Chapter II--The Reconciliation of Man to God, or the Application of Redemption Through the Work of the Holy Spirit
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CHAPTER II.
THE RECONCILIATION OF MAN TO GOD, OR THE
APPLICATION OF REDEMPTION THROUGH
THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.
SECTION I.—THE APPLICATION OF CHRIST'S REDEMPTION
IN ITS PREPARATION.
(a) In this Section we treat of Election and Calling; Section Second being devoted to the Application of Christ's Redemption in its Actual Beginning—namely, in Union with Christ, Regeneration, Conversion, and Justification; while Section Third has for its subject the Application of Christ's Redemption in its Continuation — namely, in Sanctification and Perseverance.
The arrangement of topics, in the treatment of the reconciliation of man to God, ig taken from Julius Muller, Proof-texte, 35. "Revelation to us aims to bring about revelation in us. In any being absolutely perfect, God's intercourse with us by faculty, and by direct teaching, would absolutely coalesce, and the former be just as much God's voice as the latter" (Hutton, Essays).
(b) In treating Election and Calling as applications of Christ's redemption, we imply that they are, in God's decree, logically subsequent to that redemption. In this we hold the Sublapsarian view, as distinguished from the Supralapsarianism of Beza aud other hyper-Calvinists, which regarded the decree of individual salvation as preceding, in the order of thought, the decree to permit the fall. In this latter scheme, the order of decrees is as follows: 1. the decree to save certain, and to reprobate others; 2. the deree to create both those who are to be saved and those who are to be reprobated; 3. the decree to permit both the former and the latter to fall; 4. the decree to provide salvation only for the former, that is, for the elect
Richards, Theology, 302-307, shows that Calvin, while in his early work, the Institutes, he avoided definite statements of his position with regard to the extent of the atonement, yet in his latter works, the Commentaries, he acceded to the theory of universal atonement. Supralapsarianism is therefore hyper-Calvlnlstic, rather than Calvlnlstic. Sublapsnrianism was adopted by the Synod of Dort (1618, 1619). By Supralapsarlan Is meant that form of doctrine which holds the decree of individual salvation as preceding the decree to permit the fall; Sublapsarian designates that form of doctrine which holds that the decree of individual salvation is subsequent to the decree to permit the fall.
(c) But the Scriptures teach that men as sinners, and not men irrespective of their sins, are the objects of God's saving grace in Christ (John 15: 19; Rom. 11: 5, 7; Eph. 1 : 4-6; 1 Pet 1:2). Condemnation, moreover, is an act, not of sovereignty, but of justice, and is grounded in the guilt of the condemned (Bom. 2 : 6-11 ; 2 Thess. 1: 5-10). The true order of the decrees is therefore as follows: 1. the decree to create; 2. the decree to permit the fall; 3. the decree to provide a salvation in Christ sufficient for the needs of all; 4. the decree to secure the actual acceptance of this salvation on the part of some — or, in other words, the decree of Election.
That saving grace presupposes the fall, and that men as sinners are the objects of It, appears from John IS : 19—" If ye were of the world, the world would love its own: but because ye are not of the world, but I chose jou out of the world, therefore the world hateth you"; Rom. 11: 5-7—"Even so then at the present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. But if it is bj grace, it is no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. What then? That which Israel seeketh for, that he obtained not; but the election obtained it, and the rest were hardened." Eph. 1:4-6 — " Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before him in love: having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto himself according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved "; 1 Pet 1: 2 — elect, "according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus: Grace to you and peace be multiplied."
That condemnation Is not an act of sovereignty, but of Justice, appears from Rom. 2: 6-9 —" who will render to every man according to his works ... wrath and indignation .... upon every soul of man that worketh evil"; 2 These. 1 : 6-9 —" a righteous thing with God to recompense affliction to them that afflict you .... rendering vengeance to them that know not God and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall suffer punishment." Particular persons are elected, not to have Christ die for them, but to have special Influences of the Spirit bestowed upon them.
(d) Those Sublapsarians who hold to the Anselmic view of a limited Atonement, make the decrees 3. and 4., just mentioned, exchange places,— the decree of election thus preceding the decree to provide redemption. The Scriptural reasons for preferring the order here given have been already indicated in our treatment of the Extent of the Atonement (pages 421, 422).
When '3.' and '4.' thus change places, '3.' should be made to read: "The decree to provide In Christ a salvation sufficient for the elect"; and '4.' should read: "The decree that a certain number should be saved"—or. In other words, the decree of election. Sublapsarianism of the first sort may be found in Turretln, loc. 4, quasi. 9; Cunningham, Hist. Theol., 410-439.
I. Election.
Election is that eternal act of God, by which in his sovereign pleasure, and on account of no foreseen merit in them, he chooses certain out of the nnmber of sinful men to be the recipients of the special grace of his Spirit, and so to be made voluntary partakers of Christ's salvation.
1. Proof of the Doctrine of Election. A. From Scripture.
We here adopt the words of Dr. Hovey: "The Scriptures forbid us to find the reasons for election in the moral action of man before the new birth, and refer us merely to the sovereign will and mercy of God, that is, they teach the doctrine of personal election." Before advancing to the proof of the doctrine itself, we may claim Scriptural warrant for three preliminary statements (which we also quote from Dr. Hovey), namely,
First, that "God has a sovereign right to bestow more grace upon one subject than upon another — grace being unmerited favor to sinners."
Mat. 20 :12-15 —" These last have spent but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us Friend, I do
thee no wrong .... Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?" Rom. 9 : 20, 21 —"Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why didst thoa make me thus? Or hath not the potter a right over the day, from the same lamp to make one part a vessel unto honor, and another onto dishonor?"
Secondly, that "God has been pleased to exercise this right in dealing with men."
Ps. 147 : 20—" Be hath not dealt so with any nation: and as for his judgments, they hare not known them " . Rom. 3:1,2--" What advantage then hath the Jew? or what is the profit of circumcision? Much every way: first of all, that they were intrusted with the oracles of God "; John 15 :16 —" Ye did not choose me, but 1 chose you, and appointed you, that ye should go and bear fruit"; acts 9 i IS —"He is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings, and the children of Israel."
Thirdly, that "God has some other reason than that of saving as many
as possible for the way in which he distributes his grace."
Mat. 11: 21 — Tyre and Sidon "would have repented," If they had had the grace bestowed upon Chorazln and Bethsaida; Rom. 9 : 22-25 —" What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much long suffering vessels of wrath fitted unto destruction: and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory?"
The Scripture passages which directly or indirectly support the doctrine of a particular election of individual men to salvation may be arranged as follows:
(a) Direct statements of God's purpose to save certain individuals;
lets 13 : 48 —" is many as were ordained (may^im ) to eternal lift believed "— here Whedon translates: "disposed unto eternal life," referring to «ari|pTio-i*«>'« in verse 23, where "fitted" — "fitted themselves." The only Instance, however, where rio-o-iu is used in a middle sense is in 1 Cor. 16 :15 —"set themselves"; but there the object, iavrout, Is expressed. Hero we must compare Rom. 13:1—11 the powers that be are ordained ( Ttraytittm i of God"; see also Acts 10 : 42—"this is he which is ordained (w0to><Vo« ) of God to be the Judge of quick and dead."
Rom. 9 :11-16 —" For the children being not yet born, neither having done anything good or bad, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth .... I will have mercy on whom I hare mercy . ... So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that hath mercy "; Epb. 1: 4, 5, 9,11 —" chose us in him before the foundation of the world [not brcatwe we were, or were to be, holy, but], that we should be holy and without blemish before him in lore: having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto himself, according to the good pleasure of bis will.... the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure .... in whom we were made a heritage, having been foreordained according to the purpose of him who worketh all things according to the counsel of his will"; Col. 3 :12 —" God's elect"; 2 These. 2 :13 —" God chose you from the beginning unto salvation in sanctilleation of the Spirit and belief of the truth."
(6) In connection with the declaration of God's foreknowledge of these persons, or choice to make them objects of his special attention and care;
Rom. 8 : 27-30 —" called according to his purpose. For whom he foreknew, he also foreordained to be conformed to the image of his Son "; 1 Pet 1:1, 2 —" elect.... according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctilleation of the Spirit, unto obedienoe and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ." On the passage in Romans, Shedd, in his Commentary, remarks that "foreknew," in the Hebraistic use, "is more than simple prescience, and something more also than simply * to fix the eye upon,' or to 'select.' It is this latter, but with the additional notion of a benignant and kindly feeling toward the object."
That the word "know," in 8cripture, frequently means not merely to "apprehend intellectually," but to "regard with favor," to "make an object of care," is evident from Gen. 18 :19—"I hare known him, to the end that he may command his children and his household after him. that they may keep the way of Jehovah, to do justice and judgment"; Ps. 1: 6 —" For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous: But the way of the wicked shall perish "; Amos 3 : 2 —" Ton only hare I known of all the families of the earth "; Rom. 7 :15 — " For that which I do I know not"; 1 Cor. 8 : 3 —" If any man loveth God, the same is known by him"; Gal. 4 : 9—"How that ye have come to know God, or rather, to be known of God"; 1 Thesa. 5 :12—"We beseech you, brethren, to know them that labor among you, and are over you in the lord, and admonish you; and to esteem them eioeeding highly in love for their work's sake." So the word "foreknow ": Rom. 11:2 —"God did not cast off his people whom he foreknew "; 1 Pet 1: 20 — Christ, "who was foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world."
In Rom. 8 : 28-30, quoted above, "foreknew " = elected — that Is, made certain individuals, in the future, the objects of his love and care; "foreordained" describes God's designation of these game Individuals to receive the special gift of salvation. In other words, "foreknowledge" is of persons; "foreordination" is of blessings to be bestowed upon them. Hooker, Eccl. Pol., Appendix to book v, (vol. 2: 751) —"1 whom it did foreknow' (know before as his own, with determination to be forever merciful to them) 'he also predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son' — predestinated, not to opportunity of conformation, but to conformation itself." So, for substance, Calvin, Kuckert, DeWette, Stuart, Jowett, Vaughan. On 1 Pet. 1:1, 2, see Com. of Plumptro. The Arminian interpretation of "whom he foreknew" (Rom. 8 : 29) would require the phrase "u conformed to the image of hi) Son" to be conjoined with it. Paul, however, makes conformity to Christ to be the result, not the foreseen condition, of God's foreordination; see Commentaries of Hodge and Lange.
(c) With assertions that this choice is matter of grace, or unmerited favor, bestowed in eternity past;
Bph. 1: 5-8 —" foreordained according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his graos,
which he freelj bestowed on us in the Beloved according to the riches of his grace "; 2 : 8 —" By grace have je
been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God " — here "and that" (neuter Tooto, verse 8) refers, not to "faith," but to "salvation." But faith is elsewhere represented as having its source in Ood (see below). 2 Tim. 1: 9—"his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before times eternal."
(d) That the Father has given certain persons to the Son, to be his peculiar possession;
John 6: 37—"ail that which the father giveth me shall come unto me"; 17 : 2—"that whatsoever thou hast given him, to them he should give eternal life "; 6 —" I manifested thy name unto the men whom thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them to me "; 9 —" I pray not for the world, but for those whom thou hast given me"; Bph. 1:14 —"unto the redemption of God's own possession"; 1 Pet. 2 : 9 —"a people for God's own possession."
(e) That the fact of believers being united thus to Christ is due wholly to God;
John 6 : 44—"No man can come to me, except the father which sent me draw him "; 10 : 26—"Ye believe not. because ye are not of my sheep "; 1 Cor. 1: 30 —"of him [ God ] are je is Christ Jesus " = your being, as Christians, in union with Christ, is due wholly to God.
(/) That those who are written in the Lamb's book of life, and they only, shall be saved;
PhiL 4:3—" the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life "; Rev. 20 :15 —" and if any was not found written in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire "; 21: 27 —" there shall in no wise enter into it anything unclean .... but only they whioh are written in the Lamb's book of life " = God's decrees of electing grace in Christ.
(g) That these are allotted, as disciples, to certain of God's servants; acts 17 : 4 — (literally)—"some of them were persuaded, and were allotted [by God] to Paul and Silas"
— as disciples (so Meyer and Grimm); 18 : 9,10 —" Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace. for I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to harm thee: for 1 hare much people in this city.
(h) Are made the recipients of a special call of God;
Rom. 8 : 28, 30 —" called according to his purpose .... whom he foreordained, them he also called "; 9 : 23, 24 —" vessels of mercy, which he afore prepared unto glory, even us, whom he also called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles"; 11: 29—"for the gifts and calling of God are without repentance "; 1 Cor. 1: 24-28— "unto them that are called ... Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God .... For behold your calling, brethren .. . the things that are despised did God choose, yea and the things that are not, that he might bring to naught the things that are: that no flesh should glory before God "; Gal. 1:15,16 —" Then it was the good pleasure of God, who separated me, even from my mother's womb, and called me through his grace, to reveal his Son in me "; cf. James 2 : 23 —" and he [ Abraham ] was called [ to be ] the friend of God."
(f) Are born into God's kingdom, not by virtue of man's will, but of God's will;
John 1:13—" born, not of blood, nor of the will of Inn, nor of the Till of nun, bnt of God "; Junes 1:18 —" Of bis ovn vill ho brought us forth by the word of truth."
(J) Receiving repentance, as the gift of God;
Acts 5 : 31 —" Him did God eia.lt with his right hand to be a Prince and a Savior, for to giro repentance to Israel, and remission of sins"; 11:18—"Then to the Gentiles also hstb God granted repentance unto Ufa"; 2 Tim. 2 : 25 —"correcting them that oppose themselves; if peradventure God may give them repentance onto the knowledge of the truth."
(*) Faith, as the gift of God;
John 6 : 65—"No man can come unto mc, except it be given unto him of the Father "; Acts 15 : 8, 9 —"God
giving them the Holy Ghost.... cleansing their hearts by faith "; Rom. 12 : 3 —'4 according as God hath dealt to each man a measure of faith "; 1 Cor. 12 : 9 —" to another faith, in the same Spirit"; Gal. 5 : 22 — " the fruit of the
Spirit is faith "; Phil. 2 :13 — In all faith, "it is God which worketh in you both to will and to work, for his
good pleasure"; Eph. 8 : 23 —" Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ"
(I) Holiness and good works, as the gift of God.
Eph. 1:4—" chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy "; 2 : 9,10 —"not of works, that no man should glory. For we are his workmanship, crested in Christ Jesus for good works, which God afore prepared that we should walk in them"; 1 Pel 1:2—Elect "untoobedience." On Scripture testimony, see Hovey, Manual of Theol. and Ethics, 258-261.
These passages furnish an abundant and conclusive refutation, on the one hand, of the Lutheran view that election is simply God's determination from eternity to provide an objective salvation for universal humanity; and, on the other hand, of the Arminian view that election is God's determination from eternity to save certain individuals upon the ground of their foreseen faith.
B. From Reason.
(a) What God does, he has eternally purposed to do. Since he bestows special regenerating grace on some, he must have eternally purposed to bestow it — in other words, must have chosen them to eternal life. Thus the doctrine of election is only a special application of the doctrine of decrees.
The New Haven views are essentially Arminian. See Fitch, on Predestination and Election, in Christian Spectator, 3: 622—"God's foreknowledge of what would be the results of his present works of grace preceded In the order of nature the purpose to pursue those works, and presented the ground* of that purpose. Whom he foreknew — as the people who would be gained to his kingdom by his present works of grace, in which result lay the whole objective motive for undertaking those works —he did also, by resolving on those works, predestinate." Here God is very erroneously said to foreknow what is as yet included in a merely po&riWc plan. As we have seen in our discussion of decrees, there can be no foreknowledge, unless there Is something fixed, In the future, to be foreknown; and this fixity can be due only to God's predetermination. So, In the present case, election must precede prescience.
The New Haven views are also given in N. W. Taylor, Revealed Theology, 873-444; for oriticlsm upon them, see Tyler, Letters on New Haven Theology, 172-180. If God desired the salvation of Judas as much as of Peter, how was Peter elected In distinction from Judas? To the question, "Who made thee to differ?" the answer must be, "Not God, but my own will." See Finney, In Bib. Sac, 1877 : 711—"God must have foreknown whom he conld wisely save, prior in the order of nature to his determining to save them. But his knowing who woidil be saved, must have been, in the order of nature, subsequent to his election or determination to save them, and dependent upon that determination."
(6) This purpose cannot be conditioned upon any merit or faith of those who are chosen, since there is no such merit — faith itself being God's gift and foreordained by him. Since man's faith is foreseen only as the result of God's work of grace, election proceeds rather upon foreseen unbelief. Faith, as the effect of election, cannot at the same time be the cause of election.
There is an analogy between prayer and its answer, on the one hand, and faith and salvation on the other. God has decreed answer in connection with prayer, and salvation in connection with faith. But he does not change his mind when men pray, or when they believe. As he fulfils his purpose by inspiring: true prayer, so he fulfils his purpose by (riving faith. Augustine: "He chooses us, not because we believe, but that we may believe: lest we should say that we first chose him" (John 15 :16— "To did not choose me, but I chose you"; Rom. 9 : 21 — "from the same lump"; 16—"not of him that willeth").
Here see the valuHble discussion of Wardlaw, Systematic Theol., 2 : 485-549—" Election and salvation on the ground of works foreseen are not different in principle from election and salvation on the ground of works performed." Cf. Pro'. 21:1 —" The Icings heart u in the hud of the Lord as the water-courses; he tnrneth it whithersoever he will"— as easily as the rivulets of the eastern fields are turned by the slightest motion of the band or the foot of the husbandman; Pa. 110 : 3 —" Thy people offer themselves willingly in the day of thy power."
(c) The depravity of the human will is such that, without this decree to bestow special divine influences upon some, all, without exception, would have rejected Christ's salvation after it was offered to them; and so all, without exception, must have perished. Election, therefore, may be viewed as a necessary consequence of God's decree to provide an objective redemption, if that redemption is to have any subjective result in human salvation.
Before the prodigal son seeks the Father, the father must first seek him —a truth brought out in the preceding parables of the lost money and the lost sheep (Luke 15). Without election, all are lost. Newman Smyth, Orthodox Theology of To-day, 56 — "The worst doctrine of eloctlon, to-day, is taught by our natural science. The scientific doctrine of natural selection is the doctrine of election, robbed of all hope, and without a single touch of human pity in it."
Hodge, Syst. Theol., 2 : 335 —" Suppose the deistic view be true: God created men and left them; surely no man could complain of the results. But now suppose God, foreseeing these very results of creation, should create. Would it make any difference, if God's purpose, as to the futurition of such a world, should precede it? Augustine supposes that God did purpose such a world as the deist supposes, with two exceptions: (1) he Interposes to restrain evil; (2) he intervenes, by providence, by Christ, and by the Holy Spirit, to save some from destruction." Election Is simply God's determination that the sufferings of Christ shall not be in vain; that all men shall not be lost; that some shall be led to accept Christ; that to this end special influences of his Spirit shall be given.
2. Objections to the Doctrine of FAection.
(a) It is unjust to those who are not included in this purpose of salvation. —Answer: Election deals, not simply with creatures, but with sinful, guilty, and condemned creatures. That any should be saved, is matter of pure grace, and those who are not included in this purpose of salvation suffer only the due reward of their deeds. There is, therefore, no injustice in God's election. We may better praise God that he saves any, than charge him with injustice because he saves so few.
God can say to all men, saved or unsaved, "Friend, 1 do thee no wrong .... Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?" (Mat 20 :13,15). The question is not whether a father will treat his children alike, but whether a sovereign must treat condemned rebels alike. It is not true that, because the Governor pardons one convict from the penitentiary, he must therefore pardon all. When he pardons one, no injury Is done to those who are left. But, in God's government, there is still less reason for objection; for God offers pardon to all. Nothing prevents men from being pardoned but their unwillingness to accept pardon. Election is simply God's determination to make certain persons willing to accept It. Because justice cannot save all, shall it therefore save none?
Augustine, De Predest. Sanct., 8—"Why does not God teach all? Because it is in mercy that he teaches all whom he does teach, while it is in judgment that he does not teach those whom ho does not teach." In his Manual of Theology and Ethics, 280, Hovey remarks that Rom. 9 : M— "Who art thou that replied against God?"—teaches, not that might makes right, but that God is morally entitled to glorify either his righteousness or his mercy In disposing of a guilty race.
(6) It represents God as partial in his dealings and a respecter of persons. —Answer: Since there is nothing in men that determines God's choice of one rather than of another, the objection is invalid. It would equally apply to God's selection of certain nations, as Israel, and certain individuals, as Cyrus, to be recipients of special temporal gifts. If God is not to be regarded as partial in not providing a salvation for fallen angels, he cannot be regarded as partial in not providing regenerating influences of his Spirit for the whole race of fallen men.
Pa. 44 : 3—"for they gat not the land in possession bj their own sword, neither did their own arm save them; but thy right hand, and thine arm, and the light of thy countenance, because thou hadst a favor unto them "; Is. 45:1, 4, 5 —" Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I hare holden, to subdue nations before him .... For Jacob my servant's sake, and Israel my chosen, I have called thee by thy name.... 1 have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me "; Luke 4 : 25-27—"There were many widows in Israel.... and unto none of them was Elijah sent, but only to Zerephath, in the land of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow, and there were many lepers in
Israel and none of them was cleansed, but only N&aman the Syrian "; 1 Cor. 4 : 7—" For who maketh thee to
differ? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? but if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, u if thou hadst not received it?" 2 Pet. 2 : 4 —" God spared not angels when they sinned, but cast them down to hell"; Heb. 2 :16 —" For verily not to angels doth he give help, but he giveth help to the seed of Abraham."
Is God partial, In choosing Israel, Cyrus, Naaman? Is God partial. In bestowing upon some of his servants special ministerial gifts? Is God partial, in not providing a salvation for fallen angels? In God's providence, one man is born in a Christian land, the son of a noble family, Is endowed with beauty of person, splendid talents, exalted opportunities, immense wealth. Another is born at the Five Points, or among the Hottentots, amid the degradation and depravity of actual, or practical, heathenism. We feel that it Is irreverent to complain of God's dealings in providence. What right have sinners to complain of God's dealings in th"e distribution of his grace? Hovey: "We have no reason to think that God treats all moral beings alike. We should be glad to hear that other races are treated better than we."
(c) It represents God as arbitrary.—Answer: It represents God, not as arbitrary, but as exercising the free choice of a wise and sovereign will, in ways and for reasons which are inscrutable to us. To deny the possibility of such choice is to deny God's personality. To deny that God has reasons for his choice is to deny his wisdom. The doctrine of election finds these reasons, not in men, but in God.
When a regiment is decimated for Insubordination, the fact that every tenth man is ehosen for death is for reasons; but the reasons are not In the men. In one case, the reason for God's choice seems revealed: 1 Tim. 1:16—"Howbeit, for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me as chief might Jesus Christ shew forth all his longsutfering, for an ensample of them which should thereafter believe on him unto eternal life"—here Paul indicates that the reason why God chose him was that he was so great a sinner: Terse 15 —" Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief."
Hovey remarks that "the uses to which God can put men, as vessels of grace, may determine bis selection of them." But since the naturally weak are saved, as well as the naturally strong, we cannot draw any general conclusion, or discern any general rule, in God's dealings, unless It be this, that in election God seeks to illustrate the greatness and the variety of his grace—the reasons lying, therefore, not In men, but in God.
(d) It tends to immorality, by representing man's salvation as independent of their own obedience.—Answer: The objection ignores the fact that the salvation of believers is ordained only in connection with their regeneration and sanctification, as means; and that the certainty of final triumph is the strongest incentive to strenuous conflict with sin.
Plutarch: "God is the brave man's hope, and not the coward's excuse." The purposes of God are an anchor to the storm-tossed spirit. But a ship needs engine, as well as anchor. God does not elect to save any without repentance and faith. Some hold the doctrine of election, but the doctrine of election does not hold them. Such should ponder 1 Pet 1: 2, In which Christians are said to be elect, "in sucutcttiM of the Spirit, unto obedience and (prinking of the blood of Jesus Christ"
(e) It inspires pride in those who think themselves elect.—Answer: This is possible only in the case of those who pervert the doctrine. On the contrary, its proper influence is to humble men. Those who exalt themselves above others, upon the ground that they are special favorites of God, have reason to question their election.
In the novel, there was great effectiveness in the lover's plea to the object of his affection, that he had lovod since he had first set his eyes upon her in her childhood. But God's lovo for us is of longer standing than that. It dates hack to a time before we were born, aye, even to eternity past. It is a love which was fastened upon us, although God knew the worst of us. It is unchanging, because founded upon his Infinite and eternal love to Christ. Jer. 31: 3 —" The Lord appeared of old unto me, saying, Tea, I hare loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee "; Rom. 8 : 31-39 —" If God be for as, who is against us? ... Who shall separate us from the lore of Christ?" And the answer is, that nothing "shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." This eternal love subdues and humbles: Pi 115 :1 —" Hot onto us, 0 Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thj mercy and for thy truth's sake."
(/) It discourages effort for the salvation of the impenitent, whether on their own part or on the part of others. — Answer: Since it is a secret decree, it cannot hinder or discourage such effort. On the other hand, it is a ground of encouragement, and so a stimulus to effort; for, without election, it is certain that all would be lost ( of. Acts 18 : 10). While it humbles the sinner, so that he is willing to cry for mercy, it encourages him Also by showing him that some will be saved, and (since election and faith are inseparably connected) that he will be saved, if he will only believe. While it makes the Christian feel entirely dependent on God's power, in his efforts for the impenitent, it leads him to say with Paul that he "endures all things for the elects' sake, that they may attain the salvation that is in Ohrist Jesus with eternal glory" (2 Tim. 2 : 10).
God's decree that Paul's ship's company should be saved (lots 27: 24) did not obviate the necessity of their abiding in the ship (verse 31). In marriage, man's election does not exclude woman's; so God's election does not exclude man's. There is just as much need of effort as if there were no election. Hence the question for the sinner is not "Am I one of the elect? " but rather " What shall I do to be saved?" Milton represents the spirits of hell as debating foreknowledge and free will, in wandering mazes lost.
No man is saved until he ceases to debate and begins to act. And yet no man will thus begin to act, unless God's Spirit moves him. The Lord encouraged Paul by saying to him: "I have much people in this city" (lots 18 :10) — people whom I will bring in through thy word. "Old Adam is too strong for young Melancthon." If God does not regenerate, there Is no hope of success in preaching: "God stands powerless before the majesty of man's lordly will. Sinners have the glory of their own salvation. To pray God to convert a man is absurd. God elects the man, because he foresees that the man will elect himself" (see S. R. Mason, Truth Unfolded, 298-307). The doctrine of election does Indeed cut off the hopes of those who place confidence in themselves; but it is best that such hopes should be destroyed, and that in place of them should be put a hope iu the sovereign grace of God. The doctrine of election does teach man's absolute dependence upon God, and the impossibility of any disappointment or disarrangement of the
divine plans arising from the disobedience of the sinner, and it humbles human prideuntil it is willing to take the place of a suppliant for mercy.
Rowland Hill was criticised for preaching election and yet exhorting sinners to repent, and was told that he should preach only to the elect. He replied that, if his critic would put a ehalk-mark on all the elect, he would preach only to them. But this is not the whole truth. We are not only ignorant who God's elect are, but we are set to preach toboth elect and non-elect ( Ei. 2: 7 —" thou shalt speak my words onto thorn, whether they will heir, or whether they will forbear" ), with the certainty that to the former our preaching will make a higher heaven, to the latter a deeper hell (2 Cor. 2 :15,16 —" For we ore i sweet savor of Chrirt unto God, in them that ire tared, and in them that perish; to the one a savor from death unto death; to the other a savor from life unto life").
(g) The decree of election implies a decree of reprobation. —Answer :. The decree of reprobation is not a positive decree, like that of election, but. a permissive decree to leave the sinner to his self-chosen rebellion and ite natural consequences of punishment.
Election and sovereignty are only sources of good. Election Is not a decree todestroy — it is a decree only to save. When we elect a President, we do not need to hold a second election to determine that the remaining millions shall be non-Presidents. It is needless to apply contrivance or force. Sinners, like water, If simply let alone, will run down hill to ruin. The decree of reprobation is simply a decree to do nothing—a decree to leave the sinner to himself. The natural result of this Judicial forsaking, on the part of Ood, is the hardening and destruction of the sinner. But it must not be forgotten that this hardening and destruction arc not due to any positive efficiency of God
— they are aself-hardenlngand a self-destruction — and God's judicial forsaking is only the Just penalty of the sinner's guilty rejection of offered mercy.
See Hosea 11: 8 —" How shall I giro thee up, Sphraim ? .... my heart is turned within me, my compassions are kindled together"; 4 :17—"Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone"; Horn. 9 : 22, 23 —"That if God, willing toshow his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering vessels of wrath fitted unto destruction: and that he might make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy, which he afore prepared unto glory''
— here notice that" which he afore prepared" declares a positive divine efficiency, in the case of the vessels of mercy, while "fitted unto destruction" Intimates no such positive agency of God — the vessels of wrath fitted themselves for destruction; 2 Tim. 2 : 20 —" vessels ... some unto honor, and some unto dishonor "; 1 Pet. 2 : 8 —" they stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed"; Jude4—"who wore of old set forth ['written of beforehand'—Am. Rev.] unto this condemnation."
On the general subject of election, sec Mozley, Predestination ; Payne, Divine Sovereignty; Kidgeley. Works, 1 : 281-324, esp. 322; Edwards, Works, 2 : 527 sq.; Van Oosterzee. Dogmatics, 446-458: Martensen, Dogmatics, 362-382; and especially Wardlaw Systematic Theology, 485-548; H. B. Smith, Syst. of Christian Theology, 502-514.
II. Calling.
Calling is that act of God by which men are invited to accept, by faith,, the salvation provided by Christ.—The Scriptures distinguish between:
[a) The general, or external, call to all men through God's providence, word, and Spirit.
Is. 45 : 22 —" look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is none else "; 55 : 6 —" Seek ye the Lord while he may be found; call ye upon him while he is near "; 65 :12 —" when I called, ye did not answer; when I spake, ye did not hear; but ye did that which was evil in mine eyes, and chose that wherein I delighted not"; Ez. 33 :11 —" As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, 0 house of Israel ?'' Hat 11: 28—" Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest"; 22:3—"sent forth his servants to call them that were hidden to the marriage feast: and they would not come "; Mark 16 :15 —" Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to the whole creation"; John 12 : 32— "ind I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto myself "—draw, not drag; Rev. 3 : 20— "Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me."
(b) The special, efficacious call of the Holy Spirit to the elect.
Luke 14 : 23 —"Go oat into the highways and hedges, and constrain them to come in, that mj house may be filled''; Rom. 1: 6, 7 —" to all that are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to yon and peace from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ"; 8 : 30—"whom he foreordained, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified " j 11: 29 —" For the pits and calling of God an without repentance "; 1 Cor, 1: 24 —" But we preach Christ crucified, unto Jews a stumblingbloek, and unto Gentiles foolishness; but unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God "; 26—" For behold your calling, brethren, how that not many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called "; Phil. 3 :14 —" I press on toward the goal, unto the prise of the high [mart;, 'upward' ] calling of God, in Christ Jesus"; Eph. 1:18— "that ye know what is the hope of bis calling, what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints"; 1 Then. 2 :12—"to the end that ye should walk worthily of God, who calleth you unto his own kingdom and glory "; 2 Theas. 2 :14 —" whereunto he called you through our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ"; 2 Tim. 1: 9 —" who saved us. and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before times eternal"; Heb. 3:1—" holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling "; 2 Pet. 1:10 —" Wherefore, brethren, give the more diligenoe to make your calling and election sure."
Two questions only need special consideration:
A. Is God's general call sincere?
This is denied, upon the ground that such sincerity is incompatible, first, with the inability of the sinner to obey; and secondly, with the design of God to bestow only upon the elect the special grace without which they will not obey.
(a) To the first objection we reply that, since this inability is not a physical but a moral inability, consisting simply in the settled perversity of an evil will, there can be no insincerity in offering salvation to all who are willing to receive it, especially when the offer is in itself a proper motive to obedience.
God's call to all men to repent and to believe the gospel is no more Insincere than his command to all men to love him with all the heart. There is no obstacle in the way of men's obedience to the (roepel, that does not exist to prevent their obedience to the law. If it is proper to publish the commands of the law, it Is proper to publish the invitations of the gospel. A human being may be perfectly sincere in giving an invitation which he knows will be refused. He may desire to have the Invitation accepted, while yet he may, for certain reasons of justice or personal dignity, be unwilling to put forth special efforts, aside from the Invitation itself, to secure the acceptance of it on the part of those to whom it Is offered. So God's desires that certain men should be saved may not be accompanied by his will to exert special Influences to save them.
These desires were meant by the phrase "revealed will" In the old theologians; his purpose to bestow special grace, by the phrase "secret will." It is of the former that Paul speaks. In 1 Tim. 2:4—" who would have all men to bo saved." Here we have, not the active vwerot, but the passive nttymi. The meaning is, not that God purpose* to save all men, but that he dejrfres all men to be saved through repenting and believing the gospel. Hence God's revealed will, or desire, that all men should be saved, is perfectly consistent with his secret will, or purpose, to bestow special grace only upon a certain number (see on 1 Tim. 2: 4, Falrbairn's Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles).
The sincerity of God's call is shown, not only in the fact that the only obstacle to compliance, on the sinner's part, is the sinner's own evil will, but also in the fact that God has, at infinite cost, made a complete external provision, upon the ground of which "he that will" may "come" and "take the water of life freely" (Rev.22:17); so that God can truly say: "What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it?" (Is. 5 : 4).
(6) To the second, we reply that the objection, if true, would equally
hold against God's foreknowledge. The sincerity of God's general call is
no more inconsistent with his determination that some shall be permitted to
reject it, than it is with his foreknowledge that some will reject it.
Hodge, Syst. Theol., 2:643—"Predestination concerns only the purpose of God to render effectual, in particular cases, a call addressed to all. A general amnesty, on certain conditions, may be offered by a sovereign to rebellious subjects, although he knows that through pride or malice many will refuse to accept it; and even though, for wise reasons, he should determine not to constrain their assent, supposing that such influence over their minds were within his power. It Is evident, from the nature of the call, that it has nothing to do with the secret purpose of God to grant his effectual grace to some,
and not to others According to the Augustlnlan scheme, the non-elect have all the
advantages and opportunities of securing their salvation, which, according to any other
scheme, are granted to mankind indiscriminately Ood designed, In its adoption, to
save his own peeple, but he consistently offers its benefits to all who are willing to receive them." See also H. B. Smith, System of Christian Theology, 516-521.
B. Is God's special call irrresistible?
We prefer to say that this special call is efficacious,— that is, that it infallibly accomplishes its purpose of leading the sinner to the acceptance of salvation. This implies two things:
(a) That the operation of God is not an outward constraint upon the human will, but that it accords with the laws of our mental constitution. We reject the term 'irresistible,' as implying a coercion and compulsion which is foreign to the nature of God's working in the soul.
Pi 110 : 3 —" Thy people offer themselves willingly in the day of thy power: is the beauties of holiness; from tlu iranb of the morning thou hut the dew of thy youth"—(. e., youthful recruits to thy standard, as numberless and as bright as the morning drops of dew; Phil. 2 :12,13 —" Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure" — (. e., the result of God's working Is our own working. The Lutheran Formula of Concord properly condemns the view that, before, in, and after conversion, the will only resists the Holy Ghost; for this, it declares, Is the very nature of conversion, that out of non-willing, God makes willing, persons (F. C, 80,581, 582, 873).
(6) That the operation of God is the originating cause of that new disposition of the affections, and that new activity of the will, by which the sinner accepts Christ. The cause is not in the response of the will to the presentation of motives by God, nor in any mere cooperation of the will of man with the will of God, but is an almighty act of God in the will of man, by which its freedom to choose God as its end is restored and rightly exercised ( John 1 : 12, 13). For further discussion of the subject, see, in the next section, the remarks on Regeneration, with which this efficacious call is identical.
John 1 : 12,13 —" But as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." God's saving grace and effectual calling are Irresistible, not in the sense that they are never resisted, but In the sense that they are never successfully resisted. See Andrew Fuller, Works. 2 : 373, 513, and 3 : 807; GUI, Body of Divinity, 2:121-130; Robert Hall, Works, 3:75.
SECTION II.—THE APPLICATION OF CHRIST'8 REDEMPTION
IN ITS ACTUAL BEGINNING.
Under this head we treat of Union with Christ, Regeneration, Conversion (embracing Repentance and Faith), and Justification. Much confusion and error have arisen from conceiving these as occurring in chronological order. The order is logical, not chronological. As it is only "in Christ" that man
is "a new creature" (2 Cor. 5 : 17) or is "justified" (Acts 13 : 39), union with Christ logically precedes both regeneration and justification; and yet, chronologically, the moment of our union with Christ is also the moment when we are regenerated and justified. So, too, regeneration and conversion are but the divine and human sides or aspects of the same fact, although regeneration has logical precedence, and man turns only as God turns him.
Darner, Glaubenslehre, 2 :694 (Syst. Doct., 4 :159), gives at this point an account of the work of the Holy Spirit in general. The Holy Spirit's work, he says, presupposes the historical work of Christ, and prepares the way for Christ's return. "As the Holy Spirit is the principle of union between the Father and the Son, so he is the principle of union between God and man. Only through the Holy Spirit does Christ secure for himself those who will love him as distinct and free personalities." Regeneration and conversion are not chronologically separate. Which of the spokes of a wheel starts first? The ray of light and the ray of heat enter at the same moment. Sensation and perception are not separated In time, although the former is the cause of the latter.
"Suppose a non-elastic tube extending across the Atlantic. Suppose that the tube is completely filled with an incompressible fluid. Then there would be no interval of time between the impulse given to the fluid at this end of the tube, and the effect upon the fluid at the other end." See Hazard, Causation and Freedom in Willing, 33-38, who argues that cause and effect are always simultaneous; else, in the intervening time, there would be a cause that had no effect; that is, a cause that caused nothing; that is, a cause that was not a cause. "A potential cause may exist for an unlimited period without producing any effect, and of course may precede its effect by any length of time. But actual, effective cause being the exercise of a sufficient power, its effect cannot be delayed; for, in that case, there would be the exercise of a sufficient power to produce the effect, without producing it, involving the absurdity of its being both sufficient and insufficient at the same time.
"A difficulty may here be suggested in regard to the flow or progress of events in time, if they are all simultaneous with their causes. This difficulty cannot arise as to intelligent effort; for, in regard to it, periods of non-action may continually intervene; but if there are series of events and material phenomena, each of which is in turn effect and cause, it may be difficult to see how any time could elapse between the first and the last of the series.... If, however, as I suppose, these series of events, or material changes, are always effected through the medium of motion, it need not trouble us, for there is precisely the same difficulty in regard to our conception of the motion of matter from point to point, there being no space or length between any two consecutive points, and yet the body in motion gets from one end of a long line to the other, and in this case this difficulty Just neutralizes the other... So, even if we cannot conceive how motion involves the idea of time, we may perceive that, if it does so, it may be a means of conveying events, which depend upon it, through time also."
Bowne, Metaphysics, 106 —" In the system, the complete ground of an event never lies in any one thing, but only in a complex of things. If a single thing were the sufficient ground of an effect, the effect would coexist with the thing, and all effects would be instantaneously given. Hence all events in the system must be viewed as the result of the interaction of two or more things."
See A. A. Hodge, on the Ordo Salutis, in Princeton Rev., March, 1878:304-321. Dr. Hodge makes the order to be: (1) regeneration; (2) faith; (3) Justification. The sinner, he says, "must have part In Christ so far forth as to be regenerated, in order to have part in him so far forth as to be Justified." Union with Christ "is effected by the Holy Ghost in effectual calling. Of this calling the parts are two: (a) the offering of Christ to the sinner, externally by the gospel, and internally by the illumination of the Holy Ghost; (b) the reception of Christ, which on our part is both passive and active. The passive reception Is that whereby a spiritual principle is ingenerated into the human will, whence issues the active reception, which is an act of faith with which repentance is always conjoined." ,
H. B. Smith, however, in his System of Christian Theology, is more clear In the putting of union with Christ before regeneration. On page 502, ho begins his treatment of the Application of Redemption with the title: "The Union between Christ and the Individual believer as effected by the Holy Spirit. This embraces the subjects of Justification, Regeneration, and Sanctiflcation, with the underlying topic which comes first to be considered, Election." He therefore treats Union with Christ (581-539) before Regeneration (553-569). He says Calvin defines regeneration as coming to us by participation in Christ, and apparently agrees with this view (569).
"This union [with Christ] is at the ground of regeneration and Justification" (534). "The grent difference of theological systems comes out here. Since Christianity is redemption through Christ, our mode of conceiving that will determine the character of our whole theological system" (536). "The union with Christ is mediated by his Spirit, whence we are both renewed and justified. The great fact of objective Christianity is incarnation in order to atonement; the great fact of subjective Christianity Is union with Christ, whereby we receive the atonement" (537). We may add that this union with Christ, in view of which Ood elects and to which God calls the sinner, Is begun in regeneration, completed in conversion, declared in Justification, and proved in sanctlficatlon and perseverance.
L Union ■with Christ.
The Scriptures declare that, through the operation of God, there is constituted a union of the soul with Christ different in kind from God's natural and providential concursus with all spirits, as well as from all unions of mere association or sympathy, moral likeness, or moral influence,— a union of life, in which the human spirit, while then most truly possessing its own individuality and personal distinctness, is interpenetrated and energized by the Spirit of Christ, is made inscrutably but indissolubly one with him, and so becomes a member and partaker of that regenerated, believing, and justified humanity of which he is the head.
Dr. J. W. Alexander well calls this doctrine of the Union of the Believer with Christ "tho central truth of all theology and of all religion." Yet it receives little of formal recognition, either in dogmatic treatises or in common religious experience. Quenstedt, 886-912, has devoted a section to It; A. A. Hodge gives to it a chapter, In his Outlines of Theology, 369 to which we are indebted for valuable suggestions; H. B. Smith treats of it, not however as a separate topic, but under the head of Justification (System, 531-538).
The majority of printed systems of doctrine, however, contain no chapter or section on Union with Christ, and the majority of Christians much more frequently think of Christ as a Savior outside of them, than as a Savior who dwells within. This comparative neglect of the doctrine Is doubtless a reaction from the exaggerations of a false mysticism. But there Is great need of rescuing tho doctrine from neglect. For this we rely wholly upon Scripture. Doctrines which reason can neither discover nor prove need large support from the Bible. It Is a mark of divine wisdom that the doctrine of the Trinity, for example, Is so inwoven with the whole fabric of the New Testament, that the rejection of the former Is the virtual rejection of the latter. The doctrine of Union with Christ, in like manner, is taught so variously and abundantly, that to deny it is to deny inspiration itself. Sec Kahnis, Luth. Dogmatik, 3 : 447-450.
1. Scripture Representations of this Union.
A. Figurative teaching. It is illustrated:
(a) From the union of a building and its foundation.
Kph. 2 : 20-22 —" being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jon himself being the chief corner stone; in Thorn each several building, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom je also are builded together for a habitation of God in the Spirit"; Col. 2:7 —" builded np in him"—grounded in Christ as our foundation; 1 Pet 2 : 4, 5—"Unto whom coming, a living stone, rejected indeed of men, bnt with God elect, precious, je also, as spiritual stones, are built up a spiritual house"—each living stone in the Christian temple is kept in proper relation to every other, and is made to do its part in furnishing a habitation for God, only by being built upon and permanently connected with Christ, the chief corner stone. Cf. Pa. 118 : 22—"Ike stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner "; Is. 28 :16 —" Behold I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone of sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste."
(6) From the union between husband and wife.
Rom. 7:4 —"ye also were nude dead to the lav through the bodj of Christ; that ye should be joined to another, *Ten to him that was raised from the dead, that we might bring forth fruit unto God "— here union with Christ is illustrated by the Indissoluble bond that connects husband and wife, and makes them legally and organically one; 2 Cor. II: 2 —" 1 am jealous over you with a godly jealousy: for I espoused you to one husband, that I might present you as a pure virgin to Christ"; Iph. 5: 31, 32 —" For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the twain shall become one flesh. This mystery is great; but I speak in regard of Christ and of the church "—Meyer refers verse 31 wholly to Christ, and says that Christ leaves father and mother (the right hand of God) and is Joined to the church as his wife, the two constituting thenceforth one moral porson. Ho makes the union future, however,—" therefore nhall a man leave his father and mother"—the consummation Is at Christ's second coming. But the Fathers, as Chrysostom, Theodoret, and Jerome, referred it more properly to the incarnation.
Rev. 19: 7 —" The marriage of the lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready "; 22 :17—" And the Spirit «id the bride say, Come"; ef. Is. 54 : 5—"for thy Maker is thine husband"; Jar. 3 : 20—"Surely as a wife treacherously departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with me, 0 house of Israel, saith the Lord "; Hoe. 2:2-5—" for their mother hath played the harlot"—departure from God Is adultery; the Song of Solomon, as Jewish interpreters have always maintained, is an allegorical poem describing, under the figure of marriage, the union between Jehovah and his people: Paul only adopts the Old Testament figure, and applies It more precisely to the union of God with the church in Jesus Christ.
(c) From the union between the vine and its branches.
John 15 :1-10 —" I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit: for apart from me ye can do nothing"—as God's natural life is in the vine, that it may give life to Its natural branches, so God's spiritual life is in the vine, Christ, that he may give life to his spiritual branches. The roots of this new vine are planted In heaven, not on •earth; and into it the half-withered branches of the old humanity are to be grafted, that they may have life divine. Rom. 6 : 5 —" If we have become united with him [ciij»d>uToi —' grown together'— used of the man and horse in the Centaur, Xen., Cyrop., 4:3:18], by the likeness of his death, we shall be also by the likeness of his resurrection "; 11 : 24 —" thou wast cut out of that which is by nature a wild olive tree, and wast grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree"; Col. 2 : 6, 7 —" is therefore ye received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and builded up in him "— not only grounded in Christ as our foundation, but thrusting down roots into him as the deep, rich, all-sustaining .soil. This union with Christ is consistent with individuality: for the graft brings forth fruit after Its kind, though modified by the tree into which it is grafted.
(d) From the union between the members and the head of the body.
1 Cor. 6 :15,19 —" Know ye not that your bodies are members of Christ? .. .Know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have from God?" 12:12 —" For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of the body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ"— here Christ is identified with the church of which he is the head; Iph. 1: 22, 23—" He put all things in subjection under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that fUleth all in all"—as the members of the human body are united to the head, the source of their activity and the power that controls their movements, so all believers ore members of An invisible body whose head is Christ. "The church is the fulness (irAijpufia) of Christ; as it was not good for the first man, Adam, to be alone, no more was it good for the second man, Christ" (C. H. M.). Eph. 4 :15,16—"grow up in all things into him, which is the head, even Christ; from whom all the body .... maketh the increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love "; 5 : 29, 30 —"for no man ever hated his own flesh: bat nourisheth it and cherisheth it, even as Christ also the church; because we are members of his body."
(e) From the union of the race with the source of its life in Adam.
Rom. 5 :12, 21—"As through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin .... that as sin reigned in death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ oar Lord "; 1 Cor. 15: 22, 45, 49—"is in idam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive ... The first man Adam became a living soul. The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit.... is we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly "—as the whole race is one with the first man Adam, In whom It fell and from whom it has derived a corrupted and guilty nature, so the whole race of believers constitutes a new and restored humanity, whose Justified and purified nature is derived from Christ, the second Adam. ('/. Gen. 2 : 23 —" This is now bone of my bones and flash of my flesh: she thill be called Woman, because she wu taken out of au "— here C. H. M. remarks tbat, as man Is first
created and then woman Is viewed In and formed out of him, so It Is with Christ and thev church. "We are members of Christ's body, because In Christ we have the principle of our origin; from him our life arose. Just as the life of Eve was derived from Adam ... ... The church is Christ's helpmeet, formed out of Christ in his deep sleep of death, as Eve out of Adam The church will be nearest to Christ, as Evo was to Adam." Because Christ is the source of all spiritual life for his people, he Is called. In Is. 9 : 6,"Iverlaating Pettier,'' and it is said, in Is. 53:10, that "be shall see bis seed" (see page 367).
B. Direct statements.
(a) The believer is said to be in Christ.
Lest we should regard the figures mentioned above as merely oriental metaphors, the fact of the believer's union with Christ is asserted In the most direct and prosaic manner. John 14:20 — "ye in me"; Rom. 6:11— "alive unto God in Christ Jerae"; 8:1—"no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus"; 2 Cor. 5:17— "if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature"; Kph. 1: 4 —"chose m in him before the foundation of the world "; 2 :13 —" Mow in Christ Jesus ye that once were far off are made nigh in the blood of Christ" Thus the believer is said to be " in Christ," as the element or atmosphere which surrounds him with Its perpetual presence and which constitutes his vital breath; In fact, this phrase "in Christ," always meaning "In union with Christ," Is the very key toPaul's epistles, and to the whole New Testament.
(6) Christ is said to be in the believer.
John 14 : 20—"I in you"; Rom. 8 : >—"ye are not in the flesh bnt in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. But if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of bis "— that this Spirit of ChriBt is Christ himself, is shown from verse 10—"And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness"; Gal. 2 : 20 —"I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, bat Christ liveth in me"— here Christ is said to be in the believer, and so to live his life within the believer, that the latter can point to this as the dominating fact of his experience — it is not so much he that lives, as it is Christ that lives in him.
(c) The Father and the Son dwell in the believer.
John 14 : 23 —" If a man love me, he will keep my word: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him. and make our abode with him "; cf. 10 —" Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I say unto yon I speak not from myself: but the Father abiding in me doeth his works "— the Father and the Son dwell In the believer; for where the Son is, there always the Father must lie also. If the union between the believer and Christ in John 14 :23 is to be Interpreted as one of mere moral influence, then the union of Christ and the Father in John 14 :10 must also be Interpreted as a union of mere moral Influence. Iph. 3 :17 —" that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith "; 1 John 4 :16 —" He that abideth in love abideth in God, and God abideth in him."
(d) The believer has life by partaking of Christ, as Christ has life by
partaking of the Father.
John 6 : 53. 56, 57—"Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink bis blood, ye have not life in yourselves .... He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth in me, and I in him .... As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so be that eateth me shall live because of me "— the believer has life by partaking of Christ in a way that may not inappropriately be compared with Christ's having life by partaking of the Father. 1 Cor. 10 :16,17—"The cup of blessing whieb we bless, is it not a communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a communion of the body of Christ?"—here it is Intimated that the Lord's supper sets forth, in the language of symbol, the soul's actual participation in the life of Christ; and the margin properly translates the word .coii'iui'ia, not "communion," but "participation." 1 John 1: 3—"our fellowship (mmni) is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ."
(e) All believers are one in Christ.
John 17 : 21-23 —" that they all may be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us: that the world may believe that thou didst send me. and the glory which thou hast given me I have given unto them; that they may be one, even as we are one; I in them, and thou in me, that they may be perfected into one"— all believers are one in Christ, to whom they are severally and collectively united, aa Christ himself is one with God.
(/) The believer is made partaker of the divine nature. 2 Pet 1: 4 —" that through these [promises] je may become partaken of the divine nature "— not by having: the essence of your humanity changed into the essence of divinity, but by having- Christ the divine Savior continually dwelling within, and lndissolubly Joined to, your human souls.
(g) The believer is made one spirit with the Lord.
1 Cor. 6 :17 —" He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit"— human nature is so interpenetrated and energized by the divine, that the two move and act as one; cf. 18— "Inow ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost which is in yon, which ye haie from God?" Horn. 8 : 26 —"the Spirit also helpeth our infirmity: for we know not how to pray as we ought; but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered "— the Spirit Is so near to us, and so one with us, that our prayer is called his, or rather, his prayer becomes ours. Weiss, in his Life of Jesus, says that, in the view of Scripture, human greatness does not consist in a man's producing everything In a natural way out of himself, but In possessing perfect receptivity for God's greatest gift. Therefore God's Son receives the Spirit without measure; and we may add that the believer in like manner receives Christ.
2. Nature of this Union.
We have here to do not only with a fact of life, but with a unique relation between the finite and the infinite. Our descriptions must therefore be inadequate. Yet in many respects we know what this union is not; in certain respects we can positively characterize it.
It should not surprise us if we find it far more difficult to give a scientific definition of this union, than to determine the fact of its existence. It Is a fact of life with which we have to deal; and the secret of life, even In Its lowest forms, no philosopher has ever yet discovered. The tiniest flower witnesses to two facts: first, that of its own relative independence, as an individual organism ; and secondly, that of Its ultimate dependence upon a life and power not its own. So every human soul has Its proper powers of intellect, affection, and will; yet it lives, moves, and has its being In God (Acts 17: 21 >.
Starting out from the truth of God's omnipresence, it might seem as if God's indwelling in the granite boulder was the last limit of his union with the finite. But we see the divine intelligence and goodness drawing nearer to us, by successive stages, in vegetable life. In the animal creation, and in the moral nature of man. And yet there are two stages beyond all these: first, in Christ's union with the believer; and secondly, in God's union with Christ. If this union of God with the believer be only one of several approximations of God to his finite creation, the fact that It is, equally with the others, not wholly comprehensible to reason, should not blind us either to its truth or to its importance.
A. Negatively. It is not:
(a) A merely natural union, like that of God with all human spirits,—as held by rationalists.
In our physical life we are conscious of another life within us which Is not subject to our wills: the heart beats Involuntarily, whether we sleep or wake. But In our spiritual life we are still more conscious of a life within our life. Even the heathen said: "Est Deus In nobis; agitante calescimus Ulo," and the Egyptians held to the Identification of the departed with Osiris (Benouf, Hlbbert Lectures, 185). But Paul urges us to work out our salvation, upon the very ground that "it is God that worketh" in us "bothtowill and to work, for his good pleasure" (Phil. 2:12, 13). This life of God in the soul is the life of Christ.
(6) A merely moral union, or union of love and sympathy, like that between teacher and scholar, friend and friend,— as held by Socinians and Arminians.
There is a moral union between different souls: 1 Sam. 18 :1 —" The soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul"— here the Vulgate has: "Anima Jonathee agglutinate Davidi." Aristotle calls friends "one soul." So in a higher sense, in leti *: 32, the early believers are said to have been "of one heart and eoni." But in Ma 17:21,28, Christ's union with his people is distinguished from any mere union of love and sympathy: "That they ill may be one; even u thou. Father, art in me, and I in thee, that thej also may be in u..... That the lore wherewith thoa loreet me may be in them, and 1 in them." Jesus' aim, in the whole of his last discourse, is to show that no mere union of love and sympathy will be sufficient: "apart from me," he says, "ye can do nothing" (John 15 : 5). That his disciples may be vitally Joined to himself is therefore the subject of his last prayer.
Dorner says well, that Arminlanism (and with this doctrine Roman Catholics and the advocates of New School views substantially agree) makes man a mere tangent to the circle of the divine nature. It has no idea of the interpenetration of the one by the other. But the Lutheran Formula of Concord says much more correctly: "Damnamus sententiam quod non Deus ipse, sod dona Dei duntexat, in oredentibus habitent."
(e) A union of essence, which destroys the distinct personality and subsistence of either Christ or the human spirit,— as held by many of the mystics.
Many of the mystics, as Schwenkfeld, Weigel, Sebastian Frank, held to an essential union between Christ and the believer. One of Welgel's followers, therefore, could say to another: "lam Christ Jesus, the living Word of God; I have redeemed thee by my sinless sufferings." We are ever to remember that the indwelling of Christ only puts the believer more completely in possession of himself, and makes him more conscious of his own personality and power. Union with Christ must be taken in connection with the other truth of the personality and activity of the Christian; otherwise it tends to pantheism.
William Lincoln: "The only way for the believer, if he wants to go rightly, is to remember that truth is always two-sided. If there Is any truth that the Holy Spirit has specially pressed upon your heart, if you do not want to push it to the extreme, ask what is the counter-truth, and lean a little of your weight upon that; otherwise, if you bear so very much on one side of the truth, there Is a danger of pushing it into a heresy. Heresy means selected truth; it does not mean error: heresy and error are very different things. Heresy is truth, but truth pushed into undue importance, to the disparagement of the truth upon the other side."
(d) A union mediated and conditioned by participation of the sacraments of the church,— as held by Romanists, Lutherans, and High-Church Episcopalians.
Perhaps the most pernicious misinterpretation of the nature of this union is that which conceives of it as a physical and material one, and which rears upon this basis the fabric of a sacramental and external Christianity. It is sufficient here to say that this union cannot be mediated by sacraments, since sacraments presuppose It as already existing; both baptism and Lord's Supper are destined only for believers. Only faith receives and retains Christ; and faith is the act of the soul grasping what is purely invisible and supersensible; not the act of the body, submitting to Baptism or partaking of the Supper.
B. Positively, it is:
(o) An organic union,—in which we become members of Christ and partakers of his humanity.
Kant defines an organism, as that whose parts are reciprocally means and end. The body is an organism; since the limbs exist for the heart, and the heart for the limbs. So each member of Christ's body lives for him who is the head; and Christ the head equally lives for his members: Eph. 5 : 29, 30 —" Ho man ever hated his own flesh; bat nourishetb and chensheth it, eren as Christ also the church; because we are members of his My."
(6) A vital union,— in which Christ's life becomes the dominating principle within us.
This union is a vital one, in distinction from any union of mere Juxtaposition or external influence. Christ does not work upon us from without, as one separated from us, but from within, as the very heart from which the life-blood of our spirits flows. See Gal 2 : 20—"It is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me; and thai life which I now hie in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me "; CoL 3 : 3, 4 —M for ye died, and jour hfe is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our hfe, shall be manifested, then shall ye also with him be manifested in glory." Christ's life is not corrupted by the corruption of his members, any more than the ray of light is defiled by the filth with which it comes in contact.
(c) A spiritual onion, that is, a union whose source and author is the Holy Spirit.
By a spiritual union we mean a union not of body but of spirit—a union, therefore, which only the Holy Spirit originates and maintains. Rom. 8 : 9,10—"ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you. But if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none ■of his. and if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is hfe because of righteousness." The indwelling of Christ involves a continual exercise of efficient power. In Iph. 3 :16, 17, ■" strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man" is Immediately followed by "that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith."
(d) An indissoluble union,—that is, a union which, consistently with Christ's promise and grace, can never be dissolved.
Nat. 28 : 20—"U I am with yon alway, even unto the end of the world "; John 10 : 28 —" they shall never perish and no one shall snatch them out of my hand"; Rom. 8 : 35, 39—"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? .... nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ
Jesus our Lord": 1 Thess. 4 :14,17—"them also that are fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring with him Then we
that are alive, that are left, shall together with them be caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord."
Christ's omnipresence makes it possible for him to be united to, and to be present in, each believer, as perfectly and fully as If that believer were the only one to receive Christ's fulness. As Christ's omnipresence makes the whole Christ present in every place, each believer has the whole Christ with him, as his source of strength, purity, life; so that each may say: Christ gives all his time and wisdom and care to me. Such a union as this lacks every element of instability. Once formed, the union is indissoluble.
Since there Is now an unchangeable and divine element in us, our salvation depends no longer upon our unstable wills, but upon Christ's purpose and power. By temporary declension from duty, or by our causeless unbelief, we may banish Christ to the barest and most remote room of the soul's house; but he does not suffer us wholly to exclude him; and when we are willing to unbar the doors, he Is still there, ready to fill the whole mansion with his light and love.
(e) An inscrutable union,— mystical, however, only in the sense of surpassing in its intimacy and value any other union of souls which we know.
This union is inscrutable, indeed; but it is not mystical, in the sense of being unintelligible to the Christian or beyond the reach of his experience. If we call it mystical at all. It should be only because, In the intimacy of its communion and in the transforming power of its influence, it surpasses any other union of souls that we know, and so cannot be fully described or understood by earthly analogies. Bph. 5: 32—"This mystery is great: but I speak in regard of Christ and of the church"; Col. 1: 27—"the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory."
See Diman, Theistic Argument, 380 —" As physical science has brought us to the conclusion that back of all the phenomena of the material universe there lies an invisible universe of forces, and that these forces may ultimately be reduced to one all-pervading force in which the unity of the physical universe consists; and as philosophy has advanced the rational conjecture that this ultimate all-pervading force Is simply willforce; so the great Teacher holds up to us the spiritual universe as pervaded by one omnipotent life —a life which was revealed In him as its highest manifestation, but which is shared by all who by faith become partakers of his nature. He was Son of God: they too had power to become sons of God. The incarnation is wholly within the natural course and tendency of things. It was prepared for, it came, in the fulness of times. Christ's life is not something sporadic and individual, having its source in the personal conviction of each disciple; it implies a real connection with Christ, the head. Behind all nature there is one force; behind all varieties of Christiun life and character there is one spiritual power. All nature is not inert matter—it is pervaded by a living presence. So all the body of believers live by virtue of the all-working Spirit of Christ, the Holy Ghost."
A. H. Strong, in Examiner, 1880: "Such is the nature of union with Christ —such I mean, is the nature of every believer's union with Christ. For, whether he knows it or not, every Christian hag entered into just such a partnership as this. It Is this and this only which constitutes him a Christian, and which makes possible a Christian church. We may, indeed, be thus united to Christ, without being fully conscious of the real nature of our relation to him. We may actually possess the kernel, while as yet we have regard only to the shell; we may seem to ourselves to be united to Christ only by an external bond, while after all it is an inward and spiritual bond that makes us his. God often reveals to the Christian the mystery of the gospel, which is Christ in him the hope of glory, at the very time that he is seeking only some nearer access to a Redeemer outside of him. Trying to And a union of cooperation or of sympathy, he is amazed to learn that there is already established a union with Christ more glorious and blessed, namely, a union of life; and so, like the miners in the Rocky Mountains, while he is looking only for silver, he flnds gold. Christ and the believer have the same life. They are not separate persons linked together by some temporary bond of friendship — they are united by a tie as close and Indissoluble as if the same blood ran In their veins. Yet the Christian may never have suspected how Intimate a union he has with his Savior; and the first understanding of this truth may be the gateway through which he passes into a holier and happier stage of the Christian life."
On the nature of this union, see H. B. Smith, System of Christian Theology, 531-539; Balrd, Elohim Revealed, 901; Wilberforce, Incarnation, 208-272, and New Birth of Man'sNature, 1-30. Per contra, see Park, Discourses, 117-136.
3. Consequences of this Union as respects the Believer.
We have seen that Christ's union with humanity, at the incarnation, involved him in all the legal liabilities of the race to which he united himself, and enabled him so to assume the penalty of its sin as to make for all men a full satisfaction to the divine justice, and to remove all external obstacles to man's return to God. An internal obstacle, however, still remains — the evil affections and will, and the consequent guilt, of the individual soul. This last obstacle also Christ removes, in the case of all his people, by uniting himself to them in a closer and more perfect manner than that in which he is united to humanity at large. As Christ's union with the race secures the objective reconciliation of the race to God, so Christ's union with believers secures the subjective reconciliation of believers to God.
In Balrd, Elohim Bevealed, 607-610, In Owen, on Justification, chap. 8, in Boston, Covenant of Grace, chap. 2, and in Dale, Atonement, the union of the believer with Christ Is made to explain the bearing of our sins by Christ . As we have seen in our discussion of the Atonement, however, this Is explaining the cause by the effect, and implying that Christ died only for the elect (see review of Dale, In Brit. Quar. Rev., Apr., 1878 : 221-225). It is not the union of Christ with the believer, but the union of Christ with humanity at large, that explains his taking upon him human guilt and penalty.
The consequences of union with Christ may be summarily stated as follows:
(a) Union with Christ involves a change in the dominant affection of the soul. Christ's entrance into the soul makes it a new creature, in the sense that the ruling disposition, which before was sinful, now becomes holy. This change we call Regeneration.
Rom. 8 : 2 —'' Y»r the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jems made me free from the lav of sin and death "; 2 Cor. 5: 17—"If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature" (mare.—" there is a new oreation" ); Gal. 1:15,16 —"It was
the pood pleasure of God to reveal bis Son in me "; Eph. 2 :10 —" For we are his workmanship, created in
Christ Jesus for good works." As we derive our old nature from the first man Adam, by birth. so we derive a new nature from the second man Christ, by the new birth. Union with Christ Is the true "transfusion of blood." "The death-struck sinner, like the wan, anaemic, dying invalid, is saved by having poured into his veins the healthier blood of Christ"; see Drummond, Nat. Law in the Spir. World. God regenerates the soul by uniting it to Jesus Christ.
(6) Union with Christ involves a new exercise of the soul's powers in repentance and faith; faith, indeed, is the act of the sonl by which, under the operation of God, Christ is received. This new exercise of the soul's powers we call Conversion (Repentance and Faith). It is the obverse or human side of Regeneration.
Hph. 3 :17 —" that Christ may dwall in jour hearts through faith "; 2 Tim. 3 :15 —" the sacred writings which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is is Christ Jesus." Faith Is the soul's laying hold of Christ as its only source of life, pardon, and salvation. And so we see what true religion is. It is not a moral life; it is not a determination to be religious; it is not faith, if by faith we mean an external trust that somehow Christ will save us; it is nothing less than the life of the soul in God, through Christ his Son.
(c) Union with Christ gives to the believer the legal standing and rights of Christ. As Christ's union with the race involves atonement, so the believer's union with Christ involves Justification. The believer is entitled to take for his own all that Christ is, and all that Christ has done; and this because he has within him that new life of humanity which suffered in Christ's death and rose from the grave in Christ's resurrection,— in other words, because he is virtually one person with his Redeemer. In Christ the believer is prophet, priest, and king.
acts 13 : 39— "By him [lit.: 'in him'= in union with him] every one that balieveth is justified''; Rom.6: 7, 8—"he that hath died is justified from sin .... we died with Christ"; 7 : 4—"dead to the law through the bod; of Christ"; 8:1 —" no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus "; 17 —" heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ";
1 Cor. 1: 30— "But of him ye are in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness [justification]"; 3 : 21, 23 —" all things are yours, and ye are Christ's"; 6 :11 —"ye were Justified in the name of the lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God "; 2 Cor. 5 : 1* —" we thus judge, that one died for all, therefore all died"; 21— "Him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness [justification] of God in him "= God's justified persons, in union with Christ.
Gal. 2 : 20 —"I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me"; Eph. 1: 4, 6—"chose us in him .... to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved";
2 : 5, 6 —" even when we were dead through our trespasses, quickened us together with Christ.... made us to sit with him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus"; Phil. 3 : 9 —"that 1 may gain Christ, and be found in him, not having a righteousness of mine own. even that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith "; 2 Tim. 2 : 11 — " Faithful is the saying: For if we died with him, we shall also live with him." Prophet: Luke 12 :12 —" The Holy Spirit shall teach you in that very hour what ye ought to say "; 1 John 2 : 20 —" Ye have an anointing from the Holy One, and ye know all things." Priest: 1 Pet 2 : 5 —" a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ"; Rev. 20 : 6—"they shall be priests of God and of Christ" j 1 Pot. 2:9—"a royal priesthood." King: Rev. 3:21—" He that overoometh, I will give to him to sit down with me in my throne "; 5 :10 —" madest them to be unto our God a kingdom and priests." The connection of justification and union with Christ delivers the former from the charge of being a mechanical and arbitrary procedure. As Jonathan Edwards has said: "The Justification of the believer is no other than his being admitted to communion in, or participation of, this head and surety of all believers."
(d) Union with Christ secures to the believer the continuously transforming, assimilating power of Christ's life,— first, for the soul; secondly, for the body — consecrating it in the present, and in the future raising it up in the likeness of Christ's glorified body. This continuous influence, so far as it is exerted in the present life, we call Sanctifiaation, the human side or aspect of which is Perseverance.
For the soul: John 1:18 —" of his fulness we all received, and grace for grace "—successive and increasing measures of grace, corresponding- to the soul's successive and increasing' needs; Rom. 8:10 —"If Christ ii in you, the bodj is dead became of sin; bat the spirit is life because of righteousness"; 1 Cor. 15 : 45—"The last Adam became a life-giving spirit"; Phil. 2 : 5—-"HaYe this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus "; 1 John 3 : 2 —" if he shall be manifested, we shall be like him."
For the body: 1 Cor. 6 :17-20 —14 he that is joined unto the Lord is one Spirit know je not that jour
body is a temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you .... glorify God therefore in your body "; 1 These, 5 : 23 —" and the God of peace sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved entire, without blame at the coming of our lord Jesus Const"; Rom. 8 : It —" shall quicken also your mortal bodies through bis Spirit that dwelleth in you"; 1 Cor. 15 : 49— "as we hare borne the image of the earthy [man], we shall also bear the image of the heavenly [man] "; Phil. 3 : 20, 21 —" For our cdtisenship is in hearen; from whence also we wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of his. glory, according to the working whereby he is able even to subject all things unto himself
Is there a physical miracle wrought for the drunkard In his regeneration? Mr. Moody says. Yes; Mr. Gough says, No. We prefer to say that the change Is a spiritual one: but that the " expulsive power of a new affection " indirectly affects the body, so that old appetites sometimes disappear in a moment; and that often. In the course or years, great changes take place even In the believer's body. "Christ in the soul fashions the germinal man into his own likeness — this is the embryology of the new life. The cardinal error in religious life is the attempt to live without proper environment" (see Drummond, Natural Law in Spiritual World, 253-284). Human life from Adam does. not stand the test — only divine-human life In Christ can secure us from falling. This is the work of Christ, now that he has ascended and taken to himself his power, namely, to give his life more and more fully to the church, until it shall grow up In all things into him, the Head, and shall fitly express his glory to the world.
(e) Union with Christ brings about a fellowship of Christ with the believer — Christ takes part in all the labors, temptations, and sufferings of his people; a fellowship of the believer with Christ — so that Christ's whole experience on earth is in some measure reproduced in him; a fellowship of all believers with one another — furnishing a basis for the spiritual unity of Christ's people on earth, and for the eternal communion of heaven. The doctrine of Union with Christ is therefore the indispensable preparation for Ecclesiology and for Eschatology.
Fellowship of Christ with the believer: Phil 4 :13 —" I can do all things in him that strengthened me "; Eeb. 4 :15 —" For we have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities' ; cf. Is. $3 : 9—"In all their affliction he was afflicted."
Of the believer with Christ: Phil. 3 :10 —" that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of hie sufferings, becoming conformed unto his death "; CoL 1: 24 —" fill up on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ, in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church "; 1 Pet 4 :13 —" partakers of Christ's sufferings." The Christian reproduces Christ's life in miniature, and, in a true sense, lives it over again. Only upon the principle of union with Christ can we explain how the Christian instinctively applies to himself the prophecies and promises which originally and primarily were uttered with reference to Christ: "thou wilt not leave my soul to Sheol: Keiiher wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption" (Ps. 16 :10,11). This fellowship is the ground of the promises made to believing prayer: John 14 :13 —" whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do"; Westcott, Bib. Com., in loco: "The meaning of the phrase [' in my name'] Is 'as beingone with me even as I am revealed to you.' Its two correlatives are 'in mo' and the Pauline 'in Christ ."
Of all believers with one another: John 17 :21 — " that they all may be one"; 1 Cor. 10:17—"wo, who are many, are one bread, one body: for we all partake of the one bread "; Eph. 2 :15 —" create in himself of the twain one new man, so making peace "; 1 John 1: 3 —" that ye also may have fellowship with us: yea, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son, Jesus Christ "—here the word oimna is used. Fellowship with each other is the effect and result of the fellowship of each with God in Christ. Compare John 10 :16 —" they shall become one flock, one shepherd "; Westcott, Bib. Com., in Inco: "The bond of fellowship is shown to lie in the common relation to one Lord.... Nothing is said of one ' fold' under the new dispensation." Here is a unity, not of external organization, but of common life. Of this the visible church Is the consequence and expression. But this communion Is not limited to earth — it is perpetuated beyond death: 1 Then. 4 :17 —" so shall we ever be with the Lord "; Bob. 12 : 28 —" to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect"; Rev. 21 and 22—the city of God, the new Jerusalem, Is the image of perfect society, as well as of intensity and fullness of life in Christ.
The consciousness of union with Christ gives assurance of salvation. Tt Is a great stimulus to believing prayer and to patient labor. It is a duty to "know what is the hope of his oiling, what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the stints, and what the exceeding greatness of his power to us ward vho believe" (Eph. 1:18,19). Christ's command, "Abide in me, and I in yon" (John 15 : 4), implies that we are both to realize and to confirm this union, by active exertion of our own wills. We are to abide in him by an entire consecration, and to let him abide In us by an appropriating faith. We are to give ourselves to Christ, and to take in return the Christ who gives himself to us — In other words, we are to believe Christ's promises and to act upon them. All sin consists in the sundering of man's life from God, and most systems of falsehood in religion are attempts to save man without merging his life in God's once more. The only religion that can save mankind is the religion that fills the whole heart and the whole life with God, and that aims to interpenetrate universal humanity with that same living Christ who has already made himself one with the believer.
We append a few statements with regard to this union and its consequences, from noted names in theology and the church. Luther: "By faith thou art so glued to Christ that of thee and him there becomes as it were one person, so that with confidence thou canst say: 'I am Christ — that is, Christ's righteousness, victory, etc., are mine'; and Christ In turn can say: 'I am that sinner—that is, his sins, his death, etc., are mine, because he clings to me and I to him, for we have been Joined through faith into one flesh and bone.'" Calvin: "I attribute the highest importance to the connection between the head and the members; to the Inhabitation of Christ in our hearts; in a word, to the mystical union by which we enjoy him, so that, being made ours, he makes us partakers of the blessings with which he is furnished." Edwards: "Faith Is the soul's active uniting with Christ. God sees fit that, in order to a union's being established between two Intelligent active beings, there should be the mutual act of both, that each should receive the other as entirely Joining themselves to one another." Andrew Fuller: "I have no doubt that the imputation of Christ's righteousness presupposes a union with him; since there is no perceivable fitness in bestowing benefits on one for another's sake, where there is no union or relation between."
See Luther, quoted, with other references, in Thomasius, Christl Porson und Werk, 3 : 325. See also Calvin, Institutes, 1: 660; Edwards, Works, 4:68,SB,70; Andrew Fuller, Works, 2 : 685; Pascal, Thoughts, Eng. trans., 429; Hooker, Ecol. Polity, book 5, ch. 56: Tlllotson, Sermons, 3 : 307; Trench, Studies in Gospels, 284, and Christ the True Vine, in Hulsean Lectures; Schiiberleln, in Studien und Krltiken, 1847 : 7-69; Caird, on Union with God, in Scotch Sermons, sermon 2; Godet, on tho Ultimate Design of Man, In Princeton Rev., Nov., 1880—the design is " God In man, and man in God "; Baird, Elohim Revealed, 590-617; Upham, Divine Union, Interior Life, Life of Madame Guyon and Fenelon: A. J. Gordon, In Christ; MacDuff, In Christo.
II. Regeneration.
Regeneration is that act of God by which the governing disposition of the soul is made holy, and by which, through the truth as a means, the first holy exercise of this disposition is secured.
Regeneration, or the new birth, is the divine side of that change of heart which, viewed from the human side, we call conversion. It is God's turning the soul to himself, conversion being the soul's turning itself to God, of which God's turning it is both the accompaniment and cause. It will be observed from the above definition, that there are two aspects of regeneration, in the first of which the soul is passive, in the second of which the soul is active. God changes the governing disposition — in this change the soul is simply acted upon. God secures the initial exercise of this disposition in view of the truth — in this change the soul itself acts. Yet these two parts of God's operation are simultaneous. At the same moment that he makes the soul sensitive, he pours in the light of his truth and induces the exercise of the holy disposition he has imported.
1. Scripture Representations.
(a) Regeneration is a change indispensable to the salvation of the sinner.
John 3:7—" Te most be born anew "; Gal. 6 :15 —" neither is circumcision anything, nor unarrumcision, bat a new creature" (marg.—" creation " ); cf. Heb. 12 :14 —" the sanctification without which no man shall see the Lord" — regeneration, therefore, is yet more necessary to salvation; Rph. 2 : 2— "by nature children of wrath, even as the rest"; Rom. 3:11 — " there is none that understandeth, There is none that seeketh after God";
John 6 : 44, 65 —" No man can come to me, except the Father which sent me draw him no man can come unto me,
except it be given unto him of the Father "; Jer. 13 : 23 —" Can the Etheopian change his skm, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil."
(6) It is a change in the inmost principle of life.
John 3 : 3 —" Except a man be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God "; 5 : 21 —" as the Father raiseth the dead and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom he will"; Rom. 6 : 13 —" present yourselves unto God, aa «live from the dead "; Bph. 2 :1 —" and you did he quicken, when ye were dead through your trespasses and sins "; 5 : 14 - "Awake, thou that steepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine upon thee."
(c) It is a change in the heart, or governing disposition.
Mat. 12 : 33, 35 —" Kther make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree corrupt, and its fruit corrupt; for the tree is known by its fruit.... The good man out of his good treasure bringeth forth good things: and the evil man out of his evil treasure bringeth forth evil things"; 15 :19—"For out of the heart come forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, railings"; Acts 16 :14—"and a certain woman named Lydia .... heard us: whose heart the Lord opened, to give heed unto the things which were spoken by Paul"; Rom. 6:17— "Rut thanks be to God, that whereas ye were the servants of sin, ye became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching whereunto ye were delivered "; 10 :10 —" with the heart nun believeth unto righteousness "; cf. Ps. 51:10 —"create in me a clean heart, 0 God, and renew a right spirit within me"; Jer. 31 : 33—"I will put my law in their iaward parts, and in their hearts will I write it"; Rs. 11:19—"And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh."
(d) It is a change in the moral relations of the soul.
Eph. 2 : 5—"when we were dead through our trespasses, quickened us together with Christ"; 4:23,24—"that ye be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and pnt on the new man, which after God hath been created in righteousness and holiness of truth "; Col. 1:13 —" who delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom ■of the Son of his love."
(e) It is a change wrought in connection with the use of truth as a means.
James 1:18— "Of his own will he brought ns forth by the word of truth"— here In connection with the special agency of God (not of mere natural law) the truth 1b spoken of as a means; 1 Pet. 1 : 23—"having been begotten again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, through the word of God, which liveth and abideth"; 2 Pet 1 : 4—"his precious and exceeding great promises; that through these ye may become partakers of the divine nature "; cf. Jer. 23 : 29 —" Is not my word like as fire? saith the Lord; and like ft hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?" John 15 :3—"Already ye are clean because of the word which I hare spoken unto yon "; Eph. 6 :17 —" the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God "; Reb. 4 :12 —" For the word of God is living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart"; 1 Pet. 2 : 9 —" called you oat of darkness into his marvellous light"
(/) It is an instantaneous change.
John 5 ; 24 —" He that heareth my word and believeth him that sent me, hath eternal life, and oometh not into judgment, but hath passed out of death into life "; cf. Hat 6 : 24 —" Ho man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and lore the other; or else he will hold to one, and despise the other."
(g) It is a change secretly wrought, inscrutable, and known only in its results.
John 3 : 8 —" The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the voice thereof, but knowest not whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit"; cf. PhiL 2 :12,13 —" Turk out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure "; 2 Pet 1:10 —" Wherefore, brethren, give the mora diligence to make your ealling and election sun,"
[h) It is a change wrought by God.
John 1:13 —" which wen born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, bnt of God "; 3 : S—" Except a man be bom of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God "; Bph. 1:19, 20 —" the exceeding greatness of bis power to ns-ward who believe, according to that working of the strength of his might which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and made him to sit at his right hand in the heavenly plaoes "; 2 :10 —" For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God afore prepared that we should walk in them "; 1 Pet 1: 3 —" Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy begat us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead "; cf. 1 Cor. 3 : 6, 7
- -" I planted, Apollos watered; bat God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase,
(i) It is a change accomplished through the union of the soul with Christ.
Rom. 8 : 2 —" For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and death "; 2 Cor 5 :17 —"If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature" (marg.: "there is a new creation"); Gal. 1:15,16— "It
wan the good pleasure of God to reveal his Son to me"; Eph. 2 :10—"For we are his workmanship, created in
Christ Jesus for good works." On the Scriptural representations, see E. D. Griffin, Divine Efficiency, 117-184: H. B.Smith, System of Theology, 563-669—"Regeneration Involves union with Christ, and not a change of heart without relation to him."
2. Necessity of Regeneration.
That all men without exception need to be changed in moral character, is manifest, not only from Scripture passages already cited, but from the following rational considerations:
(a) Holiness, or conformity to the fundamental moral attribute of God, is the indispensable condition of securing the divine favor, of attaining peace of conscience, and of preparing the soul for the associations and employments of the blest.
(6) The condition of universal humanity as by nature depraved, and, when arrived at moral consciousness, as guilty of actual transgression, is precisely the opposite of that holiness without which the soul cannot exist in normal relation to God, to self, or to holy beings.
(c) A radical internal change is therefore requisite in every human soul
— a change in that which constitutes its character. Holiness cannot be attained, as the pantheist claims, by a merely natural growth or development, since man's natural tendencies are wholly in the direction of selfishness. There must be a reversal of his inmost dispositions and principles of action, if he is to see the kingdom of God.
Martensen, Christian Ethics: "When Kant treats of the radical evil of human nature, he makes the remarkable statement that. If a good will is to appear in us, this cannot happen through a partial Improvement, nor through any reform, but only through a revolution, a total overturn within us, that is to be compared to a new creation." Those who hold that man may attain perfection by mere natural growth deny this radical evil of human nature, and assume that our nature Is a good seed which needs only favorable external Influences of moisture and sunshine to bring forth good fruit. But human nature Is a damaged seed, and what comes of It will be aborted and stunted like itself. The doctrine of mere development denies God's holiness, man's sin, the need of Christ, the necessity of atonement, the work of the Holy Spirit, the justice of penalty.
Men's good deeds and reformations may be illustrated by eddies in a stream whose general current is downward; by walking westward In a railway-car while the train is going east; by Capt. Parry's travelling north, while the ice-floe on which he walked was moving southward at a rate much more rapid than his walking. It is possible to be "'ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth" (2 Tim. 3:7).
The greatest minds feel, at least at times, their need of help from above. Although Cioero uses the term 'regeneration' to signify what we should call naturalization, yet he recognizes man's dependence upon God: "Nemo vir magnus, sine aliquo divlnoafflatu, unquam fuit." 8eneca: "Bonus vir sine illo nemo est." Aristotle: "Wickedness perverts the Judgment and makes men err with respect to practical principles, so that no man can be wise and Judicious who Is not good." Goethe: "Who ne'er his bread in sorrow ate. Who ne'er the mournful midnight hours Weeping upon his bed: has sato, He knows you not, ye heavenly Powers."
John Stuart Mill (see Autobiography, 138-142) knew that the feeling of interest In others'welfare would make him happy — but the knowledge of this fact did not give him the feeling. The "enthusiasm of humanity "— unselfish love, of which we read In "Ecce Homo," is easy to talk about; but how to produce It —that is the question. Drummond, Natural Law In the Spiritual World, 61-94 — "There is no abiogenesis in the spiritual, more than in the natural, world. Can the stone grow more and more llvinguntll it enters the organic world? No, Christianity Is a new life —it is Christ in you." As natural life comes to us mediately, through Adam, so spiritual life comes to us mediately, through Christ. See Bushnell, Nature and the Supernatural, 220-240; Anderson, Regeneration, 51-88; B. Tyler, Memoir and Lectures, 340-354.
3. The Efficient Cause of Regeneration.
Three views only need be considered,— all others are modifications of these. The first view puts the efficient cause of regeneration hi the human will; the second, in the truth considered as a system of motives; the third, in the immediate agency of the Holy Spirit.
John Stuart Mill regarded cause as embracing all the antecedents to an event. Hazard, Man a Creative First Cause, 12-15, shows that, as at any given instant the whole past is everywhere the same, the effects must, upon this view, at each Instant be everywhere one and the same. "The theory that, of every successive event, the real cause Is the wholeof the antecedents, does not distinguish between the passive conditions acted upon and changed, and the active agencies which act upon and change them: does not distinguish what produces, from what merely preside*, change.
We prefer the definition given by Porter, Human Intellect, 592—Cause is "the most conspicuous and prominent of the agencies, or conditions, that produce a result"; or that of Dr. Mark Hopkins: "Any exertion or manifestation of energy that produces a change is a cause, and nothing else is. We must distinguish cause from occasion, or material. Cause Is not to be defined as 'everything without which the effect could not be realized.'" Better still, perhaps, may we say. that efficient cause is the competent producing power by which the effect is secured. Not the light, but the photographer, Is the cause of the picture; light is but the photographer's servant. So the "word of God" is the "sword of the Spirit" (Kpk. 6:17); the Spirit uses the word as his instrument; but the Spirit himself is the cause of regeneration.
A. The human will, as the efficient cause of regeneration.
This view takes two forms, according as the will is regarded as acting apart from, or in conjunction with, special influences of the truth applied by God. Pelagians hold the former; Arminians the latter.
(a) To the Pelagian view, that regeneration is solely the act of man, and is identical with self-reformation, we object that the sinner's depravity, since it consists in a fixed state of the affections which determines the settled character of the volitions, amounts to a moral inability. Without a renewal of the affections from which all moral action springs, man will not choose holiness nor accept salvation.
Man's volitions are practically the shadow of his affections. It is as useless to think of a man's volitions separating themselves from his affections, and drawing him towards God, as It is to think of man's shadow separating itself from him, and leading him in the opposite direction to that in whioh he is going. Man's affections, to use Calvin's words, arc like horses that have thrown off the charioteer and are running wildly. They need a new hand to direct them. In disease, we must be helped by a physician. We do not stop a locomotive engine by applying force to the wheels, but by reversing the lever. So the change in man must be, not In the transient volitions, but in the deeper springs of action — the fundamental bent of the affections and will. See Henslow, Evolution, 134.
(b) To the Arminian view, that regeneration is the act of man, cooperating with divine influences applied through the truth (synergistic theory), we object that no beginning of holiness is in this way conceivable. For, so long as man's selfish and perverse affections are unchanged, no choosing God is possible but such as proceeds from supreme desire for one's own interest and happiness. But the man thus supremely bent on self-gratification cannot see in Qod, or his service, anything productive of happiness; or, if he could see in them anything of advantage, his choice of Qod and his service from such a motive would not be a holy choice, and therefore could not be a beginning of holiness.
Dorner says: Melancthon held at first that " the Spirit of Ood Is the primary, and the word of Ood the secondary, or instrumental, agency in conversion, while the human will allows their action and freely yields to it." Later, ho held that "conversion is the result of the combined action (copuiatio) of three causes, the truth of God, the Holy Spirit, and the will of man." This synergistic view in bis last years involved the theologian of the German Reformation in serious trouble. Luthardt: "He made a faculta* out of a mere capacitm." Dorner says again: "Man's causality is not to be coordinated with that of God, however small the influence ascribed to it. It Is a purely receptive, not a productive, agency. The opposite Is the fundamental Romanist error." Self-love will never induce a man to give up self-love. Selfishness will not throttle and cast out selfishness. "Such a choice from a selfish motive would be unholy, when judged by God's standard. It Is absurd to make salvation depend upon the exercise of a wholly unsplritual power "; see Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2 : 716-720 (Syst. Doct., 4 :179-183). On the Arminian view, see Bib. Sac, 19 : 285, 286. For modification of this view, see N. W. Taylor, Kevealed Theology, 381M08, and in Christian Spectator for 1829.
Dr. Taylor, of New Haven, maintained that, antecedently to regeneration, the selfish principle is suspended in the sinner's heart, and that then, prompted by nelf-letve, he uses the means of regeneration from motives that are neither sinful nor holy. He holds that all men, saints and sinners, have their own happiness for their ultimate end. Regeneration involves no change in this principle or motive, but only a change in the governing purpose to seek this happiness In God rather than in the world. Dr. Taylor said that man could turn to God, whatever the Spirit did or did not do. He could turn to God if he would; but he could also turn to God if he would n't. In other words, ho maintained the power of contrary choice, while yet affirming the certainty that, without the Holy Spirit's influences, man would always choose wrongly. These doctrines caused a division in the Congregational body. Those who opposed Taylor withdrew their support from New Haven, and founded the East Windsor Seminary in 1834.
The chief opponent of Dr. Taylor was Dr. Bennett Tyler. He replied to Dr. Taylor that moral character has Its seat, not in the purpose, but in the affections back of the purpose. Otherwise every Christian must be in a state of sinless perfection, for his governing purpose is to serve God. But we know that there are affections and desires not under control of this purpose — dispositions not in conformity with the predominant disposition. How, Dr. Tyler asked, can a sinner, completely selfish, from a selfish motive, resolve not to be selfish, and so suspend his selfishness? "Antecedently to regeneration, there can be no suspension of the selfish principle. It Is said that, in suspending it, the sinner is actuated by self-love. But is it possible that the sinner, while destitute of love to God and every particle of genuine benevolence, should love himself at all and not love himself supremely? He loves nothing more than self. He does not regard God or the universe, except as they tend to promote his ultimate end, his own happiness. No sinner ever suspended this selfishness until subdued by divine grace. We cannot become regenerate by preferring God to the world, merely from regard to our own interest. There is no necessity of the Holy Spirit to renew the heart, if self-love prompts men to turn from the world to God. On the view thus combatted, depravity consists simply In Ignorance. All men need is enlightenment as to the best means of of securing their own happiness. Regeneration by the Holy Spirit is, therefore, not necessary." See Bennett Tyler. Memoir and Lectures, 316-381, esp. 334,370,371; Letters on the New England Theology, 21-72, 143-183. See also Review of Taylor and Fitch, by E. D. Griffin, Divine Efficiency, 13-54.
B. The truth, as the efficient cause of regeneration.
According to this view, the truth as a system of motives is the direct and immediate cause of the change from unholiness to holiness. This view is objectionable for two reasons:
(a) It erroneously regards motives as wholly external to the mind that is influenced by them. This is to conceive of them as mechanically constraining the will, and is indistinguishable from necessitarianism. On the contrary, motives are compounded of external presentations and internal dispositions. It is the soul's affections which render certain suggestions attractive and others repugnant to us. In brief, the heart makes the motive.
(6) Only as truth is loved, therefore, can it be a motive to holiness. But we have seen that the aversion of the sinner to Qod is such that the truth is hated instead of loved, and a thing that is hated, is hated more intensely, the more distinctly it is seen. Hence no mere power of the truth can be regarded as the efficient cause of regeneration. The contrary view implies that it is not the truth which the sinner hates, but rather some element of error which is mingled with it.
Lyman Beecher and Charles G. Finney held this view. The influence of the Holy Spirit differs from that of the preacher only in degree — both use only moral suasion; both do nothing more than to present the truth; both work upon the soul from without. "Were I as eloquent as the Holy Ghost, I could convert sinners as well as he," said a popular preacher of this school (see Bennett Tyler, Letters on N. E. Theology, 164-171). On this view, it would be absurd to pray God to regenerate, for that is more than he can do — regeneration is simply the effect of truth.
Miley, in Moth. Quar., July, 1881: 434-462, holds that "the will cannot rationally act without motive, but that it has always power to suspend action, or defer it, for the purpose of rational examination of the motive or end, and to consider the opposite motive or end. Putting the old end or motive out of view will temporarily break its power, and the new truth considered will furnish motive for right action. Thus, by using our faculty of suspending choice, and of fixing attention, we can realize the permanent eligibility of the good and choose it against the evil. This is, however, not the realization of a new spiritual life in regeneration, but the election of its attainment. Power to do this suspending Is of grace [ grace, however, given equally to all ]. Without this power, life would be a spontaneous and irresponsible development of evil."
The view of Miley, thus substantially given, resembles that of Dr. Taylor, upon which we have already commented; but, unlike that, it makes truth itself, apart from the affections, a determining agency in the change from sin to holiness. Our one reply is that, without a change in the affections, the truth can neither be known nor obeyed. Seeing cannot be the means of being born again, for one must first be born again in order to see the kingdom of God (John 3:3). The mind will not choose God, until God appears to lie the greatest good.
Edwards, quoted by Griffin, Divine Efficiency, 74—"Let the sinner apply his rational powers to the contemplation of divine things, and let his belief be speculatively correct; still he is in such a state that those objects of contemplation will excite in him no holy affections." The Scriptures declare (Hon. 8:7) that "the mmd of ihe flesh is enmity " — not against some error or mistaken notion of God —but "U enmity agsinst God." It is God's holiness, mandatory and punitive, that is hated. A clearer view of that holiness will only Increase the hatred. A woman's hatred of spiders will never be changed to love by bringing them close to her. Magnifying them with a compound oxy-hydrogen microscope will not help the matter. Tyler: "All the light of the last day will not subdue the sinner's heart." The mere presence of God, and seeing God face to face, will be hell to him, if his hatred be not first changed to love. See E. D. Griffin, Divine Efficiency, 105-116, 203-221: and Review of Griffin, by S. R. Mason, Truth Unfolded, 883-407.
C. The immediate agency of the Holy Spirit, as the efficient cause of regeneration.
In ascribing to the Holy Spirit the authorship of regeneration, we do not affirm that the divine Spirit accomplishes his work without any accompanying instrumentality. We simply assert that the power which regenerates is the power of God, and that although conjoined with the use of means, there is a direct operation of this power upon the sinner's heart which changes its moral character. We add two remarks by way of further explanation:
(a) The Scriptural assertions of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and of his mighty power in the soul forbid us to regard the divine Spirit in regeneration as coming in contact, not with the soul, but only with the truth. Since truth is simply what is, there can be no change wrought in the truth. The phrases, "to energize the truth," "to intensify the truth," "to illuminate the truth," have no proper meaning; since even God cannot make the truth more true. II any change is wrought, it must be wrought, not in the truth, but in the soul.
The maxim, "Truth is mighty and will prevail," is very untrue, if God be left out of the account, Truth without God is an abstraction, and not a power. It is a mere instrument, useless without an agent. "The sword of the Spirit, which is the vord of God" (Iph. 6:17 ), must be wielded by the Holy Spirit himself. And the Holy Spirit comes In contact, not simply with the instrument, but with the soul. To all moral, and especially to all religious truth, there is an inward unsusceptibillty, arising from the perversity of the affections and the will. This blindness and hardness of heart must be removed, before the soul can perceive or be moved by the truth. Hence the Spirit must deal directly with the soul. Denovan: "Our natural hearts are hearts of stone. The word of God is good seed sown on the hard, trodden, macadamized highway, which the horses of passion, the asses of self-will, the wagons of imaginary treasure, have made impenetrable. Only the Holy Spirit can soften and pulverize this soil."
The Psalmist prays: "Incline my heart nnto thy testimonies" (Ps. 119:36), while of Lydla it is said: "Whose heart the Lord opened, to give heed unto the things which were spoken by Paul" (acts 16 :14). We may say of the Holy Spirit: "He freezes and then melts the soil. He breaks the hard, cold stone, Kills out the rooted weeds so vile —All this he does alone; And every virtue we possess, And every victory won, And every thought of holiness, Arc his, and his alone." Hence, In Ps. 90 :16,17, the Psalmist says, first: "let thy work appear unto thy serrant»"; then "establish thou the work of our hands upon us"— God's work is first to appear —then man's work, which is God's work carried out by human instruments. At Jericho, the force was not applied to the ram's horns, but to the walls. When Jesus healed the blind man, his power was applied, not to the spittle, but to the eyes. The Impression is prepared, not by heating the seal, but by softening the wax. So God's poweracts, not upon the truth, but upon the sinner.
(o) Even if truth could be energized, intensified, illuminated, there would still be needed a change in the moral disposition, before the soul could recognize its beauty or be affected by it. No mere increase of light can enable a blind man to see; the disease of the eye must first be cured before external objects are visible. So God's work in regeneration must be performed within the soul itself. Over and above all influence of the truth, there must be a direct influence of the Holy Spirit upon the heart. Although wrought in conjunction with the presentation of truth to the intellect, regeneration differs from moral suasion in being an immediate act of God.
It is false to say that soul can come in contact with soul only through the influence of truth. In the intercourse of dear friends, or in the discourse of the orator, there is a personal influence, distinct from the word spoken, which persuades the heart and conquers the will. We sometimes call it "magnetism " — but we mean simply that soul reaches soul, in ways apart from the use of physical Intermediaries. Compare the facts. Imperfectly known as yet, of second sight, mind-reading:, clairvoyance. But whether these be accepted or not. It still is true that God has not made the human soul so that It is inaccessible to himself. The omnipresent Spirit penetrates and pervades all spirits that have been made by him.
In the primary change of disposition, which is the most essential feature of regeneration, the Spirit of God acts directly upon the spirit of man. In the securing- of the initial exorcise of this new disposition — which constitutes the secondary feature of God's work of regeneration — the truth Is used as a means. Hence, perhaps, in James 1:18, we read: "Of his own will he brought us forth bj the word of truth" Instead of "lie begat us by the word of truth " — the reference being to the secondary, not to the primary, feature of regeneration. The advocates of the opposite view —the view that God works only through the truth as a menus, and that his only influence upon the soul is a moral Influence — very naturally deny the mystical union of the soul with Christ. Sriuier, for example. In his Autobiog., 343-378, esp. 360, on the Spirit's influences, quotes John. 16 : 8 — he "will convict the world in respect of sin "— to show that God regenerates by applying truth to men's minds, so far as to convince them, by fair and sufficient arguments, that they are sinners.
For the view that truth is "energized" or "Intensified" by the Holy Spirit, sec Phelps, New Birth. 61,121; Walker. Philosophy of Plan of Salvation, chap. 18. Per contra, see Wardlaw, Syst. Theol., 3 : 24,25; E. D. Griffin, Divine Efficiency, 73-116: Anderson, Regeneration, 123-168; Edwards, Works, 2 : 547-597: Chalmers, Lectures on Romans, chap. 1; Payne, Divine Sovereignty, lect. 21:363-367; Hodge, Syst. Theol., 8 :3-37, 466485. On the whole subject of the Efficient Cause of Regeneration, see Hopkins, Works, 1 : 454; Dwight, Theology, 2 : 418-429; John Owen, Works, 3 : 282-287, 366-588; Robert Hall, Sermon on the Cause, Agent, and Purpose of Regeneration.
4. The Instrumentality used in Regeneration,
A. Bomanists hold that regeneration is accomplished through the instrumentality of baptism. With them the standards of the English Church, and most Lutherans and Disciples (Campbellites), agree. To this view we urge the following objections:
(a) The Scriptures represent baptism to be not the means but only the sign of regeneration, and therefore to presuppose and follow regeneration. For this reason only believers — that is, persons giving credible evidence of being regenerated — were baptized (Acts 8 : 12). Not external baptism, but the conscientious turning of the soul to God which baptism symbolizes, saves us (1 Pet. 3 : 21 — owetSyoeur ayadw imp6rn/ia). Texts like John 3 : 5, Acts 2 : 38, Col. 2 :12, Tit. 3 : 5, are to be explained upon the principle that regeneration, the inward change, and baptism, the outward sign of that change, were regarded as only different sides or aspects of the same fact, and either side or aspect might therefore be described in terms derived from the other.
(6) Upon this view, there is a striking incongruity between the nature of the change to be wrought and the means employed to produce it. The change is a spiritual one, but the means are physical. It is far more rational to suppose that, in changing the character of intelligent beings, Ood uses means which have relation to their intelligence. The view we are considering is part and parcel of a general scheme of mechanical rather than moral salvation, and is more consistent with a materialistic than with a spiritual philosophy.
lets 8 :12 —" when ther believed Philip preaching good tidings concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ they were baptised "; 1 Pet. 3 : 21 —" which also after a true likeness doth now save jou. even baptism, not the -putting away of the filth of the flesh, bat the interrogation [ marg, — ' inquiry ', 'appeal' ] of a good conscience toward Cod " = the Inquiry of the soul after God, the conscientious turning of the soul to God.
Plumptre, however, makes «ir«(x»Trm«i a forensic term, equivalent to "examination," and including- both question and answer. It means, then, the open answer of allegiance to Christ, given by the new convert to the constituted officers of the church. "That which Is of the essence of the saving power of baptism is the confession and the profession which precede it. If this comes from a conscience that really renounces sin and believes on Christ, then baptism, as the channel through which the grace of the new birth is conveyed and the convert admitted into the church of Christ, 'saves us,' but not otherwise." We may adopt this statement from Plumptre's Commentary, with the alteration of the word "conveyed" Into "symbolized" or "manifested." Plumptre's -interpretation is, as he seems to admit, in its obvious meaning Inconsistent with Infant baptism; to us it seems equally inconsistent with any doctrine of baptismal regeneration.
On John 3 : 5—"Except a man be bom of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God"; lots 2 : 38 —" Repent ye, and be baptized every one of yon in the name of Jeans Christ unto the remission of your nm": Col. 2 :12— "buried with him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with him through faith"; Tit 3 : 5— "saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost "—see exposition under the head -of Baptism. Here we need only say that, if baptism be the Instrument of regeneration, it is difficult to see how the patriarchs, or the penitent thief, could have been regenerated.
B. The Scriptural view is that regeneration, so far as it secures an activity of man, is accomplished through the instrumentality of the truth. Although the Holy Spirit does not in any way illuminate the truth, he does illuminate the mind, so that it can perceive the truth. In conjunction with the change of man's inner disposition, there is an appeal to man's rational nature through the truth. Two inferences may be drawn:
(a) Man is not wholly passive at the time of his regeneration. He is passive only with respect to the change of his ruling disposition. With respect to the exercise of this disposition, he is active. Although the efficient power which secures this exercise of the new disposition is the power of God, yet man is not therefore unconscious, nor is he a mere machine worked by God's fingers. On the other hand, his whole moral nature under God's working is alive and active. We reject the "exercise-system," which regards God as the direct author of all man's thoughts, feelings, and volitions, not only in its general tenor, but in its special application to regeneration.
(6) The activity of man's mind in regeneration is activity in view of the truth. God secures the initial exercise of the new disposition which he has wrought in man's heart in connection with the use of truth as a means. Here we perceive the link between the efficiency of God and the activity of man. Only as the sinner's mind is brought into contact with the truth, does God complete his regenerating work. And as the change of inward disposition and the initial exercise of it are never, so far as we know, separated by any interval of time, we can say, in general, that Christian work is successful only as it commends the truth to every man's conscience in the sight of God (2 Cor. 4:2).
In Eph. 1:17,18, there Is recognized the divine illumination of the mind to behold the truth —" may give unto you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him; having the eyes of your heart enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of his calling." On truth as a means of regeneration, see Hovey, Outlines, 192, who quotes Cunningham, Historical Theology, 1:617 —" Regeneration may be taken in a limited sense as including only the first lmpartation of spiritual life or it may be taken in a wider sense as comprehending the whole of that process by which be Is renewed or made over again In the whole man after theimage of God — i. «., as Including the production of saving faith and union to Christ. Only in the first sense did the Reformers maintain that man in the process was wholly passive and not active; for they did not dispute that, before the process in the second and more enlarged sense was completed, man was spiritually alive and active, and continued so ever after during the whole process of his sanctlficatlon."
Dr. Hovey suggests an apt Illustration of these two parts of the Holy Spirit's work and their union in regeneration: At the same time that God makes the photographic plate sensitive, he pours in the light of truth whereby the Image of Christ is formed in the soul. Without the "sensitizing" of the plate.lt would never fix the rays of light so as to retain the image. In the process of "sensitizing," the plate is passive; under the influence of light, it Is active. In both the "sensitizing" and the taking of the picture, the real agent Is not the plate nor the light, but the photographer. The photographer cannot perform both operations at the same moment. God can. He gives the new affection, and at the same instant he secures its exercise in view of the truth.
For denial of the Instrumentality of truth in regeneration, see Pierce, in Bap. Quar., Jan., 1872: 52. Per contra, see Anderson, Regeneration, 89-122. H. B. Smith holds middle ground. He says: "In adults it [ regeneration ] is wrought most frequently by the word of God as the instrument. Believing that Infants may be regenerated, we cannot assort that it is tied to the word of God absolutely." We prefer to say that, If infantsare regenerated, they also are regenerated In conjunction with some Influence of truth upon the mind, dim as the recognition of It may be. Otherwise we break the Scriptural connection between regeneration and conversion, and open the way for faith in a physical, magical, sacramental salvation. Squier, Autoblog., 388, says well, of the theory of regeneration which makes man purely passive, that it has a benumbing effect upon preaching: "The lack of expectation unnerves the efforts of the preacher; an impression of the fortuitous presence neutralizes his engagedness. This antinomian dependence on the Spirit extracts all vitality from the pulpit and sense of responsibility from the hearer, and makes preaching an opus opcratum, like the baptismal regeneration of the formalist."
Squier goes to the opposite extreme of regarding the truth alone as the cause of regeneration. His words are none the less a valuable protest against the view that regeneration is so entirely due to God that in no part of it is man active. It was with a better view that Lutber cried: "0 that we might multiply living books, that is, preachers I" And the preacher is successful only as be possesses and unfolds the truth. John took the little book from the Covenant-angel's hand and ate it (Ret. 10 :8-11). So he who is to preach God's truth must feed upon it, until it has become his own. For the Exercise-system, see Emmons, Works, 4 :339-411; Hagenbach, Hist. Doct., 2 : 439.
5. The Nature of the Change wrought in Regeneration.
A. It is a change in which the governing disposition is made holy. This implies that:
(a) It is not a change in the substance of either body or soul. Regeneration is not a physical change. There is no physical seed or germ implanted in man's nature. Regeneration does not add to, or subtract from, the number of man's intellectual, emotional, or voluntary faculties. But regeneration is the giving of a new direction or tendency to powers of affection which man possessed before. Man had the faculty of love before, but his love was supremely set on self. In regeneration the direction of that faculty is changed, and his love is now set supremely upon God.
Kph. 2 :10 —" created in Christ Jesus for good works"— does not Imply that the old soul is annihilated, and a new soul created. The "old mm" which is "cruriSed" (Rom. 6:6) and "pot »aj" (Ipb. 4 : 22) is simply the sinful bent of the affections and will. When this direction of the dispositions is changed, and becomes holy, we can call the change a new birth of the old nature, because the same faculties that acted before are acting now, the only difference being that now these faculties are set toward God and purity. Or, regarding the change from another point of view, we may speak of man as having a "new nature," as " recreated," as being a " new creature," because this direction of the affections and will, which ensures a different life from what was led before, Is something totally new, and due wholly to the regenerating act of God. In 1 Pet 1:23—" begotten again, sot of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible"— all materialistic inferences from the word "Mad," as if It implied the implantation of a physical germ, are prevented by the following explanatory words: "through the word of God, which liveth and abideth."
So, too, when we describe regeneration as the communication of a new life to the soul, we should not conceive of this new life as a mitntance Imparted or Infused into us. The new life is rather a new direction and activity of our own affections and will. There is. Indeed, a union of the soul with Christ; Christ dwells in the renewed heart; Christ's entrance into the soul Is the cause and accompaniment of Its regeneration. But this entrance of Christ into the soul Is not ttnelf regeneration. We must distinguish the effect from the cause; otherwise we shall be in danger of a pantheistic confounding of our own personality and life with the personality and life of Christ. Christ is indeed our life, in the sense of being the cause and supporter of our life, but he is not our life in the sense that, after our union with him, our individuality ceases. The effect of union with Christ Is rather that our Individuality Is enlarged and exalted (John 10 :10 — "Icune that the/ may hare life, and may hare it abundantly."
We must therefore take with a grain of allowance the generally excellent words of Gordon, Twofold Life, 22 —" Regeneration is the communication of the divine nature to man by the operation of the Holy Spirit through the word" (2 Pet. 1: 4). "As Christ was made partaker of human nature by incarnation, that so he might enter into truest fellowship with us, we are made partakers of the divine nature, by regeneration, that we may enter into truest fellowship with God. Regeneration Is not a change of nature, I.e., a natural heart bettered. Eternal life is not natural life prolonged into endless duration. It is the divine life imparted to us, the very life of God communicated to the human soul, and bringing forth there its proper fruit."
So, too, we would criticize the doctrine of Drummond, Nat. Law in the Spir. World: "People forget the persistence of force. Instead of transforming energy, they try to create it. We must either depend on environment, or be self-sufficient. The 'cannot bear fruit of itself (John 15 : 4) is the ' cannot' of natural law. Natural fruit flourishes with air and sunshine. The difference between the Christian and the non-Christian is the difference between the organic and the Inorganic. The Christian has all the characteristics of life: assimilation, waste, reproduction, spontaneous action." See criticism of Drummond, by Murphy, In Urit. Quar., 1884:118-125—" As in resurrection there is a physical connection with the old body, so In regeneration there is a natural connection with the old soul." Also, Brit. Quar., July, 1880, art.: Evolution Viewed in Relation to Theology — "The regenerating agency of the Spirit of God is symbolized, not by the vitallzation of dead matter, but by the agency of the organizing intelligence which guides the evolution of living beings."
(b) Regeneration involves an enlightenment of the understanding and a rectification of the volitions. But it seems most consonant with Scripture and with a correct psychology to regard these changes as immediate and necessary consequences of the change of disposition already mentioned, rather than as the primary and central facts in regeneration. The taste for truth logically precedes perception of the truth, and love for God logically precedes obedience to God; indeed, without love no obedience is possible. Reverse the lever of affection, and this moral locomotive, without further change, will move away from sin, and toward truth and God.
Texts which seem to Imply that a right taste, disposition, affection, logically precedes both knowledge of God and obedience to God, are the following: Fa. 34 : 8 —" 0 taste and see that the lord is goad " j 119 : 36 —" Incline my heart unto thy testimonies "; Jer. 24 : 7 —" I will give them a heart to know me"; Mat 5 : 8 —"Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God"; John 7 :17 —"If any man willeth to do his will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it be of God "; lets 16 :14 — Of Lydia it is said: "Whose heart the lord opened, to gin heed unto the things which were spoken by Paul"; Kph. 1:18 —" haying the eyes of your heart enlightened."
The text John 1:12,13 —" but as many as received him, to them gan he the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man. but of God"—seems at first sight to Imply that faith is the condition of regeneration, and therefore prior to it. "But If t'Joi/cri'av here signifies the ' right' or ' privilege' of sonshlp. It Is a right which may presuppose faith as the work of the Spirit In regeneration—a work apart from which no genuine faith exists in the soul. But it is possible that John means to say that, in the case of all who received Christ, their power to believe was given to them byhlm. In the original the emphasis is on 'gave,' and this Is shown by the order of the words" (Hovey).
(c) It is objected, indeed, that we know only of mental substance and of mental acts, and that the new disposition or state just mentioned, since it is not an act, must be regarded as a new substance, and so lack all moral quality. But we reply that, besides substance and acts, there are habits, tendencies, proclivities, some of them native and some of them acquired. They are voluntary, and have moral character. If we can by repeated acts originate sinful tendencies, God can surely originate in us holy tendencies. 'Such holy tendencies formed a part of the nature of Adam, as he came from the hand of God. As the result of the fall, we are born with tendencies toward evil for which we are responsible. Regeneration is a restoration of the original tendencies toward God which were lost by the fall. Such holy tendencies (tastes, dispositions, affections) are not only not unmoral — they are the only possible springs of right moral action. Only in the restoration of them does man become truly free.
On holy affection as the proper spring of holy action, see Hodge, Essays and Reviews, 1: 48; Owen on Holy Spirit, in Works, 3 :297-336; Charnock on Regeneration: Andrew Fuller, Works, S : 481-171, 512-580, and 3: 796; Edwards on Religious Affections, In Works, 3 :1-21; Bellamy, Works, 2 : 502; Dwight, Works, 2 : 418; Woods, Works, 3 :1-21; Anderson, Regeneration, 21-50.
B. It is an instantaneous change, in a region of the soul below consciousness, and is therefore known only in its results. •
(a) It is an instantaneous change.—Regeneration is not a gradual work. Although there may be a gradual work of God's providence and Spirit, preparing the change, and a gradual recognition of it after it has taken place, there must be an instant of time when, under the influence of God's Spirit, the disposition of the soul, just before hostile to God, is changed to love. Any other view assumes an intermediate state of indecision which has no moral character at all, and confounds regeneration either with conviction or with sanctification.
Conviction of sin is an ordinary, if not an Invariable, antecedent of regeneration. It results from the contemplation of truth. It is often accompanied by fear, remorse, and cries for mercy. But these desires and fears are not signs of regeneration. They are selfish. They are quite consistent with manifest and dreadful emnlty to God. They have a hopeful aspect, simply because they are evidence that the Holy Spirit is striving with the soul. But this work of the Spirit is not yet regeneration; at most, it is preparation for regeneration. So far as the sinner is concerned, he is more of a sinner than ever before; because, under more light than has ever before been given him, he is still rejecting Christ and resisting the 8pirit. The word of God and the Holy Spirit appeal to lower as well as to higher motives; most men's concern about religion is determined, at the outset, by hope or fear.
All these motives, though they are not the highest, are yet proper motives to Influence the soul; it is right to seek God from motives of self-interest, and because we desire heaven. But the seeking which not only begins, but ends, upon this lower plane, is never successful. Until the soul gives Itself to God from motives of love, it is never saved. And so long as these preliminary motives rule, regeneration has not yet taken place. Bible-reading, and prayers, and church-attendance, and partial reformations, are certainly better than apathy or outbreaking sin. They may be signs that God is working in the soul. But without complete surrender to God, they may be accompanied ■with the greatest guilt and the greatest danirer; simply because, under such influences, the withholding: of submission implies the most active hatred to God, and opposition to his will. Instance cases of outward reformation that preceded regeneration. Park: "The soul is a monad, and must turn all at once. If we are standing on the line, we are yet unregenerate. We are regenerate only when we cross it."
So, too, we must not confound regeneration with sanctiflcation. Sanctiflcation, as the development of the new affection, is gradual and progressive. But no beginning is progressive or gradual; and regeneration Is a beginning of the new affection. We may gradually come to the knowledge that a new affection exists, but the knowledge of a beginning is one thing: the beginning itself is another thing. Luther had experienced a change of heart, long before he knew Its meaning or could express his new feelings In scientific form. It Is not In the sense of a gradual regeneration, but In the sense of a .gradual recognition of the fact of regeneration, and a progressive enjoyment of its results, that "the path of the righteous" is said to be "as the shining light"—the morning-dawn that begins in faintness, hut —" that shineth more and more unto the perfect day " (ProT. 4 :18). Cf. 2 Cor. 4: 4 —" the god of this world hath blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn upon them." Here the recognition of God's work is described as gradual; that the work Itself is Instantaneous, appears from the following Terse 6— 41 Seeing it is God that said, Light shall shine out of darkness, who sinned in our hearts, to giro the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ"
Illustrate by the unconscious crossing of the line which separates one State of the Federal Union from another. From this doctrine of Instantaneous regeneration, we may infer the duty of reaping, as well as of sowing: John 4 :38—" I sent you to reap." "It is a mistaken notion that it takes God a long time to give Increase to the seed planted In a sinner's heart. This grows out of the Idea that regeneration is a matter of training; that a soul must be educated from a lost state Into a state of salvation. Let us remember that three thousand, whom In the morning Peter called murderers of Christ, were before night regenerated and baptized members of his church." Drummond, in his Nat. Law in the Spir. World, remarks upon the humaneness of sudden conversion. As .self-limitation, self-mortification, suicide of the old nature, it is well to have it at once -done and over with, and not to die by degrees.
(6) This change takes place in a region of the soul below consciousness. — It is by no means trne that God's work in regeneration is always recognized by the subject of it. On the other hand, it is never directly perceived at all. The working of God in the human soul, since it contravenes no law of man's being, but rather puts him in the full and normal possession of his own powers, is secret and inscrutable. Although man is conscious, he is not conscious of God's regenerating agency.
We know our own natural existence only through the phenomena of thought and sense. So we know our own spiritual existence, as new creatures In Christ, only through the new feelings and experiences of the soul. "The will does not need to act solitarily, in order to act freely." God acts on the will, and the resulting holiness is true freedom. John 8 : 36 —" If therefore the Son shall make yon free, ye shall be free indeed." We have the consciousness of freedom; but the act of God in giving us this freedom Is beyond or beneath our consciousness.
(c) This change, however, is recognized indirectly in its results.—At
the moment of regeneration, the soul is conscious only of the truth and of
its own exercises with reference to it. That God is the author of its new
affection is an inference from the new character of tins exercises which it
prompts. The human side or aspect of regeneration is Conversion. This,
and the Sanctiflcation which follows it (including the special gifts of the
Holy Spirit), are the sole evidences in any particular case that regeneration
is an accomplished fact.
Regeneration, though it Is the birth of a perfect child, Is still the birth of a child. The ebild is to grow, and tho growth is sanctiflcation; In other words, sanctiflcation, as we shall see, is simply the strengthening and development of the holy affection which begins its existence In regeneration. Hence the subject of the epistle to the Romans —
salvation by faith — includes not only Justification by faith (Chapters 1-7), but sanctlflcatlon by faith (Chapters 8-16). On evidences of regeneration, see Anderson, Regeneration, 169314. 227-295; Woods, Works, 44-65.
III. Conversion.
Conversion is that voluntary change in the mind of the sinner, in which he turns, on the one hand, from sin, and on the other hand, to Christ. The former or negative element in conversion, namely, the turning from sin, we denominate repentance. The latter or positive element in conversion, namely, the turning to Christ, we denominate faith.
For account of repentance and faith as elements of conversion, see Andrew Fuller, Works, 1: 668; Luthardt, Compendium der Dog-matlk, 3d ed., 202-206. The two elements of conversion seem to be in the mind of Paul, when he writes in Rom. 6 :11 —" Reckon je alto yourselves to be dead onto sin, bat alive unto God in Christ Jesus "; Col. 3 : 3—" ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God."
(a) Conversion is the human side or aspect of that fundamental spiritual ohange which, as viewed from the divine side, we call regeneration. It is simply man's turning. The Scriptures recognize the voluntary activity of the human soul in this change as distinctly as they recognize the causative agency of God. While God turns men to himself (Ps. 85 : 4; Song 1:4; Jer. 31 : 18; Lam. 5 : 21), men are exhorted to turn themselves to God (Prov. 1 : 23; Is. 31 : 6; 59 : 20; Ez. 14:6; 18 : 32; 33 : 9, 11; Joel 12: 12-14). While God is represented as the author of the new heart and the new spirit (Ps. 51 : 10; Ez. 11 : 19; 36 : 26), men are commanded to make for themselves a new heart and a new spirit (Ez. 18:31; 2 Cor. 7:1; cf. Phil. 2: 12; Eph. 5: 13).
Ps. 85 : 4 —" Turn us, 0 God of our salvation "; Song 1:4—" Draw me, we will run after thee"; Jer. 31: It —" torn thou me, and I shall be turned "; Lam. 5 : 21 —" Turn thou us unto thee, 0 Lord, and we shall be turned."
Prov. 1: 23 —" Turn you at my reproof: Behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you "; la. 31: 6—" Turn ye unto him from whom ye have deeply revolted, 0 children of Israel"; 59 : 20 —" And a redeemer shall come to Zion. and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob"; Iz. 14:6—"Return ye, and turn yourselves from your idols"; 18 : 32—"turn yourselves and live"; 33 : 9—"if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn from it, and he turn not from his way, he shall die in his iniquity "; 11 —" turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, 0 house of Israel?" Joel 2 :12-14 —" turn ye unto me with all your heart."
Ps. 51:10—"Create in me a clean heart, 0 God, And renew a right spirit within me"; It. 11:19— "audi will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you, and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh and will give them an heart of flesh "; 38 : 26 —" 1 new heart also will I give you. and a new spirit will I put within you."
Es. 18 : 31 —" Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, 0 house of Israel?" 2 Cor. 7 :1—"Baring, therefore, these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God "; cf. Phil. 2 :12,13 —" work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God which worknh in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure "; Eph. 5 :14 —" Awake, thou that steepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine upon thee."
(6) This twofold method of representation can be explained only when we remember that man's powers may be interpenetrated and quickened by the divine, not only without destroying man's freedom, but with the result of making man for the first time truly free. Since the relation between the divine and the human activity is not one of chronological succession, man is never to wait for God's working. If he is ever regenerated, it must be in and through a movement of his own will, in which he turns to God as unconstrainedly and with as little consciousness of God's operation upon him, as if no such operation of God were involved in the change. And in preaching, we are to press upon men the claims of God and their duty of immediate submission to Christ, with the certainty that they who do so submit will subsequently recognize this new and holy activity of their own wills as due to a working within them of divine power.
Ps. 110 :3 —" Thy people offer themselves willingly in the day of thy power." The act of God Is accompanied by an activity of man. Dorner: "God's act Initiates action." There is indeed an original changing of man's tastes and affections, and in this man is passive. But this Is only the first aspect of regeneration. In the second aspect of it —the rousing of man's powers—God's action Is accompanied by man's activity, and regeneration is but the obverse side of conversion. Luther's word: "Man, in conversion, is purely passive," is true only of the first part of the change; and here, by "conversion," Luther means "regeneration." Melancthon said better: "Non est enlm cogctlo, ut voluntas non posslt repugnare: trahlt Deus, sed volentem trahlt." See Meyer on Rom. 8 :14—" led by the Spirit of God ": "The expression," Meyer says, "Is passive, though without prejudice to the human will, as rene 13 proves: 'by the Spirit ye pat to death the deeds of the body.'"
As, by a well known principle of hydrostatics, the water contained in a little tube can balance the water of a whole ocean, so God's grace can be balanced by man's will. As sunshine on the sand produces nothing unless man sow the seed, and as a fair breeze does not propel the vessel unless man spread the sails, so the influences of God's Spirit require human agencies, and work through them. The Holy Spirit Is sovereign — he bloweth where he llsteth. Even though there be uniform human conditions, there will not be uniform spiritual results. Results are often Independent of human conditions as such. This is the truth emphasized by Andrew Fuller. But this does not prevent us from saying that, whenever God's spirit works in regeneration, there is always accompanying it a voluntary change in man, whioh we call conversion, and that this change Is as f ree, and as really man's own work, as if there were no divine Influence upon him.
(c) From the fact that the word 'conversion' means simply a 'turning,' every turning of the Christian from sin, subsequent to the first, may, in a subordinate sense, be denominated a conversion (Luke 22 : 32). Since regeneration is not complete sanctification, and the change of governing disposition is not identical with complete purification of the nature, such subsequent turnings from sin are necessary consequences and evidences of the first (cf. John 13 : 10). But they do not, like the first, imply a change in the governing disposition,— they are rather new manifestations of a disposition already changed. For this reason, conversion proper, like the regeneration of which it is the obverse side, can occur but once. The phrase 'second conversion,' even if does not imply radical misconception of the nature of conversion, is misleading. We prefer, therefore, to describe these subsequent experiences, not by the term 'conversion,' but by such phrases as 'breaking off, forsaking, returning from, neglects or transgressions,' and 'coming back to Christ, trusting anew in him.' It is with repentance and faith, as elements in that first and radical change by which the soul enters upon a state of salvation, that we have now to do.
Lake 22 : 31,32 —" Simon, Simon, behold, Satan asked to hare you, that he might sift yoa as wheat: bat I made supplication for thee, that thy faith fail not: and do thou, when once thou hast turned again [ A. V.: 'art converted' ], stablish thy brethren "; John 13 :10 —" He that is bathed [ has taken a full bath ] needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit [ as a whole ]."
On the relation between the divine and the human agencies, we quote a different view from another writer: "God decrees to employ means which in every case are sufficient, and which in certain cases It is foreseen will be effectual. Human action converts a sufficient means into an effectual means. The result is not always according to the varying use of means. The power is all of God. Man has power to resist only. There is an universal influence of the Spirit, but the Influences of the Spirit vary in different cases, just as external opportunities do. The love of holiness is blunted, but It still lingers. The Holy Spirit quickens It. When this love Is wholly lost, sin against tbe Holy Ghost result*. Before regeneration there Is a desire for holiness, an apprehension of Its beauty, but this Is overborne by a greater love for sin. If the man does not quickly grow worse, It is not because of positive action on his part, but only because negatively he does not resist as he might. 'Behold, I stand at the door and knock.' God loads at first by a resistible influence. When man yields, God leads by an irresistible influence. The second Influence of tbo Holy Spirit confirms the Christian's choice. This second Influence Is called 'sealing.' There is no necessary Interval of time between the two. Prevenlent grace comes first; conversion comes after."
To this view, we would reply that a partial love for holiness, and an ability to choose it before God works effectually upon the heart, seem to contradict those Scriptures which assert that "the mind of the Hash is enmity against God " i Rom. 8:7), and that all good works are the result of God's new creation (Iph. Z: 10 >. Conversion does not precede regeneration — it chronologically accompanies regeneration, though it logically follows It.
1. Repentance.
We may analyze repentance into three constituents, each succeeding term of which includes and implies the one preceding:
A. An intellectual element,— recognition of sin as involving personal guilt, defilement, and helplessness (Ps. 51: 3, 7, 11). If unaccompanied by the following elements, this recognition may manifest itself in fear of punishment, although as yet there is no hatred of sin. This element is indicated in the Scripture phrase ixtyvuoic d/iapriac (Rom. 3 : 20; cf. 1 : 32).
Pa. 51 : 3. 11 —" for I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me Cast me not away from
thy presence, ind take not thy Holy Spirit from me "; Rom. 3 : 20 —" through the law cometh tbe knowledge of on "; cf. 1: 32 —" who, knowing the ordinance of God, that they which practice such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but also consent with them that practice them."
It Is well to remember that God requires us to cherish no views or emotions that contradict the truth. He wants of us no false humility. Humility (humus) = groundness — a coining down to the hard-pan of facts —a facing of the truth. Repentance, therefore. Is not a calling ourselves by hard names. It Is not cringing, or exaggerated selfcontempt. It Is simple recognition of what we are.
B. An emotional element,— sorrow for sin as committed against goodness and justice, and therefore hateful to God, and hateful in itself (Ps. 51 : 1, 2, 10, 14). This element of repentance is indicated in the Scripture word /ieTa/i0.o/jai. If accompanied by the following elements, it is a \hirv Kara GecSv. If not so accompanied, it is a Mxr/ rob K6o/jov = remorse and despair ( Mat. 27 : 3; Luke 18 : 23; 2 Cor. 7 : 9, 10).
Ps. 51:1. 2,10, M —" Hare mercy upon me — blot ont my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity.
ind cleanse me from my sin Create in me a clean heart, 0 God Dtliver ma from blood guiltiness, 0 God ";
Mat. 27 : 3 —" Then Judas, which betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, 1 have sinned in that 1 betrayed innocent blood "; Luke 18 : 23—" when he heard these things, he became eioeeding sorrowful; for he was very rich "; 2 Cor. 7:9,10 —"How I rejoice, not that ye were made sorry, but that ye were made sorry onto repentance: for ye were made sorry after a godly sort.... for godly sorrow worketh repentance unto salvation, a repentance which bringeth no regret: but the sorrow of the world worketh death."
C. A voluntary element,—inward turning from sin and disposition to seek pardon and cleansing (Ps. 51 : 5, 7, 10; Jer. 25 : 5). This includes and implies the two preceding elements, and is therefore the most important aspect of repentance. It is indicated in the Scripture term utrivoia (Acts 2 : 38; Bom. 2 : 4).
Pa. 51: 5, 7, 10 —" Behold, I wss shapen in iniquity: And in sin did my mother conceive me .... Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow .... Create in me a clean heart, 0 God, Ind renew a right spirit within me "; Jer. 25 : 5 —" Return ye now every one from his evil way, and from the eTil of your doings "; lets 2 : 38 —" And Peter said unto them. Repent ye, and be baptized every one of yon in the name of Jesus Christ"; Rom. 2:4—" despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?"
In broad distinction from the Scriptural doctrine, we find the Romanist view, which regards the three elements of repentance as the following: (1) contrition; (2) confession; (3) satisfaction. Of these, contrition is the only element properly belonging to repentance; yet from this contrition the Romanist excludes all sorrow for sin of nature. Confession is confession to the priest; and satisfaction is the sinner's own doing of outward penance, as a temporal and symbolic submission and reparation to violated law. This view is false and pernicious, in that it confounds repentance with its outward fruits, conceives of it as exercised rather toward the church than toward God, and regards it as a meritorious ground, instead of a mere condition, of pardon.
On the Romanist doctrine of Penance, Thornwell (Collected Writings, 1:423) remarks: "The culpa may be remitted, they say, while the pa-na is to some extent retained." The priest absolves, not declaratively, but Judicially. Denying- the greatness of the sin, It makes man able to become his own Savior. Christ's satisfaction, for sins after baptism, is not sufficient; our satisfaction is sufficient. But performance of one duty, we object, cannot make satisfaction for the violation of another.
In further explanation of the Scripture representations, we remark: (a) That repentance, in each and all of its aspects, is wholly an inward act, not to be confounded with the change of life which proceeds from it.
True repentance is indeed manifested and evidenced by confession of sin before God (Luke 18 : 13), and by reparation for wrongs done to men (Luke 19 : 8). Rut these do not constitute repentance; they are rather fruits of repentance. Retween 'repentance' and 'fruit worthy of repentance,' Scripture plainly distinguishes (Mat. 3 : 8).
Lake 18:13—" But the publican, standing afar off. would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me a sinner ['be propitiated to me the sinner']"; 19:8— "And Zaoohsxis stood, and said unto the lord. Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I hare wrongfully exacted aught of any man, I restore fourfold"; Hat 3 : 8—" Bring forth, therefore, fruit worthy of repentance."
On the question whether the requirement that we forgive without atonement implies that God does, see Brit, and For. Evang. Rev., Oct., 1881:678-691—"Answer: 1. The present constitution of things Is based upon atonement. Forgiveness on our part is required upon the ground of the cross, without which the world would be hell. 2. God I is Judge. We forgive, as brethren. When he forgives, it is as Judge of all the earth, of / whom all earthly Judges are representatives. If earthly Judges may exact Justice, much I more God. The argument that would abolish atonement would abolish all civil government. 3. I should forgive my brother on the ground of God's love, and Christ's bearing of his sins. 4. God, who requires atonement, is the same being that provides it. This is 'handsome and generous.' But I can never provide atonement for my~brother. I must, therefore, forgive freely, only upon the ground of what Christ has done foT him."
(6) That repentance is only a negative condition, and not a positive means of salvation.
This is evident from the fact that repentance is no more than the sinner's present duty, and can furnish no offset to the claims of the law on account of past transgression. The truly penitent man feels that his repentance has no merit. Apart from the positive element of conversion, namely, faith in Christ, it would be only sorrow for guilt unremoved. This very sorrow, moreover, is not the mere product of human will, but is the gift of God.
iots 5 : 31 —" Him did God exalt with his right bud to be a Prince and a Sarior, for to give repentance to Israel, and remission of ana"; 11:18—"Then to the Gentiles also hath God granted repentance onto life "; 2 Tim. 2 : 25—"If peradventure God may gin them repentance unto the knowledge of the truth." The truly penitent man recognizes the fact that his sin deserves punishment. He never regards his penitence as offsetting the demands of law, and as making his punishment unjust. Whitefleld: "Our repentance needeth to be repented of, and our very tears to be washed in the blood of Christ."
(c) That true repentance, however, never exists except in conjunction with faith.
Sorrow for sin, not simply on account of its evil consequences to the transgressor, but on account of its intrinsic hatefulness as opposed to divine holiness and love, is practically impossible without some confidence in God's mercy. It is the cross which first makes us truly penitent (of John 12: 32, 33). Hence all true preaching of repentance is implicitly a preaching of faith (Mat. 3 : 1-12; cf. Acts 19 : 4), and repentance toward God involves faith in the Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 20 : 21; Luke 15 : 10, 24; 19 : 8, 9; cf. Gal. 3:7).
John 12 : 32, 33 —" And I, if 1 be lifted op from the earth, will draw all men unto myself. But this he said, signifying bj what manner of death he should die." Mat. 3 :1-12 — John the Baptist's preaching of repentance was also a preaching of faith; as Is shown by lots 19 : 4—"John baptised with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on Jesus." Repentance Involves faith: Ida 20 : 21 —"testifying both to Jews and to Greeks repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ"; Luke IS : 10, 24 —" there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth .... this my son was dsad, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found "; 19 : 8, 9 —" the half of my goods I give to the poor, and if I hare wrongfully exacted aught of any man, I restore fourfold, and Jesus said unto him, To-day is salvation oome to this house, forasmuch as be also is a son of Abraham "— the father of all believers; cf. Gal. 3 : 6, 7 —" Iven as Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him for righteousness. Inow therefore that they which be of faith, the same are sons of Abraham."
(d) That, conversely, wherever there is true faith, there is true repentance also.
Since repentance and faith are but different sides or aspects of the same act of turning, faith is as inseparable from repentance as repentance is from faith. That must be an unreal faith where there is no repentance, just as that must be an unreal repentance where there is no faith. Yet because the one aspect of his change is more prominent in the mind of the convert than the other, we are not hastily to conclude that the other is absent. Only that degree of conviction of sin is essential to salvation, which carries with it a forsaking of sin and a trustful surrender to Christ.
2 Cor. 7 :10—"repentanoe unto salvation." In consciousness, sensation and perception are in inverse ratio to each other. Clear vision is hardly conscious of sensation, but inflamed eyes arc hardly conscious of anything else but sensation. So repentance and faith are seldom equally prominent in the consciousness of the converted man; but it is important to know that neither can exist without the other. The truly penitent man will, sooner or later, show that he has faith; and the true believer will certainly show, in due season, that he hates and renounces sin.
The question, how much conviction a man needs to ensure his salvation, may be answered by asking how much excitement one needs on a burning steamer. As, in the latter case, just enough to prompt persistent effort to escape: so, in the former case, just enough remorseful feeling is needed, to induce the sinner to betake himself believlngly to Christ.
On the general subject of repentance, see Anderson, Regeneration, 279-288; Bp. Ossory, Nature and Effects of Faith, 40-48, 311-318; Woods, Works, 3 : 68-78; Philippl, Glaubenslehre, 5:1-10,208-246; Luthardt, Compendium, 3rd ed., 206-208; Hodge, Outlines of Theology, 375-381; Alexander, Evidences of Christianity, 47-60; Crawford, Atonement, 413-419. 2. Faith.
We may analyze faith also into three constituents, each succeeding term of which includes and implies the preceding:
A. An intellectual element (notitia),— recognition of the truth of God's revelation, or of the objective reality of the salvation provided by Christ. This includes not only a historical belief in the facts of the Scripture, but an intellectual belief in the doctrine taught therein as to man's sinfulness and dependence upon Christ.
John 2 : 23, 24 —" Nov when he v&s in Jerusalem, at the passover, during the feast, many believed on his name, beholding his signs which he did. But Jesus did not trust himself unto them, for that he knew all men ": cf. 3 : 2 — Nicodeuius has this external faith: "no man can do these signs that thou doest, except God be with him." James 2 :19—Thou believest that God is one; thou doest well: the demons also believe and shudder." Even this historical faith is not without its fruits. It Is the spring of much philanthropic work. There were no hospitals in ancient Home. Much of our modern progress is due to the leavening influence of Christianity, even in the case of those who have not personally accepted Christ.
B. An emotional element ( assensua),— assent to the revelation of God's power and grace in Jesus Christ, as applicable to the present needs of the soul. Those in whom this awakening of the sensibilities is unaccompanied by the fundamental decision of the will, which constitutes the next element of faith, may seem to themselves, and for a time may appear to others, to have accepted Christ.
Mat. 13 : 20, 21 —"he that was sown upon the rock; places, this is he that heareth the word, and straightway with joy reeeiveth it; yet hath he not root in himself, but endureth for a while; and when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, straightway he stumbleth "; ('/. Ps. 106 : 12, 13 —" Then believed they his words; they sang his praise. They soon forgat his works; they waited not for his counsel"; Ex. 33 : 31, 32 —" and they come unto thee as the people Cometh, and they sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words, but do them not: for with their mouth they show much love, but their heart goeth after their gain, ind, lo. thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that bath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument: for they hear thy words, but they do them not"; John 5 : 35 — Of John the Baptist: "He was the lamp that burneth and shineth: and ye were willing to rejoice for a season in his light."
Saving faith, however, includes also:
C. A voluntary element (Jiducia),— trust in Christ as Lord and Savior; or, in other words — to distinguish its two aspects:
(a) Surrender of the soul, as guilty and defiled, to Christ's governance.
Mat 11: 28. 29—" Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me "; John 8 :12 —" I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in the darkness "; 14 :1 —" Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me "; Acts 16 : 31 —" Believe on the lord Jesus, and thou shak be saved." Instances of the use of ntartvu, in the sense of trustful committance or surrender, are John 2 : 24 —" But Jesus did not trust himself unto them, for that he knew all men"; Rom. 3 : 2—"they were intrusted with the oracles of God"; Gal. 2 : 7—"when they saw that I had been intrusted with the gospel of the circumcision." irians = " trustful self-surrender to God " (Meyer).
(6) Reception and appropriation of Christ, as the source of pardon and spiritual life.
John 1:12 —"as many as received him, to them gave be the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name "; 4:14—" whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up unto eternal life "; 6 : 53 —" Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have not life in yourselves "; 20 : 31 —" these are written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye may have life in his name "; Eph. 3 :17 —" that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith "; Eeb. 11:1 —" Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, a conviction of things not seen "; Rev. 3 : 20 —■■ Behold, I stand at the door and knock: If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me."
The three constituents of faith may be illustrated from the thought, feeling, and action of a person who stands by a boat, upon a little island which the rising stream threatens to submerge. He first regards the boat from a purely Intellectual point of view — it is merely an actually existing boat. As the stream rises, he looks at it, secondly, with some accession of emotion — his prospective danger awakens in him the conviction that it is a gixxl boat fur a time of ncal, though he is not yet ready to make use of it. But, thirdly, when he feels that the rushing tide must otherwise sweep him away, a volitional element Is added — he gets Into the boat, trusts himself to it, accepts it as his present, and only, means of safety. Only this last faith in the boat is faith that saves, although this last includes both the preceding. It is equally clear that the getting into the boat may actually save a man, while at the same time he may be full of fears that the boat will never bring him to shore. These fears may be removed by the boatman's word. So saving faitli is not necessarily assurance of faith; but it becomes assurance of faith when the Holy Spirit "beareth vidua with oar spirit, that ve in children of God ' (Rom. 8 :16). On the nature of this assurance, and on the distinction between it and saving faith, see below.
"Coming to Christ," "looking to Christ," "receiving Christ," are all descriptions of faith, as are also the phrases: "surrender to Christ," "submission to Christ," "closing in with Christ." Paul refers to a confession of faith in Rom. 10 : 9—"If thou shalt confess vith thj mouth Jesus u Lord.'' Faith, then, is a taking of Christ as both Savior and Lord; and It includes both appropriation of Christ, and consecration to Christ. McCosh, Dlv. Government: "Saving faith is the consent of the will to the assent of the understanding, and commonly accompanied with emotion." Pres. Hopkins, in Princeton Kev., Sept., 1878 : 511-540 —" In its intellectual element, faith is receptive, and believes that God is ,in its affectlonal element, faith is assimilative, and believes that God is a reicanier; in Its voluntary element, faith is operative, and actually cornea to God (Reb. 11: 6)."
The passages already referred to refute the view of the Romanist, that saving faith is simply implicit assent to the doctrines of the church; and the view of the Disciple or Campbellite, that faith is merely intellectual belief in the truth, on the presentation of evidence.
The Romanist says that faith can coHxist with mortal sin. The Disciple holds that faith may and must exist before regeneration — regeneration being through baptism. With these erroneous views, compare the noble utterance of Luther, Com. on Galatians, 1 :191, 247, quoted in Thomasius, ill. 2 :188—"True faith," says Luther, " is that assured trust and firm assent of heart, by which Christ Is laid hold of — so that Christ is the object of faith. Yet he is not merely the object of faith: but in the very faith, so to speak. Christ is present. Faith lays hold of Christ, and grasps him as a present possession, Just as the ring holds the Jewel." Edwards, Works, 4 : 71-78: 2 : 601-641 -" Faith," says Edwards, "includes the whole act of unltion to Christ as a Savior. The entire active uniting of the soul, or the whole of what is called coming to Christ, and receiving of him, is called faith in the Scripture." See also Belief, What Is It? 150-179, 290-298.
In further explanation of the Scripture representations, we remark: (a) That faith is an act of the affections and will, as truly as it is an act of the intellect.
It has been claimed that faith and unbelief are purely intellectual states, which are necessarily determined by the facts at any given time presented to the mind; and that they are, for this reason, as destitute of moral quality and as far from being matters of obligation, as are our instinctive feelings of pleasure and pain. But this view unwarrantably isolates the intellect, and ignores the fact that, in all moral subjects, the state of the affections and will affects the judgment of the mind with regard to truth. In the intellectual act the whole moral nature expresses itself. Since the tastes determine the opinions, faith is a moral act, and men are responsible for not believing.
John 3 :18-20 — "He that believeth on him is not judged: he that believeth not hath been judged already, because he hath not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the judgment, that light is come into the vorld, and men loved the darkness rather than the light: for their vorks vere evil. For every one that doeth evil hatcth the light, and eometh not to the light, lest his vorks should be reproved ": 5 : 40—" Te will not come to me. that je may have life "; 16 s 9 —" And he, when he is come, will convict the world in respect of sin of tin,
because thej believe not on me "; Rev. 2 : 21 —" she wiUeth not to repent." Notice that the Revised Version very frequently substitutes the voluntary and active terms "disobedionoe" and "disobedient" for the "unbelief" and "unbelieving" of the Authorized Version,—as in Rom. 15 : 31; Eeb. 3:18; 4 :6,11; 11: SI. See Park, Discourses, 45, 48.
Savages do not know that they are responsible for their physical appetites, or that there Is any right and wrong in matters of sense, until they come under the influence of Christianity. In like manner, even men of science can declare that the intellectual sphere has no part in man's probation, and that we are no more responsible for our opinions and beliefs than we are for the color of our skin. But faith is not a merely intellectual act — the affections and will give it quality. There Is no moral quality In the belief that 2 + 2 = 4, because we cannot help that belief. But in believing on Christ there is moral quality, because there is the element of choice. Indeed it may be questioned, whether, in every Judgment upon moral things, there Is not an act of will.
Hence on John 7 :17—"If any man willeth to do bis will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it be of Ood, or whether I speak from myself"— F. L. Patton calls attention to the two common errors: (1) that obedience will certify doctrine—which is untrue, because obedience is the result of faith, not vice verm; (2) that personal experience Is the ultimate test of faith — which is untrue, because the Bible Is the only rule of faith, and it is one thing to receive truth through the feelings, but quite another to test truth by the feelings. The text really means, that if any man is willing to do God's will, be shall know whether it be of God; and the two lessons to be drawn are: (1) the gospel needs no additional evidence; (2) the Holy Ghost Is the hope of the world. On responsibility for opinions and beliefs, see Mozley, on Blanco White, in Essays Philos. and Historical, 2 :142; T. T. Smith, Hulsean Lectures for 1839.
(6) That faith is not chronologically subsequent to regeneration, but is its accompaniment.
As the soul's appropriation of Christ and his salvation, it is not the result of an accomplished renewal, but rather the medium through which that renewal is effected. Otherwise it would follow that one who had not yet believed (/. e., received Christ) might still be regenerate, whereas the Scripture represents the privilege of sonship as granted only to believers.
John 1:12, 13 —" Rat u many as received him, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name; which wore born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man. bat of God "; Gal. 3 : 26—" for ye an all sons of God, through faith, in Christ Jems."
(c) That the object of saving faith is, in general, the whole truth of God, so for as it is objectively revealed or made known to the soul; but, in particular, the person and work of Jesus Christ, which constitutes the centre and substance of God's revelation (Acts 17 : 18; 1 Cor. 1 : 23; Col. 1 : 27; Rev. 19 : 10).
The patriarchs, though they had no knowledge of a personal Christ, were saved by believing in God so far as God had revealed himself to them; and whoever among the heathen are saved, must in like manner be saved by casting themselves as helpless sinners upon God's plan of mercy, dimly shadowed forth in nature and providence. But such faith, even among the patriarchs and heathen, is implicitly a faith in Christ, and woidd become explicit and conscious trust and submission, whenever Christ were made known to them (Mat. 8 :11, 12; John 10 :16; Acts 4 : 12; 10 : 31, 34, 35, 44; 16 : 31).
lets 17 :18— "he preached Jesus and the resurrection "; 1 Cor. 1: 23 —" we preach Christ cradled "; Col. 1 : 27 —" this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: whom we proclaim "; Rev. 19 :10 — "Uu testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy." Saving faith Is not belief in a dogma, but personal trust in a personal Christ. It is, therefore, possible to a child. Dorner: "The
object of faith is the Christian revelation — God In Christ Faith is union with
objective Christianity — appropriation of the real contents of Christianity."
It must bo remembered, however, that Christ Is the Word of God and the Truth of God ; and that he may, therefore, be received even by those who have not heard of his manifestation in the flesh. A proud and self-righteous morality is inconsistent with saving faith; but a humble and penitent reliance upon God, as a Savior from sin and a guide of conduct, is an implicit faith in Christ; for such reliance casts itself upon God. so far as God has revealed himself — and the only Kevealor of God is Christ. We have, therefore, the hope that even among the heathen there may be some, like Socrates, who, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit working through the truth of nature and conscience, have found the way of life and salvation.
The number of such is so small as in no degree to weaken the claims of the missionary enterprise upon us. But that there are such seems to be intimated in Scripture: Mat. 9 : It, 12 —" many shall come from the east and the vest, and shall ait down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven: bat the sons of the kingdom shall be cast forth into the outer darkness"; John 10 :16 — "And other sheep I hare, which an not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and they shall become one flock, one shepherd "; Acts 4 :12 —" And in none other is there salvation: for neither is there any other name under heaven, that is given among men, wherein we must be saved"; 10 : 31, 34, 35, 44—"Cornelius, thy
prayer is heard, and thine alms are had in remembrance in the sight of God Of a truth I perceive that God is no
respecter of persons; bnt in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is acceptable to him
While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word"; 16 : 31—"Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shall be saved, thou and thy bouse."
And Instances are found of apparently regenerated heathen; see In Godet on John 7 : IT, note (vol. 2 : 277), the account of the so-called "Chinese hermit," who accepted Christ, saying: "This is the only Buddha whom men ought to worship!" Edwards, Life of Broinard, 173-175, gives an account " of one who was a devout and zealous reformer, or rather restorer, of what he supposed was the ancient religion of the Indians." After a period of distress, he says that God "comforted his heart and showed him what he should do, and since that time he had known God and tried to serve him; and loved all men, be they who they would, so as he never did before." See art. by Dr. Lucius E. Smith, In Bib. Sac, Oct., 1881: 622-645, on the question: "Is salvation possible without a knowledge of the gospel?" H. B. Smith, System, 323, note, rightly bases hope for the heathen, not on morality, but on sacrifice.
On the question whether men are ever led to faith, without intercourse with living Christians or preachers, see Life of Judson, by his son, 84. The British and Foreign Bible Society publish a statement, made upon the authority of Sir Bartle Frere, that he met with "an instance, which was carefully Investigated, In which all the Inhabitants of a remote village in the Deccan had abjured idolatry and caste, removed from their temples the idols which had been worshiped there time out of mind, and agreed to profess a form of Christianity which they had deduced for themselves from the careful perusal of a single gospel and a few tracts." Max MUUer, Chips, 4 : 177-189, apparently proves that Buddha is the original of St. Josaphat, who has a day assigned to him in the calendar of both the Greek and the Roman churches. "Sancte Socrates, ora pro nobis."
(d) That the ground of faith is the external word of promise. The ground of assurance, on the other hand, is the inward witness of the Spirit that we fulfil the conditions of the promise (Bom. 4 : 20, 21; 8 : 16; Eph. 1 : 13; 1 John 4 : 13; 5 : 10). This witness of the Spirit is not a new revelation from God, but a strengthening of faith so that it becomes conscious and indubitable.
True faith is possible without assurance of salvation. But if Alexander's view were correct, that the object of saving faith is the proposition: "God, for Christ's sake, now looks with reconciling love on me, a sinner," no one could believe, without being at the same time assured that he was a saved person. Upon the true view, that the object of saving faith is not a proposition, but a person, we can perceive not only the simplicity of faith, but the possibility of faith even where the soul is destitute of assurance or of joy. Hence those who already believe are urged to seek for assurance (Heb. 6:11; 2 Pet. 1:10).
Rom. 4 : 20, 21 —" looking onto the promise of God, lie wavered not through unbelief, bat waxed strong through faith, giving glory to God, and being folly assured that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform"; 8 :16 —" The Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are children of God "; !ph. 1:13 —" in whom, having also believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise "; 1 John 4:13—" hereby know we that we abide in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit"; 5 :10 —" He that beliereth on the Son of God hath the witness in him." This assurance Is not of the essence of faith, because believers are exhorted to attain to it: Heb. 6 :11 —"And we desire that each one of you may show the same diligence unto the fulness of hope [ marg. —' full assurance' ] even to the end "; 2 Pet. 1:10 —" Wherefore, brethren, give the more diligence to make your calling and election sure."
There Is need to guard the doctrine of assurance from mysticism. The witness of the Spirit Is not a new and direct revelation from God. It is a strengthening of previously existing faith until hp who possesses this faith cannot any longer doubt that he possesses it. It Is a general rule tbat all our emotions, when they become exceedingly strong, also become conscious. Instance affection between man and woman.
Edwards, Religious Affections, in Works, 3 :83-91, says the witness of the Spirit is not a new word or suggestion from God, but an enlightening and sanctifying Influence, so that the heart Is drawn forth to embrace the truth already revealed, and to perceive that it embraces it. "Bearing witness " is not in this case to declare and assert a thing to be true, but to hold forth evidence from which a thing may be proved to tie true: God
"bears witness by signs and wonders" (Heb. 2:4). So the "seal of the Spirit" Is not a voice
or suggestion, but a work or effect of the Spirit, left as n divine mark upon the soul, to be an evidence by which God's children may be known. Seals had engraved upon them the Image or name of the persons to whom they belonged. The "seal of the Spirit," the "earnest of the Spirit," the " witness of the Spirit," are all one thing. The childlike spirit, given by the Holy Spirit, is the Holy Spirit's witness or evidence in us.
See also illustration of faith and assurance. In C. S. Robinson's Short Studies for S. S. Teachers, 17H, 180. Faith should be distinguished not only from assurance, but also from feeling or Joy. Instance Abraham's faith, when he went to sacrifice Isaac: and Madame Guyon's faith, when God's face seemed hid from her. See, on the witness of the Spirit, Short, Hampton Lectures for 1846. For the view which confounds faith with assurance, see Alexander, Discourses on Faith, 63-118.
(e) That faith necessarily leads to good works, since it embraces the whole truth of God so far as made known, and appropriates Christ, not only as an external Savior, but as an internal sanctifying power ( Heb. 7 : 16; Gal. 5 : 6 ).
Good works are the proper evidence of faith. The faith which does not lead men to act upon the command and promises of Christ, or, in other words, does not lead to obedience, is called in Scripture a "dead," that is, an unreal, faith. Such faith is not saving, since it lacks the voluntary element— actual appropriation of Christ (James 2 : 14-26).
Heb. 7 :16—"another priest, who hath been made, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life "; Gal. 5 : 6 —" For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision; but faith working through love "; James 2 :14, 26 —" What doth it profit, my brethren, if a man say he hath faith, but
have not works? Can that faith save him? For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, even so faith apart
from works is dead."
The best evidence that I believe a man's word is that I act upon it. Instance the bank-cashier's assurance to me that a sum of money Is deposited with him to my account. If I am a millionaire, the communication may cause me no special Joy. My faith in the cashier's word is tested by my going, or not-going, for the money. So my faith in Christ is evidenced by my acting upon his commands and promises.
(/) That faith, as characteristically the inward act of reception, is not to be confounded with love or obedience, its fruit.
Faith is, in the Scriptures, called a work, only in the sense that man's active powers are engaged in it. It is a work which God requires, yet which God enables man to perform (John 6 : 29 — tpyov mv 9eoi. Cf. Rom. 1:17 — iiKaioauvri Qem). As the gift of God and as the mere taking of undeserved mercy, it is expressly excluded from the category of works upon the basis of which man may claim salvation (Bom. 3 : 28; 4 : 4, 5, 16). It is not the act of the full soul bestowing, but the act of an empty soul receiving. Although this reception is prompted by a drawing of heart toward God inwrought by the Holy Spirit, this drawing of heart is not yet a conscious and developed love: such love is the result of faith (Gal. 5:6). What precedes faith is an unconscious and undeveloped tendency or disposition toward God. Conscious and developed affection toward God, or love proper, must always follow faith and be the product of faith. So, too, obedience can be rendered only after faith has laid hold of Christ, and with him has obtained the spirit of obedience ( Rom. 1 : 5—irraKoijv n-ioreus = "obedience resulting from faith "). Hence faith is not the procuring cause of salvation, but is only the instrumental cause. The procuring cause is the Christ, whom faith embraces.
John 6 : 29—" This it the work of God, that re beliere on him whom he hath sent": <•/. Rom. 1:17 —" For therein is revelled a righteousness of God from faith unto faith: as it is written, But the righteous shall live from faith "; Rom. 3 : 28 —" We reckon, therefore, that a man is justified bj faith apart from the works of the law "; 4 : 4, 5,16 —" Now to him that worketh, the reward is not reckoned as of grace, but as of debt. But to him that worketh not, but beliereth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is reckoned for righteousness..... For this cause it is of faith, that it may be according to graoe"; Gal. 5 : 6— "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision araileth an/thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith working through love"; Rom. 1:5—" through whom we received grace and apostleship, unto obedience of faith among all nations."
Faith stands as an intermediate factor between the unconscious and undeveloped tendency or disposition toward God inwrought in the soul by God's regenerating act, on the one hand, and the conscious and developed affection toward God which is one of the fruits and evidences of conversion, on the other. Illustrate by the motherly instinct shown in a little girl's care for her doll — a motherly instinct which becomes a developed mother's love, only when a child of her own is born This new love of the Christian is an activity of his own soul, and yet It is a "fruit of the Spirit" (Gal. 5 : 22). To attribute It wholly to himself would be like calling the walking and leaping of the lame man (lets 3:8) merely a healthy activity of his own.
(g) That faith is susceptible of increase.
This is evident, whether we consider it from the human or from the divine side. As an act of man, it has an intellectual, an emotional, and a voluntary element, each of which is capable of growth. As a work of God iu the soul of man, it can receive, through the presentation of the truth and the quickening agency of the Holy Spirit, continually new accessions of knowledge, sensibility, and active energy. Such increase of faith, therefore, we are to seek, both by resolute exercise of our own powers, and above all, by direct application to the source of faith in God (Luke 17:5).
Luke 17 : 5 —" And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith "; 1 Cor. 12 : 8, 9 —" For to one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom .... to another faith, in the same Spirit" In this latter passage, it seems to be intimated that for special exigencies the Holy Spirit gives to his servants special faith, so that they are enabled to lay hold of the general promise of God and make special application of it. Rom. 8 : 26, 27 —" The spirit also helpeth our infirmity ... maketb intercession for us.... maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God "; 1 John 5 :14, 15 —" and this is the boldness which we hare toward him, that, if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us: and if we know that he heareth us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we hare the petitions which we hare asked of him."
On the general subject of faith, see KOstlin, Die Lehre von dein Glauben, 13-85, 301-341, and in Jahrbuch f. d. Theol., 4:177 sg.; Romaine on Faith, 9-89; Bishop of Ossory, Nature and Effects of Faith, 1-40; Venn, Characteristics of Belief, Introduction; Nitzsch, System of Christ. Doct., 294.
IV. Justification.
1. Definition of Justification.
By justification we mean that judicial act of God by which, on account of Christ, to whom the sinner is united by faith, he declares that sinner to be no longer exposed to the penalty of the law, but to be restored to his favor. Or, to give an alternative definition from which all metaphor is excluded. Justification is the reversal of God's attitude toward the sinner, because of the sinner's new relation to Christ. God did condemn; he now acquits. He did repel; he now admits to favor.
Justification, as thus defined, is therefore a declarative act, as distinguished from an efficient act; an act of God external to the sinner, as distinguished from an act within the sinner's nature and changing that nature; a judicial act, as distinguished from a sovereign act; an act based upon and logically presupposing the sinner's union with Christ, as distinguished from an act which causes and is followed by that union with Christ.
The word 'declarative' does not imply a 'spoken' word on God's part —much leas that the sinner hears God speak. That justification is sovereign, is held by Armlnians, and by those who advocate a governmental theory of the atonement. On any such theory, justification must be sovereign; since Christ bore, not the penalty of "the law, but a substituted suffering which God graciously and sovereignly accepts in place of our suffering and obedience.
Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1100, wrote a tract for the consolation of the ■dying, who were alarmed on account of sin. The following is an extract from it: "Quadimi. Dost thou believe that the Lord Jesus died for thee? Answer. I believe it. Qu. Dost thou thank him for his passion and death? An». I do thank him. Qu. Dost thou believe that thou canst not be saved except by his death? Ann. I believe it." And then Anselm addresses the dying man: "Come then, while life remaineth In thee; in his death alone place thy whole trust: in naught else place any trust; to his death commit thyself wholly; with this alone cover thyself wholly; and If the Lord thy God will to judge thee, say,' Lord, between thy judgment and me I present the death of our Lord Jesus Christ; no otherwise can I contend with thee.' And if he shall say that thou art a sinner, say thou: 'Lord, I interpose the death of our Lord Jesus Christ between my sins and thee.' If he say that thou hast deserved condemnation, say: 'Lord, I set the death of our Lord Jesus Christ between my evil deserts and thee, and his merits I offer for those which I ought to have and have not.' If he say that he is wroth with thee, say: 'Lord, I oppose the death of our Lord Jesus Christ between thy wrath and me.' And when thou hast completed this, say again: 'Lord, I set the death of our Lord Jesus Christ between thee and me.'" See Anselm, Opera (Migne), 1:686, 687. The above quotation gives us reason to believe that the New Testament doctrine of Justification by faith was implicitly, if not explicitly, held by many pious souls through all the ages of papal darkness.
2. Proof of the Doctrine of Justification.
A. Scripture proofs of the doctrine as a whole are the following:
Rom. 1 :17 — "a righteousness of God from faith unto faith"; 3 : 24-30—"being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus .... the justifler of him that hath faith tn Jesus.... We reckon therefore that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law .:.. justifj the circumcision by faith, and the uucircumcision through faith "; Gal. 3:11 —" Nov that no man is justified by the lav in the sight of God, is erident: for, The righteous shall lire by faith; and the law is not of faith; but, He that doeth them shall lire in them "; Eph. 1: 7 —"in whom we hare our redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace "; Heb. 11 : 4. 7 — " By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he had
witness borne to him that he was righteous By faith Noah .. . moved with godly fear, prepared an ark ....
became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith "; cf. Gen. 15 : 6 —" And he believed in the Lord; and he counted it to him for righteousness "; Is. 7 : 9—" If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established "; 28 :16 —"he that believeth shall not make haste"; Hab. 2 : 4 —"the just shall live by his faith."
B. Scripture use of the special words translated "justify " and " justification " in the Septuagint and in the New Testament.
(a) 6tKai6u — uniformly, or with only a single exception, signifies not tomake righteous, but to declare just, or free from guilt and exposure to punishment. The only O. T. passage where this meaning is questionable is Dan. 12 : 3. But even here the proper translation is, in all probability, not 'they that turn many to righteousness,' but 'they that justify many,' i. e., cause many to be justified. For the Hiphil force of the verb, see Girdlestone, O. T. Syn., 257, 258, and Delitzsch on Is. 53 : 11; cf. James 5: 19, 20.
O. T. texts: fa. 23 : 7—" I will not justify the wicked "; Deut. 25 :1 —" they [the judges] «h«il justify the righteous, end condemn the wicked "; Job 27 : 5—" God forbid that I should justify jou "; Ps. 143 : 2 —" in thy tight shall no man living be justified "; Pruv. 17 :15 —" le that justifieth the wicked and he that oondemneth the righteous. Both of them alike are an abomination to the lord "; Is. 5 : 23 —" which justify the wicked for a reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him "; 50:8—" He is near that justifieth me"; 53 : It — "by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities "; Dan. 12 : 3 —" and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars for ever and ever" (' they that justify many,' (. e,, cause many to be justified); cf. James 5 :19, 20 —" My brethren, if any among you do err from the truth, and one convert him; let him know, that he which oonverteth a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall cover a multitude of sins."
In Bom. 6:7 — <S yap amtiavuv iedmaiuTai arrb rfc d/iap-iac —' he that once died with Christ was acquitted from the service of sin considered as a penalty.' In 1 Cor. 4 : 4 — ovdev yap f/iatroj a'vwtda. aXV Ovk hi Tovtu itiiKa'tufittt = ' I am conscious of no fault, but that does not in itself make certain God's acquittal as respects this particular charge.' The usage of the epistle of James does not contradict this; the doctrine of James is that we are justified only by such faith as brings forth good works. "He uses the word exclusively in a judicial sense; he combats a mistaken view of iriaric, not a mistaken view of Smai6u"; see James 2:21, 23, 24, and Cremer, N. T. Lexicon, Eng. trans., 182, 183. The only N. T. passage where this meaning is questionable is Bev. 22 : 11; but here Alford, with x, A, and B, reads SiKaioaivr/v irotr/oaTu.
N. T. texts: Mat 12: 37—"For by thy words thou shall be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned "; Luke 7 : 29 —" and all the people ... justified God, being baptised with the baptism of John "; 10 : 29 — "But he, desiring to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbor?" 16 :15 —" Ye are they that justify yourselves in the sight of men; but God knoweth your hearts "; 18 :14 —" This man went down to his house justified rather than the other "; cf. 13 (lit.)— "God be propitiated toward me the sinner"; Rom. 4 : 6-8—"Even as David also pronounceth blessing upon the man, unto whom God reckoneth righteousness apart from works, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the lord will not reckon sin "; cf. Ps. 32 :1, 2—" Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile."
Bom. 5 :18,19—"So then as through one trespass the judgment came unto all men to condemnation; even so through one act of righteousness the free gift came unto all men to justification of life. For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one shell the many be made righteous "; 8 : 33, 34—" Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth; who is he that oondemneth?" 2 Cor. 5 :19, 21 —" God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not reckoning unto them their trespasses.... him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God [God's justified persons] in him"; Rom. 6, 7—"he that hath died is justified from sin": 1 Cor. 4 : 4—"For I know nothing against myself; yet am I not hereby justified: but he that judgeth me is the lord."
James 2 : 21, 23, 24—"Was not Abraham our father justified by works, in that he offered up Isaac his son upon the altar? .... Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him for righteousness.... Ye see that by works & man is justified, and not only by faith." James is denouncing- a dead faith, while Paul is speaking of the necessity of a living faith; or, rather, James is describing the nature of faith, while Paul is describing the Instrument of justification. "They are like two men beset by a couple of robbers. Back to back, each strikes out against the robber opposite him — each having a different enemy in his eye" (Wm. M. Taylor). Neander on James 2:14-28 —"James is denouncing mere adhesion to an external law, trust In intellectual possession of it. With him, law means an inward principle of life. Paul, contrasting law as he does with faith, commonly means by law mere external divine requisition.... James does not deny salvation to him who has faith, but only to him who falsely professes to have. When he says that' by works a man is justified,' he takes into account the outward manifestation only, speaks from the point of view of human consciousness. In works only does faith show itself as genuine and complete." Rev. 22:11 —" he that is righteous. 1st him do righteousness still — not, as the A. V. seemed to imply, "he that is just, let him be justified still"—i. c, made subjectively holy.
(6) Sutataais — is the act, in process, of declaring a man just,— that is,
acquitted from guilt and restored to the divine favor (Bom. 4 : 25; 5 : 18).
Rom. 4: 25—" who was delivered up for oar trespasses, aid wai raised for oar justification "; 5 :18—"aato all men to justification of life."
(c) iumiufia — is the act, as already accomplished, of declaring a man just,— that is, no longer exposed to penalty, but restored to God's favor (Bom. 5 : 16, 18; cf. 1 Tim. 3 : 16). Hence, in other connections, Smaiufia has the meaning of statute, legal decision, act of justice (Luke 1:6; Bom. 2 : 26; Heb. 9:1).
Rom. 5 116,18 —"of many trespasses unto justifieation through one act of righteousness "; cf. 1 Tim. 3:
16—"justified in the spirit." The distinction between iutuwif and ii«aioi(ia may be illustrated by the distinction between poesy and poem — the former denoting something in process, an ever-working spirit; the latter denoting something fully accomplished, a completed work. Hence fiiicauuMa is used In Like 1:6 —" ordinances of the Lord "; Rom. 2 : 26 —" ordinances of the law "; Heb. 9:1 —" ordinances of divine service."
(d) iiKavoaimri — is the state of one justified, or declared just. Bom. 8: 10; 1 Cor. 1 : 30. In Bom. 10 : 3, Paul inveighs against rt/v iSiav SiKaioavvnv as insufficient and false, and in its place would put rijv roi> Seov t'timioovvtiv — that is, a finaioovvri which God not only requires, but provides; which is not only acceptable to God, but proceeds from God, and is appropriated by faith,— hence called cimioovvr/ icioTeuc or is. mcn-ewc. "The primary signification of the word, in Paul's writings, is therefore that state of the believer which is called forth by God's act of acquittal — the state of the believer as justified," that is, freed from punishment and restored to the divine favor.
Rom. 8 :10—"the Spirit is life because of righteousness"; 1 Cor. 1: 30 — "Christ Jesus, who was made into is .... righteousness "; Rom. 10 : 3 —" being ignorant of God's righteousness, and seeking to establish their own, thej did not subject themselves to the righteoosnes of God." See, on Si«aioo-vnj, Cremer, N. T. Lexicon, Eng. trans., 174; Meyer on Romans, trans., 68-70 —"<i«uoo-«rr| tfeoO (gen. of origin, emanation from) = Tightness which proceeds from God — the relation of being right Into which man is put by God (by an act of God declaring him righteous)."
Since this state of acquittal is accompanied by changes in the character and conduct, Simioovvii comes to mean, secondarily, the moral condition of the believer as resulting from this acquittal and inseparably connected with it (Bom. 14:17; 2 Cor. 5 : 21). This righteousness arising from justification becomes a principle of action ( Mat. 3 : 15; Acts 10 : 35; Bom. 6:13, 18). The term, however, never loses its implication of a justifying act upon which this principle of action is based.
Rom. 14 :17 —" the kingdom of God is not eating aid drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost"; 2 Cor. 5 : 21— "that we might become the righteousness of God in him "; Mat 3 :15—"Suffer it now: for thus it beoometh us to fulfil all righteousness "; acts 10 : 35 —" in every nation he that feareth him, aid worketh righteousness, is acceptable to him "; Rom. 6 :13 —" present yourselves unto God, as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God." Meyer on Rom. 3 : 23—" Every mode of conception which refers redemption and the forgiveness of sins, not to a real atonement through the death of Christ, but subjectively to the dying and reviving with him guaranteed and produced by that death (8chleiermacher, Nitzsch, Hofmann), Is opposed to the N. T.— a mixing up of Justification and sanctiflcation."
On these Scripture terms, see Bp. of Ossory, Nature and Effects of Faith, 436-498; I<ange, Com., on Romans 3:24; Buchanan on Justification, 228-249. Per contra, see Knox, Remains; Newman, Lectures on Justification, 68-143; N. W. Taylor, Revealed Theology, 310-372.
It is worthy of special observation that, in the passages cited above, the terms "justify " and "justification " are contrasted, not with the process of depraving or corrupting, but with the outward act of condemning; and that the expressions used to explain and illustrate them are all derived, not from the inward operation of purifying the soul or infusing into it righteousness, but from the procedure of courts in their judgments, or of offended persons in their forgiveness of offenders. We conclude that these terms, wherever they have reference to the sinner's relation to God, signify a declarative and judicial act of God, external to the sinner, and not an efficient and sovereign act of God changing the sinner's nature and making him subjectively righteous.
3. Elements of Jxistiftcation. These are two:
A. Remission of punishment.
(a) God acquits the ungodly who believe in Christ, and declares them just. This is not to declare them innocent — that would be a judgment contrary to truth. It declares that the demands of the law have been satisfied with regard to them, and that they are now free from its condemnation.
Rom. 4 : 5 —" Bat to aim that worketh Dot, but behevetb on htm that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is reckoned for righteousness.''
(6) This acquittal, in so far as it is the act of God as judge or executive, administering law, may be denominated pardon. In so far as it is the act of God as a father personally injured and grieved by sin, yet showing grace to the sinner, it is denominated forgiveness.
Mieah 7 :18 —" Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity. and peeseth by the transgression of the remnant of bis heritage?" Ps. 130 : 4 —" But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.''
(c) In an earthly tribunal, there is no acquittal for those who are proved to be transgressors — for Buch there is only conviction and punishment. But in God's government there is remission of punishment for believers, even though they are confessedly offenders; and, in justification, God declares this remission.
There is no forgiveness in nature. F. W. Robertson preached this. But he ignored the via meilicatrix of the gospel, in which forgiveness Is offered to all. The natural conscience says: "I must pay my debt." But the believer finds that "Jesus paid it all." Illustrate by the poor man, who on coming to pay his mortgage finds that the owner at death had ordered it to be burned, so that now there Is nothing to pay.
(d) The declaration that the sinner is no longer exposed to the penalty of law, has its ground, not in any satisfaction of the law's demand on the part of the sinner himself, but solely in the bearing of the penalty by Christ, to whom the sinner is united by faith. Justification, in its first element, is therefore that act by which God, for the sake of Christ, acquits the transgressor and suffers him to go free.
Acts 13 : 38, 39 — "Bo it known unto yon therefore, brethren, that through this man is proclaimed unto you remission of sins: and by him [ lit.: 'in him1 ] every one that believeth is justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses "; Rom, 3 : 24, 26 —" being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus .... that he might himself be just, and the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus "; 1 Cor. 6 :11 —" but ye were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus'1; Eph. 1 : 7 —" in whom we hare our redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace."
This acquittal is not to be conceived of as the sovereign act of a Governor, but rather as a judicial procedure. Christ secures a new trial for those already condemned — a trial in which he appears for the guilty, and sets over against their sin his own righteousness, or rather shows them to be righteous In him. C. H. M.: "When Balak seeks to curse the soed of Abraham, It is said of Jehovah: 'He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath sun perverseness in Israel' (Hum. 23 : 21). When Satan stands forth to rebuke Joshua, the word is: 'The Lord rebuke thee, 0 Satan .... Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire ?' (Zeeh. 3:2). Thus he ever puts himself between his people and every tongue that would accuse them. 'Touch not mine anointed ones, he says, 'and do my prophets no harm' (Ps. 105 :15). 'It is God that justilelh; who is he that condemneth?' (Rom. 8: 34)." It is not sin, then, that condemns — it is the failure to ask pardon for sin, through Christ. Illustrate by the ring presented by Queen Elisabeth to the Earl of Essex.
B. Restoration to favor.
(o) Justification is more than remission or acquittal. These would leave the sinner simply in the position of a discharged criminal; law requires a positive righteousness also. Besides deliverance from punishment, justification implies God's treatment of the sinner as if he were, and had been, personally righteous. The justified person receives not only remission of penalty, but the rewards promised to obedience.
Luke 15 : 22-24 —" Bring forth quickly the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: and bring the fatted calf, and kill it, and let us eat. and make merry: for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost and is found"; Rom. 5 :1, 2—"Being therefore justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ; through whom also we have had our access by faith into this grace wherein we stand; and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God"—"this grace" being a permanent state of divine favor; 1 Cor. 1: 29, 30—" But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification. and redemption: that according as it is written. He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord "; 2 Cor. 5 : 21 —" that we might become the righteousness of God in him."
6*1.3:6—" Even as Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him for righteousness"; Spn. 2:7—"the exceeding riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus "; 3 :12 —" in whom we have boldness and access in confidence through our faith in him "; Phil. 3 : 8, 9 —" I count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord .... the righteousness which is from God by faith "; Col. 1: 22 —" reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and without blemish and unreprovable before him "; Tit 3 : 4, 7—"the kindness of God our Savior .... that being justified by his grace, we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life "; Rev. 19 : 8—" And it was given unto her that she should array herself in fine linen, bright and pure: for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints."
/ (6) This restoration to favor, viewed in its aspect as the renewal of a broken friendship, is denominated reconciliation; viewed in its aspect as a renewal of the soul's true relation to God as a father, it is denominated adoption.
John 1:12—" But as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name "; Rom. 5 : 11 "and not only so, but wo also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation "; Gal. 4:5 —" born under the law, that he might redeem them which were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sous "; Eph. 1:5—" having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto himself"; cf. Rom. 8:23 —"even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for our adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body "— that is, this adoption is completed, so far as the body la concerned, at the resurrection.
• (<•) la an earthly pardon, tbere are no special helps bestowed upon the pardoned. There are no penalties, but there are also no rewards; law cannot claim anything of the discharged, but then they also can claim nothing of the law. But what, though greatly needed, is left unprovided by human government, God does provide. In justification, there is not only acquittal, but approval; not only pardon, but promotion. Remission is never separated from restoration.
After serving a term in the penitentiary, the convict goes out with a stigma upon him and with no friends. His past conviction and disgrace follow him. He cannot obtain employment. He cannot vote. Want often leads him to commit crime again; and then the old conviction is brought up as proof of bad character, and increases his punishment. Need of Friendly Inns and Refuges for discharged criminals. But the justified sinner is differently treated. He is not only delivered from God's wrath and eternal death, but he is admitted to God's favor and eternal life. The discovery of this is partly the cause of the convert's joy. Expecting pardon, at most, he is met with unmeasured favor. The prodigal finds the father's house and heart open to him, and more done for him than if he had never wandered. This overwhelms and subdues him. The two elements, acquittal and restoration to favor, are never separated. Like the expulsion of darkness and restoration of light, they always go together. No one can have, even if he would have, an incomplete Justification.
(d) The declaration that the sinner is restored to God's favor, has its ground, not in the sinner's personal character or conduct, but solely in the obedience and righteousness of Christ, to whom the sinner is united by faith. Thus Christ's work is the procuring cause of our justification, in both its elements. As we are acquitted on account of Christ's suffering of the penalty of the law, so on account of Christ's obedience we receive the rewards of law.
All this comes to us in Christ. We participate in the rewards promised to his obedience: John 20 : 31 —" that belieTing ye may hare lift in his name "; i Cor. 3 : 21-23 — " For all things are yonrs; .... all are yours: and ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's." Denovan, Toronto Baptist, Dec, 1883, maintains that " grace operates in two ways: (1) for the rebel it provides a scheme of Jiwtiflcniion — this is judicial, matter of debt; (2) for the child it provides pardon — fatherly forgiveness on repentance." But see:
H. B. Smith, System of Christian Doctrine, 523, 524—"Justification and pardon are not the same in Scripture. We object to the view of Emmons (Works, vol. 5), that' justification is no more nor less than pardon,' and that 'God rewards men for their own, and not Christ's, obedience,' for the reason that the words, as used in common life, relate to wholly different things. If a man Is declared just by a human tribunal, he is not pardoned, he is acquitted; his own inherent righteousness, as respects the charge against him, is recognized and declared. The gospel proclaims both pardon and justification. There is no significance in the use of the word 'justify,' if pardon be all that is Intended... .
"Justification involves what pardon does not, a righteousness which is the ground of the acquittal and favor; not the mere favor of the sovereign, but the merit of Christ, is at the basis — the righteousness which is of God. The ends of the law are so far satisfied by what Christ has done, that the sinner can be pardoned. The law is not merely set aside, but its great ends are answered by what Christ has done in our behalf. God might pardon as a sovereign, from mere benevolence (as regard to happiness); but in the gospel he does more —he pardons in consistency with his holiness —upholding that as the main end of all his dealings and works. Justification involves acquittal from all the penalty of the law, and the inheritance of all the blessings of the redeemed state. The penalty of the law — spiritual, temporal, eternal death — is all taken away; and the opposite blessings are conferred, in and through Christ—the resurrection to blessedness, the gift of the Spirit, and eternal life
"If justification is forgiveness simply, It applies only to the pant. If it is also a title to life. It includes the future condition of the soul. The latter alone is consistent with the plan and decrees of God respecting redemption —his seeing the end from the beginning. The reason why justification has been taken as pardon is two fold: first, it does involye pardon — this is its negative side, while it has a positive side also — the title to eternal life; secondly, the tendency to resolve the gospel Into an ethical system. Only our acts of choice as meritorious could procure a title to favor, a positive reward. Christ might remove the obstacle, but the title to heaven is derived only from what we ourselves do.
"Justification is, therefore, not a merely governmental provision, as it must be on any scheme that denies that Christ's work has direct respect to the ends of the law. Views of the atonement determine the views on justification, if logical sequence is observed. We have to do here, not with views of natural Justice, but with divine methods. If we regard the atonement simply as answering the ends of a governmental scheme, our view must be that justification merely removes an obstacle, and the end of it is only pardon, and not eternal life."
But upon the true view, that the atonement is a complete satisfaction to the holiness of God, Justification embraces not merely pardon, or acquittal from the punishments of law, but also restoration of favor, or the rewards promised to actual obedience. See also Quenstedt, 3: 524; Phllippi, Active Obedience of Christ.
4. Relation of Justification to God's Law and Holiness.
A. Justification has been shown to be a forensic term. A man may, indeed, be conceived of as just, in either of two senses: (a) as just in moral character — that is, absolutely holy in nature, disposition, and conduct; (6) as j'ust in relation to law—or as free from all obligation to suffer penalty, and as entitled to the rewards of obedience.
So, too, a man may be conceived of as justified, in either of two senses: (a) made just in moral character; or, (6) made just in his relation to law. But the Scriptures declare that there does not exist on earth a just man, in the first of these senses (Eccl. 7 : 20). Even in those who are renewed in moral character and united to Christ, there is a remnant of moral depravity.
If, therefore, there be any such thing as a just man, he must be just, not in the sense of possessing an unspotted holiness, but in the sense of being delivered from the penalty of law, and made partaker of its rewards. If there be any such thing as justification, it must be, not an act of God which renders the sinner absolutely holy, but an act of God which declares the sinner to be free from legal penalties and entitled to legal rewards.
Justus is derived from Jus, and suggests the idea of courts and legal procedures. The fact that 'Justify' is derived from jtuttw and facio, and might therefore seem to imply the making of a man subjectively righteous, should not blind us to its forensic use. The phrases "sanctify the My One of Jacob" (Is. 29 : 23; cf. 1 Pet 3 :15 —" sanctify in your hearts Christ as Lord" ) and "glorify God" (1 Cor. 6:20) do not mean, to make God subjectively holy or glorious, for this he ts, whatever we may do: they mean rather, to declare, or shoto, him to be holy or glorious. So Justification is not making a man righteous, or even pronouncing him righteous, for no man is subjectively righteous. It is rather to count him righteous so far as respects his relations to law, to treat him as righteous, or to declare that God will, for reasons assigned, so treat him (Payne). So long as any remnant of sin exists, no Justification, in the sense of making holy, can be attributed to man: Eccl. 7:20— "Sorely then is not a righteous man upon earth, that doeth good and sinneth not" If no man is just, in this sense, then God cannot pronounce him just, for God cannot He. Justification, therefore, must signify a deliverance from legal penalties, and an assignment of legal rewards.
B. The difficult feature of justification is the declaration, on the part of God, that a sinner whose remaining sinfulness seems to necessitate the vindicative reaction of God's holiness against him, is yet free from such reaction of holiuess as is expi'essed in the penalties of the law.
The fact is to be accepted on the testimony of Scripture. If this testimony be not accepted, there is no deliverance from the condemnation of law. But the difficulty of conceiving of God's declaring the sinner no longer exposed to legal penalty is relieved, if not removed, by the threefold consideration:
(a) That Christ has endured the penalties of the law in the sinner's stead. Gal. 3 :13 —" Christ redeemed as from the cane of the lew, oaring become a cone for as." Denovan: "We are justified by faith, instrumentally, in the same sense as a debt Is paid by a (rood note or a check on a substantial account in a distant bank. It is only the intelligent and honest acoeptanoe of Justification already provided."
(6) That the sinner is so united to Christ, that Christ's life already constitutes the dominating principle within him.
Gal. 2:20- "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that lire, bat Christ liyeth in me." Ood does not Justify any man whom he does not foresee that he can and will sanctify. Some prophecies produce their own fulfilment. Tell a man he is brave, and you help him to become so. So declaratory justification, when published in the heart by the Holy Spirit, helps to make men Just.
(c) That this life of Christ is a power in the soul which will gradually, but infallibly, extirpate all remaining depravity, until the whole physical and moral nature is perfectly conformed to the divine holiness.
Phil. 3 : 21 —" who shall fashion anew the body of oar humiliation, that it maj be conformed to the body of his glory, according to the working whereby he is able eren to subject all things unto himself"; Col. 3 : 1-4—"If then ye were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are upon the earth. For ye died, and your life is hid with. Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall be manifested, then shall ye also with him be manifested in glory."
Truth of fact, and Ideal truth, are not opposed to each other. F. W. Robertson, Lectures and Addresses, 356—" When the agriculturalist sees a small, white, almond-like thing rising from the ground, he calls that an oak; but this is not a truth of fact. It Is an ideal truth. The oak Is a large tree, with spreading branches and leaves and acorns; but that is only a thing an inch long, and Imperceptible in all Its development; yet the agriculturalist sees in It the Idea of what it shall be, and. If I may borrow a Scriptural phrase, he impute* to it the majesty, and excellence, and glory, that is to be hereafter." This method of representation Is effective and unobjectionable, so long as we remember that the force which is to bring about this future development and perfection is not the force of unassisted human nature, but rather the force of Christ and his indwelling Spirit. See Philippi, Glaubenslehre, v. 1: 201-208.
5. Relation of Justification to Union with Christ and the Work of the Spirit.
A. Since the sinner, at the moment of justification, is not yet completely transformed in character, we have seen that God can declare him just, not on account of what he is in himself, but only on account of what Christ is. The ground of justification is therefore not, (a) as the Romanists hold, a new righteousness and love infused into us, and now constituting our moral character; nor, (6) as Osiander taught, the essential righteousness of Christ's divine nature, which has become ours by faith; but (c) the satisfaction and obedience of Christ, as the head of a new humanity, and as embracing in himself all believers as his members.
As Adam's sin is imputed to us, not because Adam is in us, but because we were in Adam; so Christ's righteousness is imputed to us, not because Christ is in us, but because we are in Christ — that is, joined by faith to one whose righteousness and life are infinitely greater than our power to appropriate or contain. In this sense, we may say that we are justified through a Christ outside of us, as we are sanctified through a Christ within us. Edwards: "The justification of the believer is no other than his being admitted to communion in, or participation of, this head and surety of all believers."
1 Tim. 1 :14—"faith and love which is in Christ Jesus"; 3 :16 - "He who was manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit"; Acts 13 : 39— "and by him [lit.: 'in him'] every one that believeih is justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Hoses "; Rom. 4 : 25 —" who was delivered up for our trespasses, and was raised for our justification."
Here we have the third Instance of imputation. The first was the imputation of Adam's sin to us; and the second was the imputation of our sins to Christ. The third is now the imputation of Christ's righteousness to us. In each of the former cases, we have sought to show that the legal relation presupposes a natural relation. Adam's sin is imputed to us, because we are one with Adam; our sins are imputed to Christ, because Christ is one with humanity. So here, we must hold that Christ's righteousness is Imputed to us. because we are one with Christ. Justification Is not an arbitrary transfer to us of the merits of another with whom we have no real connection. This would make it merely a legal fiction; and there are no legal fictions in the divine government.
Instead of this external and mechanical method of conception, we should first set before us the fact of Christ's justification, after he had borne our sins and risen from the dead. In him, humanity, for the first time, Is acquitted from punishment and restored to the divine favor. But Christ's new humanity is the germinal source of spiritual life for the race. He was justified, not simply as a private person, but as our representative and head. By becoming partakers of the new life in him, we share in all he is and all he has done; and, first of all, we share In his justification. So Luther gives us, for substance, the formula: "We in Christ = justification; Christ in us = sanctilication." And in harmony with this formula Is the statement quoted in the text above from Edwards, Works, 4 :66.
See also H. B. Smith, in Presb. Rev., July, 1881—" Union with Adam and with Christ Is the ground of Imputation. But the parallelism is incomplete. While the sin of Adam is imputed to us because It is ours, the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us simply because of our union with him, not at all because of our personal righteousness. In the one case, character is taken into the account; in the other, It Is not. In sin, our demerits arc Included; in justification, our merits are excluded." For further statements of Dr. Smith, see his System of Christian Theology, 524-652.
C. H. M. on Genesis, page 78—"The question for every believer is not 'What am I? * but 'What Is Christ?' Of Abel it Is said: 'God testified of his gifts' (Heb. 11: 4, A. V.). So God testifies, not of the believer, but of his gift—and his gift is Christ. Yet Cain was angry because he was not received in his sin*, while Abel was accepted in his gift. This was right, if Abel was justified in himself; it was wrong, because Abel was Justified only in Christ." See also Hodge, Outlines of Theology, 384-388,392; Baird, Elohlm Revealed, 448.
B. The relation of justification to regeneration and sanctincation, moreover, delivers it from the charges of externality and immorality. God does not justify ungodly men in their ungodliness. He pronounces them just only as they are united to Christ, who is absolutely just, and who, by his Spirit, can make them just, not only in the eye of the law, but in moral character. The very faith by which the sinner receives Christ is an act in which he ratines all that Christ has done, and accepts God's judgment against sin as his own (John 16 : 11).
Justification is possible, therefore, because it is always accompanied by regeneration and union with Christ, and is followed by sanctilication. But this is a very different thing from the Romanist confounding of justification and sanctincation, as different stages of the same process of making the sinner actually holy. It holds fast to the Scripture distinction between justification as a declarative act of God, and regeneration and sanctincation as those efficient acts of God by which justification is accompanied and followed.
John 16 :11 —"of judgment, because the prince of this world hath been juds^d"—the Holy Spirit leads the believer to ratify God's Judgment against sin and Satan. Accepting Christ, the believer accepts Christ's death for sin, and resurrection to life, for his own. If it were otherwise, the first act of the believer, after his discharge, might be a repetition of his offences. Such a justification would offend against the fundamental principles of justice and the safety of government. It would also fall to satisfy the conscience. This clamors not only for pardon, but for renewal. Union with Christ has one legal fruit — Justification; but it has also one moral fruit —sanctlflcatlon.
Both history and our personal observation show that nothing can change the life and make men moral, like the gospel of free pardon in Jesus Christ. Mere preaching of morality will effect nothing of consequence. There never has been more insistence upon morality than In the most immoral times, like those of Seneca, and of the English deists. As to their moral fruits, we can safely compare Protestant with Roman Catholic systems and leaders and countries. The prodigal son is forgiven before he actually confesses and amends (Luke 15: 20, 21). Justification is always accompanied by regeneration, and is followed by sanctlflcatlon; and all three are results of the death of Christ.
Hence we read in Eph. 5 : 25, 26—"Christ also lored the church, and gave himself up for it; that he might sanctify it, having cleansed [— after he had cleansed] it by the washing of wator with the word" [= regeneration ]; 1 Pet 1:1, 2—"elect.... according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctincation of the Spirit [ regeneration ], onto obedience [ conversion ] and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ [ Justification ] ": 1 John 1: 7— "If we walk in the light, at he is in the light, we hare fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son deanssth tis from all sin "— here the 'cleansing' refers primarily and mainly to justification, not to sanctlflcatlon; for the apostle himself declares In verse 8 —" If we saj that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us,"
Quenstcdt says well, that "Justification, since It is an act, outside of man, In God, cannot produce an Intrinsic change in us." And yet, he says, "although faith alone justifies, yet faith Is not alone." Melancthon: "Sola fides justiflcat; sed fides non est sola." With faith go all manner of gifts of the Spirit and internal graces of character. But we should let go all the doctrinal gains of the Reformation If wc did not Insist that these gifts and graces are accompaniments and consequences of justification, instead of being a part or a ground of Justification. See Glrdlestone, O. T. Synonyms, 104, note. "Justification Is God's declaration that the Individual sinner, on account of the faith which unites him to Christ, is taken up Into the relation which Christ holds to the Father, and has applied to hlm personally the objective work accomplished for humanity by Christ."
6. Relation of Justification to Faith.
A. We are justified by faith, rather than by love or by any other grace: (a) not because faith is itself a work of obedience by which we merit justification,— for this would be a doctrine of justification by works; (b) nor because faith is accepted as an equivalent of obedience,— for there is no equivalent except the perfect obedience of Christ; (c) nor because faith is the germ from which obedience may spring hereafter,— for it is not the faith which accepts, but the Christ who is accepted, that renders such obedience possible; but (d) because faith, and not repentance, or love, or hope, is the medium or instrument by which we receive Christ and are united to him. Hence we are never said to be justified Ad iriariv — on account of faith, but only Ad irforeuc, = through faith, or etc ir!areu(, = by faith. Or, to express the same truth in other words, while the grace of God is the efficient cause of justification, and the obedience and sufferings of Christ are the meritorious or procuring cause, faith is the mediate or instrumental cause.
Edwards, Works, 4 : 69-73—" Faith justifies, because faith Includes the whole act of unltlon to Christ as a Savior. It Is not the nature of any other graces or virtues directly to close with Christ as a mediator, any further than they enter into the constitution of justifying faith, and do belong to Its nature:" Observations on Trinity, 84-67—"Salvation is not offered to us upon any condition, but freely, and for nothing. We are to do nothing for It —we are only to take It. This taking and receiving is faith." H. B. Smith, System, 624— "An Internal change is a sine qua non of justification, but not its meritorious ground." Give a man a gold mine. It is Ms. He has not to work for it: he has only to work it. The marriage of a poor girl to a wealthy proprietor makes her possessor of his riches, despite her former poverty. Yet her acceptance has not purchased wealth. It is hers, not because of what she is or has done, but because of what her husband is and has done. So faith is the condition of justification, only because through It Christ becomes ours, and with him his atonement and righteousness. Salvation comes not because our faith saves us, but because it links us to the Christ who saves; and believing is only the link. There is no more merit in it than in the beggar's stretching forth his hand to receive the offered purse, or the drowning man's grasping the rope that Is thrown to him.
The Wesleyan scheme Is inclined to make faith a work. See Dabney, Theology, 637. This is to make faith the cause and ground, or at least to add it to Christ's work as a joint cause and ground, of justification; as if justification were 4i£ wianv, instead of Sii iruTTtuc or i* witmat. Since faith is never perfect, this is to go back to the Roman Catholic uncertainty of salvation. See Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2 : 744, 745 (Syst. Doct., 4 :208, 207). C. H. M. on Gen. 3 : 7—"They made themselves aprons of fig-leaves, before God made them coats of skins. Man ever tries to clothe himself In garments of his own righteousness, before he will take the robe of Christ's. But Adam felt himself naked when God visited him, even though he had his fig-leaves on him."
B. Since the ground of justification is only Christ, to whom we are united by faith, the justified person has peace. If it were anything in ourselves, our peace must needs be proportioned to our holiness. The practical effect of the Romanist mingling of works with faith, as a joint ground of justification, is to render all assurance of salvation impossible. (Council of Trent, 9th chap. : "Every man, by reason of his own weakness and defects, must be in fear and anxiety about his state of grace. Nor can any one know, with infallible certainty of faith, that he has received forgiveness of ■God.") But since justification is an instantaneous act of God, complete at the moment of the sinner's first believing, it has no degrees. Weak faith justifies as perfectly as strong faith; although, since justification is a secret act of God, weak faith does not give so strong assurance of salvation.
Foundations of our Faith, 216— "The Catholic doctrine declares that justification Is not dependent upon faith and the righteousness of Christ imputed and granted thereto, but on the actual condition of the man himself. But there remain in the man an undeniable amount of fleshly lusts or inclinations to sin, even though the man be regenerate. The Catholic doctrine Is therefore constrained to assert that these lusts are not in themselves sinful, or objects of the divine displeasure. They are allowed to remain in the man, that he may struggle against them; and, as they say, Paul designates them as sinful, only because they are derived from sin, and incite to sin; but they only become sin by the positive concurrence of the human will. But is not internal lust displeasing to God? Can we draw the line between lust and will? The Catholic favors self here, and makes many things hut, which are really will. A Protestant is necessarily more earnest in the work of salvation, when he recognizes even the evil desire as sin, according to Christ's precept."
All systems of religion of merely human origin tend to make salvation, in larger or smaller degree, the effect of human works, but only with the result of leaving man in despair. See, in Eccleslastlcus 2:30, an Apocryphal declaration that alms make atonement for sin. So Romanism bids me doubt God's grace and the forgiveness of sins. See Dorner, Gesch. Prot. Theol., 228, 229, and his quotations from Luther. "But if the Romanist doctrine is true, that a man is justified only in such measure as he is sanctified, then: 1. Justification must be a matter of degrees, and so the Council of Trent declares it to be. The sacraments which sanctify are therefore essential, that one may be increasingly justified. 2. Since Justification is a continuous process, the redeeming death of Christ, on which it depends, must be a continuous process also; hence its prolonged reiteration in the sacrifice by the mass. 3. Since sanctlflcatlon is obviously never completed in this life, no man ever dies completely Justified; hence the doctrine of purgatory." For the substance of the Romanist doctrine, see Moehler, Symbolism, 70-100; Newman, Lectures on Justification, 263-345; Hitachi, Christian Doctrine of Justification, 121-226.
A better doctrine is that of the Puritan divine: "It is not the quantity of thy faith that shall save thee. A drop of water is as true water as the whole ocean. So a little faith is as true faith as the greatest. It is not the measure of thy faith that saves thee — it is the blood that it grips to that saves thee. The weak hand of the child, that leads the spoon to the mouth, will feed as well as the strong arm of a man: for it is not the hand that feeds, but the meat. So, if thou canst grip Christ ever so weakly, he will not let thee perish."
A child may be heir to a vast estate, even while he does not know it; and a child of God may be an heir of glory, even while, through the weakness of his faith, he is oppressed with painful doubts and fears. No man is lost simply because of the greatness of his sins; however ill-deserving he may be, faith in Christ will save him. Luther's climbing the steps of St. John Lateran, and the voice of thunder: "The Just shall live by faith," are not certain as historical facts; but they express the substance of Luther's experience. Not obeying, but receiving, is the substance of the gospel. A man cannot merit salvation ; he cannot buy it; but one thing he must do —he must take it. And the least faith makes salvation ours, because it makes Christ ours. See Foundations of our Faith, 216.
0. Justification is instantaneous, complete, and final: instantaneous, since otherwise there would be an interval during which the soul was neither approved nor condemned by God (Mat. 6 : 24); complete, since the soul, united to Christ by faith, becomes partaker of his complete satisfaction to the demands of law ( Col. 2 : 9, 10); and final, since this union with Christ is indissoluble (John 10 : 28-30). As there are many acts of sin in the life of the Christian, so there are many acts of pardon following them. But all these acts of pardon are virtually implied in that first act by which he was finally and forever justified; as also successive acts of repentance and faith, after such sins, are virtually implied in that first repentance and faith which logically preceded justification.
Hit 6 : 24 —" So ill can serve two misters "; Col. 2 : 9. 10 —" in him dwelleth ill the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and in him ye are made full, who is the head of all principality and power "; John 10 : 28-30 —" they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand. My Father, which hath given them onto me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them oat of the Father's hand,"
Plymouth Hrethen say truly that the Christian has sin in him, but not on him, because Christ had sin on him, but not in him. All our sins are buried ill the grove with Christ, and Christ's resurrection is our resurrection. Toplady: "From whence this fear and unbelief? Hast thou, O Father, put to grief Thy spotless Son for me? And will the righteous Judge of men Condemn me for that debt of sin, Which, Lord, was laid on thee? If thou hast my discharge procured. And freely in my room endured The whole of wrath divine, Payment God cannot twice demand, First at my bleeding Surety's hand. And then again at mine. Complete atonement thou hast made, And to the utmost farthing paid Whate'er thy people owed; How then can wrath on me take place, If sheltered in thy righteousness And sprinkled with thy blood? Turn, then, my soul, unto thy rest; The merits of thy great High-priest Speak peace and liberty: Trust in his efficacious blood, Nor fear thy banishment from God, Since Jesus died for thee I"
Justification, however, is not eternal in the past. We are to repent unto the remission of our sins (acts 2 : 38). Remission comes after repentance. Sin is not pardoned before it is committed. In justification God grants us actual pardon for past sin, but virtual pardon for future sin. Edwards, Works, 4 : 104—" Future sins are respected, in that first justification, no otherwise than as future faith and repentance are respected in it; and future faith and repentance are looked upon by him that Justifies as virtually implied in that first repentance and faith, in the same manner that justification from future sins is implied in that first Justification."
7. Advice to Inquirers demanded by a Scriptural View of Justification.
(a) Where conviction of sin is yet lacking, our aim should be to show the sinner that he is under God's condemnation for his past sins, and that no future obedience can ever secure his justification, since this obedience, even though perfect, could not atone for f^ie past, and even if it could, he is unable, without Good's help, to render it.
With the help of the Holy Spirit, conviction of sin may be roused by presentation of the claima of God's perfect law, and by drawing attention, first to particular overt transgressions, and then to the manifold omissions of duty, the general lack of supreme and all-pervading love to God, and the guilty rejection of Christ's offers and commands.
(6) Where conviction of sin already exists, our aim should be, not, in the first instance, to secure the performance of external religious duties, such as prayer, or Scripture-reading, or uniting with the church, but to induce the sinner, as his first and all-inclusive duty, to accept Christ as his only and sufficient sacrifice and Savior, and, committing himself and the matter of his salvation entirely to Christ's hands, to manifest this trust and submission by entering at once upon a life of obedience to Christ's commands.
A convicted sinner should be exhorted, not first to prayer and then to faith, but first to faith, and then to the Immediate expression of that faith In prayer and Christian activity. It should not be forgotten that the sinner never sins against so much light, and never is In so great danger, as when he Is convicted but not converted, when he is moved to turn but yet refuses to turn. No such sinner should be allowed to think that he has the right to do any other thing whatever before accepting Christ. This accepting Christ is not an outward act, but an inward act of mind and heart and will, although believing is naturally evidenced by immediate outward action. To teach tho sinner, however apparently well disposed, how to believe on Christ, is beyond the power of man. God is the only giver of faith. But Scripture instances of faith, and illustrations drawn from the child's taking the father at his word, and acting upon it, have often been used by the Holy Spirit as means of leading men themselves to put faith in Christ.
On the general subject of Justification, see Edwards, Works, 4 : 64-132: Buchanan on Justification, 250-411; Owen on Justification, in Works, vol. 5; Bp. of Ossory, Nature and Effects of Faith, 49-162; Hodge, Syst. Theol., 3 :114-212; Thomasius, Christ! Person und Werk, 3 :193-200; Herzog, Encyclopttdie, art.: Rechtfertigung.
SECTION III. — THE APPLICATION OF CHRIST'S REDEMPTION
IN ITS CONTINUATION.
Under this head we treat of Sanctification and of Perseverance. These two are but the divine and the human sides of the same fact, and they bear to each other a relation similar to that which exists between Regeneration and Conversion.
I. Sanottfioation.
1. Definition of Sanvtification.
Sanctification is that continuous operation of the Holy Spirit, by which the holy disposition imparted in regeneration is maintained and strengthened.
Godet: "The work of Jesus In the world is twofold. It is a work accomplished for ue, destined to effect reconciliation between God and man; It is a work accomplished i» u«, with the object of effecting our ganctification. By the one, a right relation is estabItshed between God and us; by the other, the fruit of the reestablished order Is secured. By the former, the condemned sinner is received Into the state of grace; by the latter, the pardoned sinner Is associated with the life of God .... How many express themselves as if, when forgiveness with the peaoe which it procures has been once obtained, all is finished and the work of salvation Is complete! They seem to have no suspicion that salvation consists In the health of the soul, and that the health of the soul consists In holiness. Forgiveness is not the ^establishment of health; it is the crisis of convalescence. If God thinks fit to declare the sinner righteous, it is in order that he may by that means restore him to holiness."
This definition implies:
(a) That, although in regeneration the governing disposition of the soul is made holy, there still remain tendencies to evil which are unsubdued.
John 13 :10 —" H» that is bathed needeth not save to wash his feet, bat is clean every whit [i. c, as a whole] "; Rom. 6 :12—"let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey the lusts thereof —sin direlte in a believer, but it reigns In an unbeliever (C. H. M.). Subordinate volitions In the Christian are not always determined In character by the fundamental choice; eddies in the stream sometimes run counter to the general course of the current.
(6) That the existence in the believer of these two opposing principles gives rise to a conflict which lasts through life.
Gal. 5 :17 —" For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are contrary the one to the other; that ye may not do the things that ye would Hot, as the A. V. had it, 'so that ye can not do the things that ye would': the Spirit who dwells In believers Is represented as enabling them successfully to resist those tendencies to evil which naturally exist within them; Jamea 4 : 5 (the marginal and better reading)—" That spirit which he made to dwell is as yearneth for us even unto jealous envy"— i. e., God's love, like all true love, longs to have its objects wholly for Its own. The Christian is two men In one; but he is to "put away the old man" and "put on the new man" ( Eph. 4 : 22. 23). Compare Eccleslastlcus 2 :1 —" My son, if thou dost set out to serve the Lord, prepare thy soul for temptation."
(c) That in this oonflict the Holy Spirit enables the Christian, through increasing faith, more fully and consciously to appropriate Christ, and thus progressively to make conquest of the remaining sinfulness of his nature.
Rom. 8 :13,14 —" for if ye live after the flesh, ye must die; hut if by the Spirit ye put to death the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are ted by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God M; 1 Cor. 6 :11—"butyewere washed, but ye were sanctified, but ye were Justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and in the Spirit of our God "; Janus 1: 28 —" If any man thinketh himself to be religious, while ho bridleth not his tongue but deoeiveth his heart, this man's religion is vain"—see Com. of Neander, in loco—"That religion Is merely Imaginary, seeming, unreal, which allows the continuance of the moral defects originally predominant in the character."
Dr. Hastings: "When Bourdaloue was probing the conscience of Louis XIV, applying to htm the words of St. Paul and Intending to paraphrase them: 'For the good that I would I do not, but the evil that I would not, that I do,' 'I find two men In me'— the King interrupted the great preacher with the memorable exclamation: 'Ah, these two men, I know them well I' Bourdaloue answered: 'It is already something to know them. Sire; but it Is not enough — one of the two must perish.'" And, In the genuine believer, the old does little by little die, and the new takes its place, as "David wajod stronger and stronger, and the house of Saul waied weaker and weaker" (2 Sam. 3:1). As the Welsh minister found himself after awhile thinking and dreaming in English, so the language of Canaan becomes to the Christian his native and only speech.
2. Explanations and Scripture Proof.
(a) Sauctification is the work of God.
1 Thess. 5 : 23 —" ind the God of peaoe himself sanctify you wholly." Much of our modern literature Ignores man's dependence upon God, and some of it seems distinctly Intended to teach the opposite doctrine. Auerbach's "On the Heights," for example, teaches that man can make his own atonement; and "The Villa on the Rhine," by the same author, teaches that man can sanctify himself.
(6) It is a continuous process.
Phil. 1 : 6—" being confident of this very thing, that he which began a good work in yon will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ"; 3 :15—"Let us, therefore, ss many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in anything ye are otherwise minded, even this shall God reveal unto you "; Col. 3 : 9,10 —" Lie not one to another; seeing that ye have put off the old man with his doings, and have put on the new man, which is being renewed unto knowledge after the image of him that created him"; cf. Acta2 : 47—"those that were being saved "; 1 Cor. 1:18 —"unto us which are being saved "; 2 Cor. 2 :15—"in them that are being saved "; 1 These. 2 :12—" God, who calleth you into his own kingdom and glory."
(c) It is distinguished from regeneration as growth from birth, or as the strengthening of a holy disposition from the original impartation of it.
Bph. i : 15—"speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into him, which is the head, even Christ"; 1 Thess. 3 :12 —" the Lord make yon to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men "; 2 Pet. 3 :18—"But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ"; cf. 1 Pet. 1: 23—" begotten again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, through the word of God, which liveth and abideth "; 1 John 3 : 9 —" Whosoever is begotten of God doeth no sin, because bis seed abideth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is begotten of God." Not sin only, but holiness also, is a germ whose nature It is to grow. The new love in the believer's heart follows the law of all life, In developing- and extending itself under God's husbandry. George Eliot: "The reward of one duty done is the power to do another."
(d) The operation of God reveals itself in, and is accompanied by, intelligent and voluntary activity of the believer in the discovery and mortification of sinful desires, and in the bringing of the whole being into obedience to Christ and conformity to the standards of his word.
John 17 :17—"Sanctify them in the truth: thy word is truth"; 2 Cor. 10 : 5—"casting down imaginations, and every high thing that is Halted against the knowledge of God, and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ"; Phil. 2 :12,13 —" work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure "; 1 Pet 2 : 2 —" as new-born babes, long for the spiritual milk which is without guile, that ye may grow thereby unto salvation."
Baxter: "Every man must grow, as trees do, downward and upward at once. The visible outward growth must be accompanied by an Invisible Inward growth." Drummond: "The spiritual man having passed from death to life, the natural man must pass from life to death." There must be increasing sense of sin: "My sins gave sharpness to the nails, And pointed every thorn." There must be a bringing of new and yet newer regions of thought, feeling, and action, under the sway of Christ and his truth. There is a grain of truth even in Macaulay's jest about "essentially Christian cookery."
(e) The agency through which God effects the sanctification of the believer is the indwelling Spirit of Christ.
John M : 17,18—"the Spirit of truth .... he abideth with you and shall be in you. I will not leave you desolate: I come unto you "; 15 : 3-5 —" Already ye are dean .... Abide in me .... Apart from me ye can do nothing "; Rom. 8 : 9,10—" the Spirit of God dwelleth in you. But if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness "; 1 Cor. 1: 2, 30 —
"sanctified in Christ Jesus .... Christ Jesus, who was made unto us sanctification"; 6 :19—"know ye not that your
body is a temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have from God?" Gal. 5 :16 —" Walk by the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh "; Eph. 5 :18 —" And be not drunken with wine, wherein is hot, but be filled with the Spirit"; Col. 1: 27-29—"the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in yon, the hope of glory: whom we proclaim, admonishing every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ; whereunto I labor also, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily"; 2 Tim. 1: U—"That good thing which was committed unto thee guard through the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us."
Christianity substitutes for the old sources of excitement the power of the Holy Spirit. Here Is a source of comfort, energy, and joy, infinitely superior to any which the sinner knows. God does not leave the soul to fall back upon itself. The higher up we get in the scale of being, the more does the new life need nursing and tending — compare the sapling and the babe. God gives to the Christian, therefore, an abiding presence and work of the Holy Spirit—not only regeneration, but sanctification. C. E. Smith, Baptism of Fire: "The soul needs the latter as well as the former rain, the sealing as well as the renewing of the Spirit, the baptism of Are as well as the baptism of water. Sealing gives something additional to the document, an evidence plainer than the writing within, both to one's self and to others."
(/) The mediate or instrumental cause of sanctification, as of justification, is faith.
Acts 15 : 9—"cleansing their hearts by faith"; Rom. 1:17— "For therein is mealed a righteousness of God from faith unto faith: as it is written, Bat the righteous shall live from faith." This righteousness includes sanctifi cation as well as Justification; and the subject of the epistle to the Romans is not simply Justification by faith, but rather righteousness by faith, or salvation by faith. Justification by faith is the subject of Chapters 1-7; sanctlflcation by faith Is the subject of Chapters 8-18. We are not sanctified by efforts of our own, any more than we are Justified by efforts of our own.
(g) The object of this faith is Christ himself, as the head of a new humanity and the source of truth and life to those united to him.
2 Cor. 3 :18 —" we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glorj of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit"; Eph. 4 :13 —" till we all attain onto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a fullgrown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ," Faith here is of course much more than intellectual faith — it la the reception of Christ himself. As Christianity furnishes a new source of life and energy —in the Holy Spirit: so it gives a new object of attention and regard — the Lord Jesus Christ. As we get air out of a vessel by pouring in water, so we can drive sin out only by bringing Christ in. See Chalmers' Sermon on the Expulsive Power of a new Affection. Drummond, Nat. Law in the Spir. World, 123-140— "Man does not grow by making efforts to grow, but by putting himself into the conditions of growth by living In Christ."
(h) Though the weakest faith perfectly justifies, the degree of sanctification is measured by the strength of the Christian's faith, and the persistence with which he apprehends Christ in the various relations which the Scriptures declare him to sustain to us.
Mat 9 : 29 —" According to your faith be it done unto yon "; Luke 17:5—" Lord, increase our faith "; Rom. 12 : 2 —" be not fashioned according to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God 13 :14 —" But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lasts thereof"; Eph. 4 : 24 —"put on the new man. which after God hath been created in righteousness and holiness of truth"; ITim. 4:7—"eiercise thyself unto godliness." Leighton: "None of the children of God are born dumb." Milton: "Good, the more communicated, the more abundant grows."
(<) From the lack of persistence in using the means appointed for Christian growth — such as the word of God, prayer, association with other believers, and personal effort for the conversion of the ungodly — sanctilication does not always proceed in regular and unbroken course, and it is never completed in this life.
Phil. 3 :12 —" Hot that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect; but I press on, if so be that I may lay hold on that for whioh also I was laid hold on by Christ Jesus "; 1 John 1: 8 —" If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." Carlyle, in his Life of John Sterling, chap. 8, says of Coleridge, that " whenever natural obligation or volu ntary undertaking made it his duty to do anything, the fact seemed a sufficient reason for his not doing It." A regular, advancing sanctlflcation Is marked, on the other hand, by a growing habit of instant and Joyful obedience.
(j) Sanctiflcation, both of the soul and of the body of the believer, is completed in the life to come — that of the former at death, that of the latter at the resurrection.
Phil. 3 : 21 —" who shall fashion anew the body of oar humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, according to the working whereby he is able even to subject all things unto himself"; Col. 3 : 4 —" When Christ, who is our life, shall be manifested, then shall ye also with him be manifested in glory"; Eeb. 12 :14, 23— "' follow after peace with all men, and the sanctiflcation without which no man shall see the Lord .... spirits of just men made perfect"; 1 John 3 : 2—"Beloved, now are we children of God, and it is not jet made manifest what we shall be. We know that, tf he shall be manifested, we shall be like him; for we shall see him even as he is"; Jnde 24 —"able to guard you from stumbling, and to set you before the presence of his glory without blemish in eiceeding jay "; Rer. U : 5 —" ind in their month was found no lie: thej are without blemish."
See Gordon, The Twofold Life, or Christ's Work for us and in us; Brit, and For. Evang. lie v., April, 1881:205-229; Van Oosterzee, Christian Dogmatics, 657-662.
3. Erroneous Views refuted by these Scripture Passages.
A. The Antinomian,— which holds that, since Christ's obedience and sufferings have satisfied the demands of the law, the believer is free from obligation to observe it.
The Antinomian view rests upon a misinterpretation of Rom. 8 :14 —" ye are not under law, but under grace." Agricola and Amsdorf (1568) were representatives of this view. Amsdorf said that "(rood works are hurtful to salvation." But Melancthon's words furnish the reply: "Sola fides justiflcat, sed fides non est sola." F. \V. Hobertson states it: "Faith alone Justifies, but not the faith that is alone." And he illustrates: *' Lightning alone strikes, but not the lightning which is without thunder; for that is summer lightning and harmless."
To this view we urge the following objections:
(a) That since the law is a transcript of the holiness of God, its demands as a moral rule are unchanging. Only as a system of penalty and a method of salvation is the law abolished in Christ's death.
Mat. 5 :17-19 —"Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets: I came not to destroy, but to fulfil. For veril y 1 say unto you. Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law, till all things be accomplished. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven ": 48 —" Te therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect"; 1 Pet 1:16 —" Te shall be holy; for I am holy "; Rom. 10 : 4 —" For Christ is the end of the law unto righteousness to every one that believeth "; Gal. 2 : 20 —" I have been crucified with Christ"; 3 :13 —" Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us "; Col. 2 :14 —" having blotted out the bond written in ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to ns: and he hath taken it out of the way, nailing it to the cross"; Heb. 2 :15 —" deliver all them who through fear of death were all their life-time subject to bondage."
(6) That the union between Christ and the believer secures not only the bearing of the penalty of the law by Christ, but also the impartation of Christ's spirit of obedience to the believer,— in other words, brings him into communion with Christ's work, and leads him to ratify it in his own experience.
Rom. 8 : 9,10,15 —" ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. But if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his. and if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the
Spirit is life because of righteousness For ye received not the spirit of bondage again unto fear: but ye received
the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father"; Gal. 5 : 22-24 —"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. ind they that are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with the passions and the lusts thereof"; 1 John 1:6 —" If we say that we have fellowship with him. and walk in the darkness, we lie, and do not the truth "; 3:6—" Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither knoweth him."
(c) That the freedom from the law of which the Scriptures speak, is therefore simply that freedom from the constraint and boudage of the law, which characterizes those who have become one with Christ by faith.
Ps. 119: 97 —" 0 how love I thy law 1 it is my meditation all the day "; Rom. 3 : 8, 31 —" and why not (as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say), Let us do evil that good may come? whose condemnation is just.... Do we then make the law of none effect through faith? God forbid: nay, we establish the law "; 6 :14, 15, 22 —" For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under law, but under grace. What then? shall wi sin, because we are not under Uw bat under grace? God forbid now being nude free from tin, and beoome
MrruU to God, ye bare jour fruit unto sanctiflcation, end tbe end eternal life "; 7:6—" But now we have been discharged from tbe law, having died to that wherein we were holden; to that we serve in newness of the spirit, and not in oldnats of the letter "; 8:4—" that the ordinance of tbe law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the nesh, but after the Spirit"; 1 Car. 7 : 22—"ho that was called in the Lord, being a bond-servant, is the Lord's freeman "; Gal. 5 :1 —" For freedom did Christ set us free: stand fast therefore, and be not entangled again in a joke of bondage "; 1 Tim. 1:9—" law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and unrul; "; James 1: 25 —" the perfect law, the law of liberty."
To sum up the doctrine of Christian freedom as opposed to Antinomianism, we may say that Christ does not free us, as the Autinomian believes, from the law as a rule of life. But he does free us (1) from the law as a system of curse and penalty; this he does by bearing the curse and penalty himself. Christ frees us (2) from the law with its claims as a method of salvation; this he does by making his obedience and merits ours. Christ frees us ( 3) from the law as an outward and foreign compulsion; this he does by giving to us the spirit of obedience and sonship, by which the law is progressively realized within.
Christ, then, does not free us, as tbe Antlnomian believes, from the law as a rule of life. But he does free us (1) from the law as a system of curse and penalty. This he does by bearing the curse and penalty himself. Just as law can do nothing- with a man after It has executed its death-penalty upon him, so law can do nothing with us, now that Its death-penalty has been executed upon Christ. There are some Insects that expire In the act of planting their sting; and so, when tbe law gathered Itself up and planted its sting in the heart of Christ, it expended all its power as a Judge and avenger over us who believe. In the cross, the law as a system of curse and penalty exhausted itself; so we were set free.
Christ frees us (2) from tbe law with its claims as a method of salvation; in other words, he frees us from the necessity of trusting our salvation to an Impossible future obedience. As the sufferings of Christ, apart from any sufferings of ours, deliver us from eternal death, so the merits of Christ, apart from any merits of ours, give us a title to eternal life. By faith in what Christ has done and simple acceptance of his work for us, we secure a right to heaven. Obedience on our part is no longer rendered painfully, as if our salvation depended on it, but freely and gladly, in gratitude for what Christ has done for us. Illustrate by the English nobleman's invitation to his park, and the regulations he causes to be posted up.
Christ frees us (3) from the law as an outward and foreign compulsion. In putting an end to legalism, he provides against license. This he does by giving the spirit of obedience and sonship. He puts love in the place of fear; and this secures an obedience more intelligent, more thorough, and more hearty, than could have been secured by mere law. So he frees us from tbe burden and compulsion of the law, by realizing the law within us by his Spirit. See John Owen, Works, 3 : 366-651; 6:1-313.
B. The Perfectionist,— which holds that the Christian may, in this life, become perfectly free from sin. This view was held by John Wesley in England, and by Mahan and Finney in America.
For statements of the Perfectionist view, see John Wesley's Christian Theology, edited by Thornley Smith, 265-273; Mahan, Christian Perfection, and art. in Bib. Repos., 2nd Series, vol. iv, Oct., 1840 : 408-428; Finney, Systematic Theology, 586-766; Peck. Christian Perfection; Ritscbl, Bib. Sac, Oct., 1878 : 656.
In reply, it will be sufficient to observe:
(a) That the theory rests upon false conceptions: first, of the law — as a sliding-scale of requirement graduated to the moral condition of creatures, instead of being the unchangeable reflection of God's holiness; secondly, of sin — as consisting only in voluntary acts, instead of embracing also those dispositions and states of the soul which axe not conformed to thedivine holiness; thirdly, of the human will — as able to choose God supremely and persistently at every moment of life, and to fulfil at every moment the obligations resting upon it, instead of being corrupted and enslaved by the fall.
This view reduces the debt to the debtor's ability to pay,— a short and easy method of discharging obligations. I can leap over a cburch steeple, if I am only permitted to make the church steeple low enough; and I can touch the stars, if the stars will only come down to my hand. The fundamental error of perfectionism is its low view of Qod's law; the second is its narrow conception of sin. John Wesley: "I believe a person filled with the love of God is still liable to involuntary transgressions. Such transgressions you may call sins, if you please; I do not." The third error of perfectionism is its exaggerated estimate of man's power of contrary choice. To say that, whatever may have been the habits of the past and whatever may be the evil affections of the present, a man is perfectly able at any moment to obey the whole law of God, is to deny that there are such things as character and depravity.
(6) That the theory finds no support in, but rather is distinctly contradicted by, Scripture.
First, the Scriptures never assert or imply that the Christian may in this life live without sin; passages like 1 John 3 : 6, 9, if interpreted consistently with the context, set forth either the ideal standard of Christian living, or the actual state of the believer so far as respects his new nature.
1 John 3 : 6 - " Whoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him. neither known him"; 9—"Whosoever is begotten of God doeth no sin. because his seed abideth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is begotten of God." Ann. Par. Bible, in loco:—" John is contrasting the states in which sin and grace severally predominate, without reference to degrees in either, showing that all men are in one or the other." Neander: "John recognizes no intermediate state, no gradations. He seizes upon the radical point of difference. He contrasts the two states In their essential nature and principle. It is either love or hate, light or darkness, truth or a He. The Christian life in its essential nature is the opposite of all sin. If there be sin, it must be the afterworklng of the old nature." Yet all Christians are required in Scripture to advance, to confess sin, to ask forgiveness, to maintain warfare, to assume the attitude of ill desert in prayer, to receive chastisement for the removal of imperfections, to regard full salvation as matter of hope, not of present experience.
Secondly, the apostolic admonitions to the Corinthians and Hebrews show that no such state of complete sanctification had been generally attained by the Christians of the first century.
Rom. 8 : 24— "for in hope were ve saved: but hope that is seen is not hope: for who hopeth for that which he seeth?" The party-feeling, selfishness, and immorality found among the members of the Corinthian church are evidence that they were far from a state of entire sanctification.
Thirdly, there is express record of sin committed by the most perfect characters of Scripture — as Noah, Abraham, Job, David, Peter.
Fourthly, the word Ttfeiog, as applied to spiritual conditions already attained, can fairly be held to signify only a relative perfection, equivalent to sincere piety or maturity of Christian judgment.
1 Cor. 2 : 6 —" Howbeit we speak wisdom among the perfect," or, as the Am. Revisers have it, "among them that are fuilgrown "; Phil. 3 :15 —" Let us therefore, as man; as be perfect, be thus minded." Men are often called perfect when free from any fault which strikes the eyes of the world. See Gen. 6 : 9— "Koah was a righteous man and perfect"; Job 1:1—"That man was perfect and upright"
Fifthly, the Scriptures distinctly deny that any man on earth lives without sin.
1 I. 8 : 46 —" there is no man that smneth not *'; Socles. 7 : 20 —" Surely there is not a righteous man upon earth, that doeth good and sinneth not"; James 3 : 2 —" For in many things we all stumble. If any stumble not in word, the same is a perfect nun, able to bridle the whole body also"; 1 John 1: 8—"If wo saj that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us."
Sixthly, the declaration: "ye are sanctified" (1 Cor. 6 : 17), and the designation: "saints" (1 Cor. 1:2), applied to early believers, are, as the whole epistle shows, expressive of a holiness existing in germ and anticipation; the expressions deriving their meaning not so much from what these early believers were, as from what Christ was, to whom they were united by faith.
When N. T. believers are eald to be "sanctified," we must remember the O. T. use of the word. 'Sanctify' may have either the meaning 'to make holy outwardly,' or 'to make holy inwardly.' The people of Israel and the vessels of the tabernacle were made holy In the former sense; their sanctlflcatlon was a setting apart to the sacred use. Num. 8 :17 —" all the firstborn among the children of Israel are mine .... I sanctified them for myself"; Dent. 33 : 3—"yea, he loved the peoples; all his saints are in thy hand"; 2 Chron. 29 :19—"all the vessels.... have we prepared and sanctified." The vessels mentioned were first immersed, and then sprinkled from day to day according to need. So the Christian by bis regeneration Is set apart for God's service, and in this sense is a "saint" and "sanctified." More than this, he has in him the beginnings of purity — he is "clean as a whole," though be yet needs "to wash his feet" (John 13: 10); that is, to be cleansed from the recurring defilements of bis daily life.
(c) That the theory is disapproved by the testimony of Christian experience.— In exact proportion to the soul's advance in holiness does it shrink from claiming that holiness has been already attained, and humble itself before Qod for its remaining apathy, ingratitude, and unbelief.
Phil. 3 :12-14 —" Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect; bat I press on, if so be that I may lay hold on that for which also I was laid hold on by Christ Jesus." Some of the greatest advocates of perfectionism have been furthest from claiming any such perfection; although many of their less Instructed followers claimed it for them, and even professed to have attained it themselves.
Perfectionism is best met by proper statements of the nature of the law and of sin (Ps. 119 : 96). While we thus rebuke spiritual pride, however, we should be equally careful to point out the inseparable connection between justification and sanctification, and their equal importance as together making up the biblical idea of salvation. While we show no favor to those who would make sanctification a sudden and paroxysmal act of the human will, we should hold forth the holiness of God as the standard of attainment and the faith in a Christ of infinite fulness as the medium through which that standard is to be gradually but certainly realized in us {2 Cor. 3:18).
We should imitate Lyman Beecher's method of opposing perfectionism — by searching expositions of God's law. When men know what the law is, they will say with the Psalmist: "I have seen an end of all perfection; thy commandment is exceeding broad" ( Ps. 119 : 96). And yet we are earnestly and hopefully to seek in Christ for a continually increasing measure of sanctification: 1 Cor. 1: 30 — "Christ Jesus, who was made unto us .,.. sanctification "; 2 Cor. 3 :18 —" But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, axe transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the lord, the Spirit." Arnold of Rugby: "Always expect to succeed, and never think you have succeeded."
See Hovey, Doctrine of the Higher Christian Life, Compared with Scripture; Snodgrass, Scriptural Doctrine of Sanctification; Princeton Essays, 1 :335-365; Hodge, Syst. Tbeol., 3 : 213-258; Calvin, Institutes, in, 11: 6; Bib. Repos., 2nd Series, 1: 44-58; 2:143166; Woods, Works, 4 : 465-523.
II. Perseverance.
The Scriptures declare that, in virtue of the original purpose and continuous operation of God, all who are united to Christ by faith will infallibly continue in a state of grace and will finally attain to everlasting life. This voluntary continuance, on the part of the Christian, in faith and well-doing we call perseverance. Perseverance is, therefore, the human side or aspect of that spiritual process which, as viewed from the divine side, we call sanctification. It is not a mere natural consequence of conversion, but involves a constant activity of the human will from the moment of conversion to the end of life.
Adam's holiness was mutable; God did not determine to keep him. It is otherwise with believers in Christ; God has determined to give them the kingdom (lata 12: H). Yet this keeping- by God, which we call sanctlflcation, is accompanied and followed by a keeping of himself on the part of the believer, which we call perseverance. The former is alluded to in John 17 :11,12 —" keep them in thy name .... 1 kept them in thy name .... I guarded them and not one of them perished, but the son of perdition "; the latter is alluded to in 1 John 5 :18 —" he that was begotten of God keepeth himself." Both are expressed in Jsde 21, 24—" leep yourselves in the love of God .... Nov unto him that is able to guard you from stumbling"
A German treatise on Pastoral Theology Is entitled: "Keep What Thou Hast"— an allusion to 2 Tim. 1:14 —" That good thing which was committed unto thee guard through the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us." Not only the pastor, but every believer, has a charge to keep; and the keeping of ourselves is as Important a point of Christian doctrine as is the keeping of God.
1. Proof of the Doctrine of Perseverance.
A. From Scripture.
John 10 : 28, 29—"they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them ont of my hand. My Father, which bath given them unto me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father's hand "; Rom. It: 29 —" For the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance "; 1 Cor. 13 : 7 —" endureth all things "; cf. 13 — "But now abideth faith, hope, love"; Phil. 1: 6—"being confident of this very thing, that he which began a good work in yon will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ"; 2 Thess. 3 : 3 —" But the Lord is faithful, who shall stablish you, and guard you from the evil one"; 2 Tim. 1:12—"I know whom I bare believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to guard that which I have committed unto him against that day "; 1 Pet. 1:5- ■■ who by the power of God are guarded through faith unto a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time" ; Rev. 3:10 —" Because thou didst keep the word of my patience. I also will keep thee from the hour of trial, that hour which is to come upon the whole world, to try them that dwell upon the earth,"
B. From Beason.
(a) It is a necessary inference from other doctrines,— such as election, union with Christ, regeneration, justification, sanctification.
Election of certain individuals to salvation is election to bestow upon them such Influences of the Spirit as will lead them not only to accept Christ, but to persevere and be saved. Union with Christ is indissoluble; regeneration is the beginning of a work of new creation, which is declared in justification, and completed in sanctification. All these doctrines are parts of a general scheme, which would come to naught if any single Christian were permitted to fall away.
(6) It accords with analogy,— God's preserving care being needed by, and being granted to, his .spiritual, as well as his natural, creation.
As natural life cannot uphold itself, but we "live, and move, and have our being" in God (Acts 17:28), so spiritual life cannot uphold itself, and God maintains the faith, love, and holy activity which he has originated. If he preserves our natural life, much more may we ■expect him to preserve the spiritual.
(c) It is implied in all assurance of salvation,— since this assurance is given by the Holy Spirit, and is based not npon the known strength of human resolution, but upon the purpose and operation of God.
S. R. Mason: "If Satan and Adam both fell away from perfect holiness, it is a million to one that, in a world full of temptations and with all appetites and habits against me, I shall fall away from imperfect holiness, unless God by his almighty power keep me." It is in the power and purpose of God, then, that the believer puts his trust. But since this trust is awakened by the Holy Spirit, it must be that there is a divine fact corresponding to it; namely, God's purpose to exert his power In such a way that the Christian shall persevere. Bee Wardlaw, Syst. Theol., 2:550-578; N. W. Taylor, Revealed Theology, 445-MO.
2. Objections to the Doctrine of Perseverance.
These objections are urged chiefly by Arminians and by Romanists.
A. That it is inconsistent with human freedom.—Answer: It is no more so than is the doctrine of Election or the doctrine of Decrees.
The doctrine is simply this, that God will bring to bear such Influences upon all true believers, that they will freely persevere.
B. That it tends to immorality.—Answer: This cannot be, since thedoctrine declares that God will save men by securing their perseverance in holiness.
2 Tim. 2:19—"lowbeit the Irm foundation of God standeth, baring this Mai. Ike Lord knoweih them that are his: and let every one that nameth the name of the Lord depart from unrighteousness "; that Is, the temple of Christian character has upon its foundation two significant inscriptions, the one declaring God's power, wisdom, and purpose of salvation; the other declaring the purity and holy activity, on the part of the believer, through which God's purpose Is to be fulfilled; 1 Pet.
1:1, 2—"elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanetification of the Spirit, onto obedience
and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ"; 2 Pet 1:10,11 —" Wherefore, brethren, give the more diligence to make jour calling and election sure: for if je do these things, ye shall never stumble: for thus shall be richly supplied unto you the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."
0. That it leads to indolence. — Answer: This is a perversion of the doctrine, continuously possible only to the unregenerate; since, to the regenerate, certainty of success is the strongest incentive to activity in the conflict with sin.
1 John 5 : 4 —" For whatsoever is begotten of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that hath overcome the world, even our faith." It is notoriously untrue that confidence of success Inspires timidity or indolence.
D. That the Scripture commands to persevere and warnings against apostasy show that certain, even of the regenerate, will fall away.—Answer:
(a) They show that some, who are apparently regenerate, will fall away.
Mat 18 : 7 —" Woe unto the world because of occasions of stumbling! for it must needs be that the occasions come; but woe to that man through whom the occasion cometh "; 1 Cor. 11 :19—"For there must be also factions [ lit. 'heresies' ] among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you"; 1 John 2 : 19—"They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us: but they went out that they might be made manifest how that they all are not of us." Judas probably experienced strong emotions, and received strong impulses toward good, under the influence of Christ.
(b) They show that the truly regenerate, and those who are only apparently so, are not certainly distinguishable in this life.
Hal. 3 :18 —" Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked; between him that serveth God, and him that serveth him not"; Hat 13: 25, 47— "while men slept bis enemy came and sowed tares also among the wheat and went away .... Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind"; Raid. 9 : 6—"For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel: neither, because they are abraham's seed, are they all children "; Rot. 3 :1 —" I know thj works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and thou art dead."
(c) They show the fearful consequences of rejecting Christ, to those who have enjoyed special divine influences, but who are only apparently regenerate.
Bob. 10 : 28-29 —" For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more a sacrifice for sins, bit a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and a fierceness of Ire which shall devour the adversaries, a man that hath set at nought Moses' law dieth without compassion on the word of two or three witnesses: of how much sorer punishment, think je, shall he be judged worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of graoe?" Here "sanctified " = external sanctification, like that of the ancient Israelites, by outward oonnectlon with God's people; cf. 1 Cor. 7 :14 —" the unbeliering husband is sanctified in the wife."
(d) They show what the fate of the truly regenerate would be, in case
they should not persevere.
Eeb. 6:4-6—" For as touching those who were onoe enlightened and tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, and then fell away, it is impossible to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame." This is to be understood as a hypothetical case. Dr. A. C. Kendrick: "If passages like this teach the possibility of falling from grace, they teach also the impossibility of restoration to it. The saint who once apostatizes has apostatized forever." So Ks. 18 : 24—11 When the righteous tumeth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity
in them shall he die "; 2 Pet 2 : 20 —" For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein and overcome, the last state is become worse with them than the first"
(e) They show that the perseverance of the truly regenerate may be secured by these very commands and warnings.
1 Cor. 9 : 27 —" I buffet my body, and bring it into bondage: lest by any means, after that I hare preached to others, I myself should be rejected " — or, to bring out the meaning more fully: "I beat my body blue [ or, 1 strike it under the eye' ], and make it a slave, lest after having been a herald to others, I myself should be rejected" ('unapproved,' 'counted unworthy of the prize'); 10 :12—"Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall."
(/) They do not show that it is certain, or possible, that any truly regenerate person will fall away.
E. That we have actual examples of such apostasy.—We answer:
(a) Such are either men onoe outwardly reformed, like Judas and Ananias, but never renewed in heart;
Instance the young profligate who, in a moment of apparent drowning, repented, was then rescued, and afterward lived a long life as a Christian. If he had never been rescued, his repentance would never have been known, nor the answer to his mother's prayers. So, In the moment of a backslider's death, God can renew repentance and faith.
(6) Or they are regenerate men, who, like David and Peter, have fallen into temporary sin, from which they will, before death, be reclaimed by God's discipline.
But, per contra. Instance the experience of a man in typhoid fever, who apparently repented, but who never remembered it when he was restored to health. Sick-bed and death-bed conversions are not the best. There was one penitent thief, that none might -despair; there was but one penitent thief, that none might presume.
On the general subject, see Edwards, Works, 3 : 609-532, and 4 :104; Rldgeley, Body of Divinity, 2:164-194; John Owen, Works, vol. 11; Woods, Works, 3 : 221-246; Van Oosterzee. Christian Dogmatics, 662-666.