Baptist and Huntington’s Independent Calvinist Church.


"The Gospel - if it is to be preached to *every* creature - must contain the same news or information for all indiscriminately. And that news that Christ died for sinners whom God from eternity had elected to eternal life is accompanied by the call to repentance and faith."

My comment: On the surface, and I believe this is all you intended, I agree whole-heartedly. Of course, the gospel does not reach all men equally, as Calvin puts it, i.e. not with the same outcome, but with this you would agree. Also, if you mean by ‘indiscriminately’ as the Spirit leads and in His good time, I accept the word, though I would not use it as the Spirit’s work in salvation, as in judgement, is always discriminate.


"Repentance means too "a change of mind". To repent is to change one's mind and agree with or assent to the judgment of God passed upon sinners in the Gospel. Repentance then entails - by logical necessity - belief or assent to the truths revealed in the Gospel."

My comment: I must be cautious here as this smacks of Sandemanism, which I know you would reject as I. May I reserve comment until you fill this out and qualify it a little more? Please forgive my caution but the Hypers I have to deal with, who claim allegiance to Prof. Engelsma (perhaps only from their point of view) seem to be Sandemanians to a man and their theology is, as the name suggests, built on sand. Allow me merely to say that repentance is necessary for all as all are law-breakers, but one cannot repent of breaking a faith in Jesus that one never had. Duty-repentance has nothing to do with duty-faith. We obey faith dutifully (or ought to) when it is given us but we cannot perform duties in order to become faithful. Duty-faith can only mean salvation by works.


"True repentance is accompanied by true belief, just as true belief presupposes true repentance. Before the sinner can belief or exercise faith, he must first disagree with, hate and oppose his sins. True repentance then is the condition whereby true faith can take root and bear fruit. Since faith is a continuous activity, the Heidelberg Catechism in Lord's Day 33 describes true repentance as a daily activity. Daily repentance leads to daily faith."

My comment: Again, I agree on the surface, but digging a little deeper, I would suggest that Christ’s saving love is so great that He does not begrudge me my lack of repentance in His saving process as He grants me what I require, whatever my natural, fallen state. Daily repentance is from daily faith and not a means of appropriating it. This is just like good works. We Christians do them from faith and not so that we might acquire faith. If a Christian is not always sorry for his sins, we are in keeping with the gospel to doubt his sincerity and status.


"The specific issue that needs to be addressed is this, namely: Does "faith" as a condition of instrumentality and legal demand negates or compromises the Calvinistic doctrine of total depravity and sovereign particular and irresistible grace?"

My comment: The question is valid.


"The answer is no. The legal demand of God is made known in the Ten Commandments. The sum total of the Law as epitomised by the Ten Commandments is a) Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all your heart and strength; and b) Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."

My comment: I am only half in agreement because faith, though an instrument of righteousness and justification, is not a legal demand on God’s part so much as a gift of love. When the law book is opened on the Day of Judgement, it is the law that will damn us or save us, not faith in Christ through duty works. We will be pronounced worthy of eternity because of fulfilling the Law in Christ. Because we have this status even now, God freely gives us the faith of His Son, not as legally gained but by being freely and undeservedly given.


"The sum total of the Law is the essence of the Covenant which is fellowship between persons who are in a relationship. Therefore, the Law is encompassed by the Covenant as it is part of the Covenant of Grace. Since by nature all men are Covenant-breakers, the human race are included in the Covenant of Grace and are legally bound to it with threats of punishments and curses for non-performance. And the standard is that of perfection."

My comment: Here is the difference between the pre-Rebellion Reformed Church of England and the break-away Presbyterians who put the Reformation clock back. The Church of England demands (or demanded then, at least) the New Birth of its people who have been placed under Covenant promises. The Presbyterians look on their congregations as being within the Covenant itself. You go even further and say "the human race are included in the Covenant of Grace." It is not! You speak as if one is in grace by nature and can be then thrown out of it if duty faith is not practised. I need not ask you as a Calvinist to justify this as you will reject what you have written knowing your doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. The early Anglican Reformers condemned the Presbyterian view of the covenant as old Rome with a new name as it equates ‘congregation’ with ‘covenant church’. This, I believe, is also the mistake of many Baptists who link their external denomination ‘organically’ as they say, with the Church of the New Covenant.


"But Christ performed God's righteous demands on our behalf. What God rightly demanded from sinners, Christ performed on behalf of sinners."

My comment: You must explain who you mean by ‘our’ and ‘sinners’. I take it that you are not saying that Christ died for and thus redeemed all men or that Christ’s death makes the salvation of all men possible should they be willing to accept it.


"It means that repentance as practised and faith as exercised by regenerate sinners are not the cause, but rather the effect of their salvation."

My comment: I agree wholeheartedly.


"That is why duty-repentance and duty-faith does not compromise Calvinistic doctrines of grace, but on the contrary, is true Calvinism."

My comment: This is begging the question and you are back at peg one. You have just hung this on without any proof whatsoever. Actually, this contradicts much of what you have said and can be in no way deduced from it. From what I gather from the above and below, you cannot possibly believe in duty faith. I suspect that you are merely hanging on to a shibboleth which you have heard is orthodox, without having examined it in the light of Scripture and conscience. I grew up accepting what some wrongly call ‘believer’s baptism’ and was very hard on those who did not agree with me. Believer’s baptism was my shibboleth. I mean here the teaching that baptism is something that we do for God. When I examined this idea, however, in the light of Scripture and conscience, it became unacceptable. Baptism is something that God does for us as there are no conditions which God has not met in Christ to bring us into full church membership with Him. We all have our shibboleths and I am certainly not saying that I am rid of mine.


"In summary, God demands from all men what they owe to Him. But since salvation is by grace alone and nothing else, Christ performed on behalf of elected sinners. Therefore, there is nothing "legalistic" about demanding from sinners repentance and faith for their repenting and believing does not in any way contribute to their salvation. It is the consequence of the application of the Spirit's regenerating work in them."

My comment: I cannot understand you here. Since when does God demand from all men saving faith? What you are saying is perhaps that God demands from all men that they accept saving faith which is offered to them and which they are duty bound to appropriate for themselves. This is, however, further from the Scriptures than Geneva is form Rome! God gave man legal duties to perform which he failed to do. Man does not owe saving faith to God unless he has it. If he has it, it is given to him by God without regard to duties, though he must dutifully use it.

I have striven to answer questions arising here on your side more fully in the essay on the Full Gospel and the Free Offer which I sent recently. I will be delighted to answer further questions and receive further instruction but cannot always promise a speedy reply or one of this length as it is a painful business for me to type and I have many other duties to faithfully perform.

Yours in Grace,

George Ella