Category: Christianity

Thanks to Dr. Gene Edward Veith for posting the following alert:

N. T. Wright is an Anglican bishop in England. Evangelicals and
other theological conservatives like him because, among other things,
he wrote a stirring scholarly defense of the historicity of the
resurrection of Christ. But he believed that Luther had it wrong with
this justification by grace through faith stuff. This is because Luther
misunderstood the writings of St. Paul, who, according to Wright, was
just talking about freedom from the Jewish ceremonial law, not the
moral law. Actually, according to Wright, we are saved by good works
after all.

Though this is being called the “new perspective on Paul,” this is
not particularly new. This is basically the Roman Catholic take on what
Paul says. Anglicans have never been particularly strong on
justification. But what is remarkable to me is how so many evangelicals
are seizing on this. Both liberal evangelicals and conservative
evangelicals (including some otherwise hard-core Calvinists).

The Wall Street Journal
has a column praising Wright from John Wilson, editor of “Books and
Culture.” I think many
evangelicals have been wanting to make salvation a function of good
works for a long time, and this gives them a good excuse. Salvation
comes from living like Jesus did. That usually gets translated into
either conservative or liberal politics, or trivial lifestyle choices
like not driving SUVs, recycling, affirming gays, or–on the
complementary side–not drinking, smoking, or going to movies. I have
yet to see the person who lives with the moral purity of Christ. But go
ahead and try. And then when you fail, perhaps you will appreciate how
Jesus really chose to live His life. By dying for you.

Reflecting further on my comments previously about Calvinism, a friend shared this wonderful quotation from St. Ambrose, whose day we observe today. It is a good dose of Jesus, sure to cure whatever theological quirks or “system” or speculations about the decrees of the sovereign God might ail a body. Good for all us. Oh, come, Oh, come Immanuel!

90. To Him, therefore, let all come who would be made whole. Let them
receive the medicine which He hath brought down from His Father and
made in heaven, preparing it of the juices of those celestial fruits
that wither not. This is of no earthly growth, for nature nowhere
possesseth this compound. Of wondrous purpose took He our flesh, to the
end that He might show that the law of the flesh had been subjected to
the law of the mind. He was incarnate, that He, the Teacher of men,
might overcome as man.

91. Of what profit would it have been to me, had He, as God, bared the
arm of His power, and only displayed His Godhead inviolate? Why should
He take human nature upon Him, but to suffer Himself to be tempted
under the conditions of my nature and my weakness? It was right that He
should be tempted, that He should suffer with me, to the end that I
might know how to conquer when tempted, how to escape when hard
pressed. He overcame by force of continence, of contempt of riches, of
faith; He trampled upon ambition, fled from intemperance, bade
wantonness be far from Him.

92. This medicine Peter beheld, and left His nets, that is to say, the
instruments and security of gain, renouncing the lust of the flesh as a
leaky ship, that receives the bilge, as it were, of multitudinous
passions. Truly a mighty remedy, that not only removed the scar of an
old wound, but even cut the root and source of passion. O Faith, richer
than all treasure-houses; O excellent remedy, healing our wounds and
sins!

93. Let us bethink ourselves of the profitableness of right belief. It
is profitable to me to know that for my sake Christ bore my
infirmities, submitted to the affections of my body, that for me, that
is to say, for every man, He was made sin, and a curse, that for me and
in me was He humbled and made subject, that for me He is the Lamb, the
Vine, the Rock, the Servant, the Son of an handmaid, knowing not the
day of judgment, for my sake ignorant of the day and the hour.

94. For how could He, Who hath made days and times, be ignorant of the
day? How could He not know the day, Who hath declared both the season
of Judgment to come, and the cause? A curse, then, He was made not in
respect of His Godhead, but of His flesh; for it is written: “Cursed is
every one that hangeth on a tree.” In and after the flesh, therefore,
He hung, and for this cause He, Who bore our curses, became a curse. He
wept that thou, man, mightest not weep long. He endured insult, that
thou mightest not grieve over the wrong done to thee.

95. A glorious remedy—to have consolation of Christ! For He bore these
things with surpassing patience for our sakes—and we forsooth cannot
bear them with common patience for the glory of His Name! Who may not
learn to forgive, when assailed, seeing that Christ, even on the Cross,
prayed,—yea, for them that persecuted Him? See you not that those
weaknesses, as you please to call them, of Christ’s are your strength?
Why question Him in the matter of remedies for us? His tears wash us,
His weeping cleanses us,—and there is strength in this doubt, at least,
that if you begin to doubt, you will despair. The greater the insult,
the greater is the gratitude due.

96. Even in the very hour of mockery and insult, acknowledge His
Godhead. He hung upon the Cross, and all the elements did Him homage.
The sun withdrew his rays, the daylight vanished, darkness came down
and covered the land, the earth trembled; yet He Who hung there
trembled not. What was it that these signs betokened, but reverence for
the Creator? That He hangs upon the Cross—this, thou Arian, thou
regardest; that He gives the kingdom of God—this, thou regardest not.
That He tasted of death, thou readest, but that He also invited the
robber into paradise, to this thou givest no heed. Thou dost gaze at
the women weeping by the tomb, but not upon the angels keeping watch by
it. What He said, thou readest: what He did, thou dost not read. Thou
sayest that the Lord said to the Canaanitish woman: “I am not sent, but
to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” thou dost not say that He
did what He was besought by her to do.

97. Thou shouldst hereby understand that His being “sent” means not
that He was compelled, at the command of another, but that He acted, of
free will, according to His own judgment, otherwise thou dost accuse
Him of despising His Father. For if, according to thine expounding,
Christ had come into Jewry, as one executing the Father’s commands, to
relieve the inhabitants of Jewry, and none besides, and yet before that
was accomplished, set free the Canaanitish woman’s daughter from her
complaint, surely He was not only the executor of another’s
instruction, but was free to exercise His own judgment. But where there
is freedom to act as one will, there can be no transgressing the terms
of one’s mission.

98. Fear not that the Son’s act displeased the Father, seeing that the
Son Himself saith: “Whatsoever things are His good pleasure, I do
always,” and “The works that I do, He Himself doeth.” How, then, could
the Father be displeased with that which He Himself did through the
Son? For it is One God, Who, as it is written, “hath justified
circumcision in consequence of faith, and uncircumcision through faith.”

99. Read all the Scriptures, mark all diligently, you will then find
that Christ so manifested Himself that God might be discerned in man.
Misunderstand not maliciously the Son’s exultation in the Father, when
you hear the Father declaring His pleasure in the Son.

Chapter XI of Book II Of the Christian Faith by St. Ambrose. (Nicenee & Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd Series, vol. 10 Ambrose: Select Works and Letters p. 235)

B. Universal Grace. God’s gracious disposition in Christ is not limited to a part of mankind, but extends over all men without exception. Saving grace is universal grace (Gratia Dei erga homines lapsos non particularis, sed universalis est). Scripture rejects particularism when it expressly declares, first, that the object of God’s grace (love, mercy, etc.) in Christ are all men. Titus 2:11: “The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men.” 1 Tim. 2:4: “Who will have all men to be saved and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.” John 3:16: “God so loved the world,” the whole world. 1 John 2:2: “And He is the Propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.” Scripture forbids the limiting of κόσμος, John 3:16, to “the world of the elect,” for according to v. 18 also the unbelievers belong to the “world.” Second, Scripture expressly states that the gratia universalis is for each and every individual. 2 Pet. 3:9: “The Lord is … not willing that any should perish.” And when the Lord swears: “As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked” (Ezek. 33:11), He declares that His saving will extends to every individual who is “wicked.” And, in the third place, Scripture testifies in many places that God’s saving grace embraces also all those who ultimately perish. The merit of Christ covered their sins, too. 1 Cor. 8:11: The weak brother, “for whom Christ died,” will perish. Rom. 14:15: “Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died.”⁴² 2 Pet. 2:1: The false teachers who “bring upon themselves swift destruction” are denying “the Lord that bought them.” The Lord is minded to convert those who ultimately are lost. Matt. 23:37: “How often would I have gathered thy children [Vol. 2, Page 22] together … and ye would not.”⁴³ Gerhard says that Scripture attests the universality of grace in words, Christ with tears, and God Himself with an oath.⁴⁴

The gratia universalis is the doctrine of the Lutheran Church. The Lutheran Confessions maintain the universality of saving grace in its full extent. They teach the threefold universalism of the love of the Father, of the merit of Christ, and of the efficacious operation of the Holy Ghost, through the means of grace, on all hearers of the Word.⁴⁵ Limited grace is definitely rejected in the Lutheran Confessions. “Therefore we reject the following errors: 1) As when it is taught that God is unwilling that all men repent and believe the Gospel. 2) Also, that when God calls us to Himself, He is not in earnest that all men should come unto Him. 3) Also, that God is unwilling that everyone should be saved, but that some, without regard to their sins, from the mere counsel, purpose, and will of God, are ordained to condemnation, so that they cannot be saved.” (Trigl. 837, 17 ff.)

The synergists, indeed, assert that the Lutheran Confession, in spite of these declarations, in reality cancels universal grace, because [Vol. 2, Page 23] it insists so strongly on the sola gratia and ascribes to the saved not a better, but a like wicked conduct and equal guilt compared with the lost, and hence declares that the question why some are saved and the others not cannot be answered in this life and belongs to the incomprehensible judgments and inscrutable ways of God (Trigl. 1081, 57–64). This charge that the doctrine of the sola gratia, as presented in the Formula of Concord, virtually abolishes the gratia universalis has been raised by the synergists not only at the time when the Formula was prepared, but is very emphatically repeated by modern German and American synergists.⁴⁶ This entire argument, however, rests on the fundamental error that the Christian doctrine must not be taken from Scripture, but must be shaped according to the requirements of a “uniform system.”—Luther, too, upheld, together with the universality of the love of God and of the redemption of Christ, the efficacious calling of all hearers of the Word.⁴⁷—Luther’s distinction between the voluntas revelata and the voluntas abscondita leaves [Vol. 2, Page 24] the gratia universalis intact, as will be shown in the chapter “The Theological Terminology Regarding the Divine Will of Grace.”

This testimony of Scripture for the universal grace of God in Christ is so clear that it seems incredible that the gratia universalis should ever have been questioned within the Christian Church. Still. it has been done. Augustine did not, as far as we can see, directly oppose universal grace, but the denial of it looms in the background of his theology. This caused him to subject passages like 1 Tim. 2:4: “God would have all men to be saved,” to various impossible interpretations.⁴⁸ The valiant opponent of Pelagius did not himself fully gain the Scriptural position.⁴⁹ In the controversy with Gottschalk (d. 869) both sides were about equally groping in darkness. Gottschalk erred in plainly limiting the saving will of God and Christ’s merit to the elect. He says: “I, Gottschalk, believe and confess that all those godless and sinful men whom the Son of God came to redeem with His shed blood, these the goodness of the omnipotent God wills to save, having irrevocably predestinated them to life; and, inversely, all those wicked and sinful men for whom the Son of God did not become incarnate, did not offer a prayer and much less His blood, and for whom He was in no wise crucified, because He knew that they would be very wicked in future, and concerning whom He had most justly determined in eternity that He would east them into torments, those He, in His heart, absolutely did not want to save.” (Cp. Gieseler, II, 7, p. 101.)

The Calvinistic Reformed bodies not only deny, but, in part, bitterly attack the gratia universalis and teach the particularism of saving grace in its strictest form: God does not love all men, Christ did not redeem all men, the Holy Ghost does not desire to convert [Vol. 2, Page 25] all men.⁵⁰The division into supralapsarians and infralapsarians does not touch the question of universal grace. Both groups deny it. The supralapsarians teach that God has decreed to create a part of mankind unto damnation.⁵¹ The infralapsarians teach that God has decreed to leave a part of mankind in the damnation incurred by all men through the Fall, or to pass them by with His grace.⁵² Also the hypothetical universalism of the Amyraldists, according to which [Vol. 2, Page 26] Christ gained grace for all men, but God’s will is to create faith only in the elect, practically denies the gratia universalis.⁵³

Particularism, in whatever form it appears, is founded not on the Word of God, but on a human speculation as to the will and work of God. As Calvinism, in Christology, resorts, in the last instance, to one philosophical axiom in order to do away with what Scripture teaches concerning the communion of natures and the communication of attributes, the axiom Finitum non est capax infiniti, so the Reformed denial of the Scripture doctrine of gratia universalis ultimately and conclusively rests on the one philosophical axiom: Whatever God earnestly purposes must in every case actually occur; and since not all men are actually saved, we must conclude that the Father never did love the world, that Christ never did reconcile the world, and that the Holy Ghost never does purpose to create faith in all hearers of the Word. That is the chief argument of Calvin in the four chapters of his Institutes (III, 21–24) on Predestination. He disposes of the Scripture declarations which attest universal grace with the statement, repeated again and again, that the result must determine the extent of the divine will of grace.⁵⁴ In our day the Reformed theologian Boehl has said: “If according to this passage, 1 Tim. 2:4, God actually willed that all, man for man, be saved, that would have to occur, or there would be nothing more feeble and frail than this will of God, which has not realized its object in the great majority of men from Adam to our day” (Dogmatik, p. 286). Charles Hodge uses the same argument: [Vol. 2, Page 27] “It cannot be supposed that God intends what is never accomplished; that He purposes what He does not intend to effect; that He adopts means for an end which is never to be attained. This cannot be affirmed of any rational being who has the wisdom and power to secure the execution of his purposes. Much less can it be said of Him whose power and wisdom are infinite. If all men are not saved, God never purposed their salvation and never devised and put into operation means to accomplish that end. We must assume that the result is the interpretation of the purposes of God.” And with special reference to the merit of Christ, Hodge declares: “If equally designed for all men, it must secure the salvation of all” (Systematic Theology II, p. 323). That is human philosophy concerning the will of God; it is not the teaching of Scripture.

Scripture definitely teaches “that God intends what is never accomplished.” Scripture teaches that God intends to save the world through Christ (John 3:17: “God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved”) and that nevertheless God’s purpose is not accomplished in a part of mankind (John 3:18: “He that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God”). Scripture teaches that Christ died also for those who are damned. Rom. 14:15: “Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died.” See also 2 Pet. 2:1–2. Scripture furthermore shows by many examples that God desires the salvation of those in whom He does not accomplish His will. With regard to Jerusalem Christ declares (Matt. 23:37): “How often would I have gathered thy children … and ye would not.” The Pharisees and scribes frustrated (ἠθέτησαν) the will of God, who desired also their salvation (Luke 7:30).⁵⁵ The Jews of Antioch contrived to reject the salvation which God purposed to give to them and offered to them in the Gospel. The Apostle expressly declares (Acts 13:46): “It was necessary that the Word of God should first have been spoken to you; but seeing ye put it from you and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles.” The proposition: “We must assume that the result is the interpretation of the purposes of God,” consequently, is nothing but a human deduction which stands in glaring contradiction to Scripture.

Dominated by this anti-Scriptural thought, the advocates of the gratia particularis divest the Scripture passages which proclaim the [Vol. 2, Page 28] gratia universalis of their plain meaning; for the general terms “all men,” “the world,” “the whole world,” they substitute, against the text and the context, the particular terms “all sorts of men,” “the elect,” “the Church”; and they distinguish between the voluntas signi and the voluntas beneplaciti in such a way that the former, which is indeed God’s revealed will, His will to save all men, must be interpreted according to the latter, the will of His pleasure, His hidden will, according to which God’s true intention is to save only the elect.⁵⁶

C. Serious and Efficacious Grace. In spite of the fact that the grace of God does not attain its purpose in all men, it is still serious and efficacious (gratia seria et efficax). God’s gracious will in Christ is not some sort of laissez-faire attitude, which does not go beyond a half-hearted, idle wish (otiosa complacentia, nuda velleitas), but God has set His heart on the conversion of all men and puts His full power into the means of grace to effect His purpose. That is the teaching of Scripture. 1. Christ has commanded His Church to go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature (Mark 16:15), to preach the fact that God for Christ’s sake is gracious to all men. Luke 24:47: “And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations”; 2 Cor. 5:19. 2. Scripture teaches, moreover, that the Holy Ghost seeks to engender faith in the Gospel in all who hear the Gospel. The gracious purpose of God in regard to Jerusalem, which would not believe, is brought out very pointedly in Matt. 23:37: “I would have gathered thy children together,” and “gathering together” (ἐπισυναγαγει̂ν) means gathering them together spiritually, bringing them to faith. The clause which Jesus adds brings out still more strongly that Jesus desired to gather the Children of Israel together not in a halfhearted, indifferent way, but earnestly and urgently, “even as a hen gathereth her chickens [Vol. 2, Page 29] under her wings.”⁵⁷ Likewise Scripture teaches that the gracious will of God operates not only to generate faith, but is ever active to perfect and consummate faith. Phil. 1:6: “He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.” 3. Scripture never attributes the reason why so many hearers of the Word never come to faith to God’s passing them by or to a lack of the serious effort on the part of the Holy Spirit, but always gives as the only reason men’s resistance, whereby they persistently oppose the gracious operation of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 23:37: “I would have gathered thy children together … but ye would not”; Acts 7:51: “Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost”). Unless we are ready to deny that definite passages of Holy Scripture have a definite sense, these passages of Scripture certainly state that the Holy Spirit urgently entreated these unbelieving Jews to turn to the Lord and that it was only the resistance of the Jews which prevented the effect so earnestly intended by God.⁵⁸

Men, then, do possess the power to thwart the operation of the divine grace whereby God intended to produce faith in them (gratia resistibilis). It will not do to explain this by asserting, as has been done in the past and is still being done,⁵⁹ that when God produces faith in man, He does not exercise the divine omnipotence. Scripture plainly teaches that faith is created through the almighty power of God. Eph. 1:19–20: “Who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from [Vol. 2, Page 30] the dead.”⁶⁰ Can man, then, resist the almighty power of God? Scripture teaches that the operation of God through the means of grace, though God operates there with this full power, can be hindered by man. Luther’s axiom is based on Scripture: When God works through means, He can be resisted; when God operates without means, in His uncovered majesty, He cannot be resisted.⁶¹ When God deals with men through His Word and says to them: “Come unto Me” (Matt. 11:28), resistance is possible; so Christ reports: “Ye would not” (Matt. 23:37). But when Christ will appear on Judgment Day in His uncovered majesty (“in His glory”), all resistance is excluded, for “before Him shall be gathered all nations,” etc. (Matt. 25:31–32). The statement, therefore, of the supporters of a gratia particularis that when God earnestly desires a thing, no man can resist His will must be changed, on the basis of Scripture, to read that when God works through means, and earnestly means to accomplish His purpose, His will can be resisted.⁶² Thus the whole Calvinistic argument that the “result” is the correct interpretation of the will of God falls to the ground.

Nor does the divine judgment of obduration disprove the gratia seria et efficax. On the contrary, the Scriptural doctrine of obduration proves that God seriously willed the salvation of these men. According to Scripture, God does not harden a man according to an absolute decree, but his hardening results from his own guilt, from man’s resistance to God’s Word and will. Obduracy is God’s dreadful judgment upon those who despise the grace offered them and resist the operation of the Holy Ghost. It sets in, as Rom. 11:9 expressly states, [Vol. 2, Page 31] as “a recompense unto them.”⁶³ That is clearly seen, too, from the context of the passages in the Gospels which speak of hardening, blinding, hiding of the grace, etc.: John 12:40; Matt. 13:14–15; 11:25–26; 23:38; etc. The words of John 12:40: “He hath blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts,” are preceded by the words: “Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you …. While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light. These things spake Jesus and departed and did hide Himself from them. But though He had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on Him.” The account of the hiding of grace (Matt. 11:25): “Because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent,” is preceded by the account of how urgently God had offered His grace to them, v. 20.: ff. “Then He began to upbraid the cities wherein most of His mighty works were done, because they repented not,” etc. And by describing the persons from whom God’s grace was hidden as “the wise and prudent,” Christ indicates that here a judgment of God is being executed on people who set their own wisdom against the divine revelation of grace.⁶⁴ Yes, it is stated that God withdrew His grace from the Jews (Matt. 23:38): “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.” But mark well, the words that immediately precede are these: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets … how often would I have gathered thy children together … and ye would not.” If Jews were hardened, this hardening came upon them because, as Stephen tells them: “Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost; as your fathers did, so do ye” (Acts 7:51). The Scripture doctrine of obduracy is thus no proof against, but for the gratia seria et efficax.⁶⁵[Vol. 2, Page 32]

The Christian Church must guard the gratia seria et efficax not only against the Calvinists, but also against the synergists in so far as these teach that saving grace produces only the ability to believe and not faith itself. The Arminians and the synergistic Lutherans do say that God’s grace is seria, efficax, sufficiens, yea, that it works all things. But they add that the gracious divine power in the means of grace does not suffice to produce faith; human co-operation is necessary for the production of faith itself. One group, the Arminian, expressly calls that on which conversion depends besides the grace of God “human co-operation” (co-operatio) and the exercise of the free will of natural man.⁶⁶

The other group designates the aliquid in homine on which conversion depends the “self-decision” made possible by grace, the proper “conduct” of man, the yielding to grace, the refraining from willful resistance, etc.⁶⁷ But both groups mean the same thing: the divine operation in the means of grace does not suffice to produce faith itself. Scripture, however, teaches that grace not only makes it possible for man to believe, giving him the power to believe, but that it creates the very act of faith (Phil. 1:29: “Unto you it is given … to believe on Him”).

In teaching, with Scripture, both the gratia universalis, seria, et efficax and the sola gratia we are confronted with a difficulty, with a question which at all times has constituted the crux theologorum: Why, then, are not all men converted and saved? Both the Calvinists and the synergists, as has been shown, are ready with an answer. The Calvinists answer by denying the universalis gratia, the synergists by [Vol. 2, Page 33] denying the sola gratia. But both of these solutions are contrary to Scripture. The Lutheran Church refuses to answer the question. It recognizes at this point a mystery which cannot be solved in this life and teaches that both the universalis gratia and sola gratia must be maintained side by side, without any rationalistic compromise. The Lutheran Church teaches that in this question all our thoughts must remain within these limits: Whoever is saved, is saved by grace alone, and not because of a lesser guilt or a better conduct over against grace; whoever is lost, is lost through his own fault, and not through a lack of the grace of God or of the gracious operation of God.⁶⁸ The various attempts to solve this problem reveal theological immaturity. No mature theologian will indulge in such speculation. Universal grace is and will remain an article of faith.

Not even the fact that not all nations on earth and not all individuals in any one nation have had the Gospel should move us to doubt the gratia universalis et seria which Scripture so clearly teaches. The judgments of God by which He punishes the rejectzion of the Gospel also in the descendants, are, as the Formula of Concord points out (Trigl. 1081, F. C., Sol. Decl., XI, 58), unsearchable. Rom. 11:33 f.: “How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past firming out!” In order to safeguard universal grace before the forum of human reason, some have thought that the heathen will be saved for Christ’s sake, without faith in the Gospel, merely on account of their moral striving (Hofmann, Schriftbeweis, 2d ed. I, p. 568 f., and others). Others have assumed that after this life an opportunity to hear the Gospel and to believe it will be offered (Martensen, Kliefoth, etc.). But these are human speculations, without any foundation in Scripture. Scripture knows of no salvation for men without faith in the Gospel.⁶⁹ [Vol. 2, Page 34] Nor does Scripture recognize any opportunity to come to faith after this life. 1 Pet. 3:18 ff.: “He went and preached unto the spirits in prison” does not, according to the context, say that the Gospel was preached, but that judgment was pronounced upon those who here on earth heard, but despised the Gospel (a full discussion of this passage is offered in the doctrine of “Christ’s Descent into Hell”). Accordingly, if we wish to stand on Scripture, there is but one thing to do: we must believe, because Scripture clearly teaches it, the universality of saving grace. The facts of history seem to be in conflict with this doctrine, but it does not behoove us to interpret the clear Scripture teaching according to our dim understanding of God’s ways in history. In eternal life, when our understanding of God and divine things will no longer be fragmentary (ἐκ μέρους, 1 Cor. 13:12),this obscure matter, too, will become dear to us.

4
Theological Terminology Regarding the Divine Will of Grace

The grace and favor of God in Christ toward all men is described by Scripture also as the will of God. 1 Tim. 2:4: “God will (θέλει) have all men to be saved.” In defining this will of God, theologians have used the terms voluntas absoluta, voluntas ordinata, voluntas conditionata, voluntas antecedens and consequens, voluntas revelata and abscondita. How are we to understand these definitions in a Scriptural sense?

1. According to Scripture the will of God to save all men must not be called an absolute (voluntas absoluta), but an ordinate will (voluntas ordinata). It is based on Christ’s merit (satisfactio vicaria) and embraces on the part of God the conferring means (media δοτικά) the Gospel and the Sacraments, and on the part of man the receiving means (medium ληπτικόν), faith. God would have all men to be saved, but only for Christ’s sake and through the means of grace and faith.

This gracious will to save could be called an absolute will only in the sense that it is entirely independent of all human worthiness. God would save the whole of mankind and every single individual by grace (χάριτι), irrespective of the works of man (χωρι̂ς ἔργων νόμου). With respect to human worthiness there is no difference among men, “for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).[Vol. 2, Page 35]

2. The term conditional will (voluntas conditionata) is used in a twofold sense. If it is used as a synonym of voluntas ordinata—and Luther and other orthodox teachers have thus occasionally employed the term⁷⁰—it expresses a Scriptural truth. But if it is used in the sense that any human work is needed for the appropriation of salvation, it expresses an error. In this false sense old and modern synergists use the term “conditional will of grace”; they do not ascribe conversion to God alone, but maintain that man co-operates toward his conversion by his “self-decision,” good “conduct,” the “omission of willful resistance,” etc.

Our orthodox dogmaticians have already shown that this ambiguous term, “conditional will of grace,” has been used to hide the introduction of human merit and the doctrine of works into the order of salvation. They pointed out that conditional clauses either express a real condition, that is, demand an equivalent from man, or merely describe the mode and manner by which the object is attained. “If you work, you will receive the wages,” expresses a real condition. “If you eat, your hunger will be appeased,” expresses the mode and manner of reaching the desired result. Apply this to the conditional statements in Scripture. Either these are legal demands (thus in the sentence: “If you keep the Law, you will be saved,” the “if” expresses a real condition, calling upon man to do his part), or they are evangelical pronouncements. When, for example, in describing the divine will of grace, the expression is used: “If you believe the Gospel, you will be saved,” the “if” always expresses the manner or way of appropriating grace and never demands a human contribution or accomplishment. Faith, by which grace and salvation is obtained, in Scripture is always placed in opposition to all human achievements. Rom. 3:28: “By faith … without the works of the Law.” Gal. 2:16: “A man is not justified by the works of the Law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ.”⁷¹[Vol. 2, Page 36]

3. The old distinction between the antecedent, or first, will (voluntas antecedens, voluntas prima) and the consequent, or second, will (voluntas consequens, voluntas secunda)⁷² (though there has been much ill-advised discussion both pro and con) is Scriptural if it is used to express the thought contained in John 3:17–18; etc. This passage compels us to conceive of God as originally desiring to save all men through faith in Christ (vol. prima). “God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He that believeth on Him is not condemned.” (Vv. 17–18 a.) It is only after men refuse to believe in Christ that God pronounces the judgment of damnation (voluntas secunda): “But he that believeth not is condemned already because he hath not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God” (v. 18 b.).

Calvinism rejects this distinction between the antecedent and consequent will of God and teaches the unscriptural doctrine that the will of God is twofold from the outset, as though God had originally decided to save only a part of mankind and to condemn the rest. The argument advanced by the Calvinists that in God there is no before [Vol. 2, Page 37] and after⁷³ is futile. While it is true that in God there is no time, but solely “pure presence,” it would be utterly wrong to build up our knowledge of God on this fact. We are utterly unable to know God in His absolute being, for God in His essence is for us “the Light which no man can approach unto” (1 Tim. 6:16). We can know God only in so far as He has, in merciful condescension to our limited human comprehension, revealed Himself to us in Holy Scripture. And according to the revelation given us in Scripture we must conceive of the divine acts as preceding or following each other. Lutheran theologians have insisted on this truth very strongly over against Calvinists.⁷⁴ We must maintain: There is in God indeed no time; God is the changeless eternal One (Deus temporis est expers). There are no parts in God; He is absolute simplicity (Deus ab omni compositione vera et reali liber est). Hence when we distinguish between the first and the second will of God, we do not mean to say that there is in God a temporal succession of thoughts and two separate wills (duae reapse distinctae voluntates). But God in His unchangeable eternity and in His absolute simplicity is God in His majesty, far beyond human understanding. Our human conceptions are bound by time and space. But God would be known by us; He therefore steps out of His unapproachable majesty, and in His Word He has become man, speaking to us in a human manner, so that we can understand it. Luther writes: “God does not deal with us in His majesty, but takes on a human form and speaks to us throughout Scripture as a man with man … speaks in all things with us without majesty, and, so to say, lays aside the [Vol. 2, Page 38] form of God (exinanita forma Dei)” (St. L. II:1442). Let us repeat this: since we can have no conception of the absolutely simple God, God reveals Himself to us in Scripture “in part,” piece by piece, i.e., according to distinct attributes, which indeed are one in God but must be distinguished by us on the basis of the divine revelation.⁷⁵ And since we human beings are bound to the sequence of time, God has Himself revealed to us in His Word in what order and sequence our thoughts regarding God and God’s will must move in order to be correct thoughts. In this manner we obtain not a perfect, fully complete, knowledge of God, but nevertheless a correct knowledge, suited to the weakness of our mundane understanding of Him.

If, then, we ask: “What is God’s will as to saving and damning man?” we must on the basis of John 3:17–18, etc., first think of God as desiring to condemn no one, but to save all men, without exception, by faith in Christ; only after that, in the second place, may we think of God as willing to condemn those who refuse to believe in Christ. If the distinction of the voluntas antecedens (prima) and voluntas consequens (secunda) is thus used to set forth the order of thought given in John 3:17–18, and throughout Scripture, namely, that by the Gospel, God would save all men and will damn only those who refuse to believe, then this distinction must be accepted as altogether Scriptural. The objection that in God there is no before and after is not to the point, because here we are not concerned with the question how God exists in Himself, but how He has revealed Himself to us in His Word.

The “absolute knowledge of God” is one of the sine mente soni, sounds without sense, with which the vocabulary of certain philosophers and philosophizing theologians abounds.

On the other hand, the Semipelagians and synergists have at all times made use of the distinction between the first and second will of God as a convenient device to support their error. They do this by extending the second will not only to the lost, but also to the saved. They say that the first will of God, His universal gracious will, remains ineffective Without human co-operation. So the second will of God makes salvation contingent on man’s co-operation, which, according to some, [Vol. 2, Page 39] forms a part of faith itself. To guard against this abuse, it is advisable to follow those theologians who name as the objects of the second will only those who are lost because of their unbelief.⁷⁶ Only that is Scriptural. In the case of the saved, no new will operates; what is effected in them is what God would effect according to His universal gracious will, the voluntas antecedens, in all men, the will to save all men by grace, without any human works or co-operation, by faith in Christ. It makes no sense to divide this will of God into a first and second will in the case of those saved by faith in Christ. To do this would give countenance to the error that the universal gracious will is not a serious and efficacious will and that it becomes such only when “faith,” taken as human achievement, is added. To ward off all misconception, we shall have to say: According to the voluntas antecedens God would save all men through faith in Christ; according to the voluntas consequens, God condemns all who do not believe in Christ.

These same thoughts are expressed when the voluntas antecedens is called the will of mercy (voluntas misericordiae) and the voluntas consequens, the will of justice (voluntas iustitiae). Thus Gerhard defines: “The antecedent will is the one according to which God as the most benignant Father desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth; according to the consequent will, God, as the most just Judge, wills to damn those who remain impenitent and unbelieving” (loc. cit., § 271).

4. The distinction between the revealed will (voluntas revelata, voluntas signi) and the hidden will (voluntas abscondita, beneplaciti), though it has been much abused, must be retained as entirely Scriptural. On the one hand, Scripture teaches a will of God which has been fully revealed to us (1 Cor. 2:10: “God hath revealed them to us by His Spirit,” v. 16: “We have the mind of Christ”); on the other hand, it speaks of a mind of God which no man has known nor can know (Rom. 11:34: “Who hath known the mind of the Lord?”).

Scripture clearly reveals to us the will of God in the Law and the will of God in the Gospel. God’s will revealed in the Law requires that all men conform perfectly in their entire nature and in all their [Vol. 2, Page 40] thoughts, words, and deeds to His Law and He pronounces on all transgressors the judgment of damnation (Matt. 5:17–19; Gal. 3:10). According to the Gospel, or according to His gracious will, God would have all men to be saved without the deeds of the Law, for Christ’s sake, by faith in Him. True, Scripture calls this gracious will of God “the wisdom of God in a mystery,” “the hidden wisdom” (1 Cor. 2:6–9). but this mystery has been revealed to us by the only-begotten Son of God, who is in the bosom of the Father: “God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16), and this gracious will of God extends over all men. Scripture has clearly revealed this fact. According to Scripture, God does not approach men with a twofold will, that is, with a will to show His love and mercy to a part of mankind, and with a will to demonstrate His wrath and avenging justice to the other part, as Calvinists wrongly teach; but, according to Scripture, God wills to magnify His grace in all men, for God “sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved” (John 3:17). Judgment comes into play only after a person “hath not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God” (John 3:18). This is the voluntas Dei revelata.

This divine will has also been fittingly called the voluntas signi. The meaning is that God, who in His essence is invisible and unknowable to us, has through His Word stepped out of His hidden invisibility and through His Word as through a perceptible sign (signum) has made Himself known to us.⁷⁷

On the other hand, Scripture tells us that the mind of God underlying His “unsearchable judgments and His ways past finding out” is unknown and unknowable to us here on earth. It exclaims: “Who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who hath been His counselor?” (Rom. 11:33–34.) Scripture clearly indicates the point at which the judgments of God become unsearchable for us, and we are at a loss to understand His ways. Such is the case when we compare the fate of individual persons and of individual nations (Isaac and Ishmael, [Vol. 2, Page 41] Jacob and Esau, Jews and Gentiles, Romans 9–11). There the question arises: “Why the one rather than the other?” (Cur alii prae aliis?) This question would be answered if we could say with the synergists: “The conduct of the one was better than that of the other.” This better conduct would then be the reason explaining why some were converted and saved and others not. But the Apostle declares (Rom. 11:35): “Who hath first given to Him [God], and it shall be recompensed unto him again?” To try to solve the difficulty by assuming a causa discriminis in homine, therefore, conflicts with Scripture. The problem would also be solved if we were permitted to say with the Calvinists that God’s grace is particularis and that consequently God, in His grace and gracious activity, passes by a part of mankind or that God is not at all minded to convert those who remain unconverted. But this explanation, too, is contrary to Scripture. The Apostle attests the earnest gracious will of God toward disobedient Israel in Rom. 10:21. There he quotes God from Is. 65:2: “All day long I have stretched forth My hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people.” Furthermore, immediately before pointing to the unsearchable judgments of God, he declares (Rom. 11:32) that God as shut them all up together, Jews and Gentiles, in unbelief “that He might have mercy upon all.”⁷⁸ God’s mercy, therefore, is universal; it extends as far as human unbelief. Thus the question why some rather than the others are converted is left unanswered by Scripture.

Presenting and motivating the inscrutable dealing of God still further, the Apostle adds that everything that exists and occurs is “of God and through God and to God” (Rom. 11:36). These words describe, as Luther reminds us, God in His divine majesty. They present God as the absolutely independent One, who is the beginning, middle, and end of all things, pervading and ruling everything according to His wisdom and knowledge, which are wholly beyond us. In short, there are dispensations of God for which we cannot assign a satisfactory [Vol. 2, Page 42] reason. That is the Deus absconditus (the hidden God), the voluntas abscondita. We must, therefore, let the distinction between the revealed and the hidden God stand as Scriptural.

We must distinguish between the two—not intermingle them. That would be the height of folly. It is indeed a foolish undertaking to try to explain the known by the unknown. It results in making the entire Christian doctrine, so clearly revealed in Scripture, altogether uncertain. Calvinism commits this folly of mixing the voluntas abscondita into the voluntas revelata. Calvinism deduces, freely and frankly, from the inscrutable dispensation of God in history (He gives the Gospel to one people in preference to another; one person is converted and saved before another) that there is no divine universal will of grace though it is clearly revealed in Scripture. Synergism commits the same folly. From the inscrutable dispensation of God in history (some rather than others are converted and saved) it deduces without any restriction that there is no sola gratia, which is so clearly revealed in Holy Scripture. It teaches that the conversion and salvation of man depends not solely on God’s gracious favor and God’s gracious operation in the means of grace, but also on man’s self-decision, his better conduct, his lesser guilt, etc. Synergism intermingles the voluntas abscondita and the voluntas revelata in such a way that it abolishes the sola gratia.

That, however, is not Christian theology. The Christian theologian, on the one hand, will not deny the unsearchable judgments and inscrutable ways of God; he admits that, in this respect, he is facing a voluntas abscondita—for Scripture teaches it—but, on the other hand, when answering the question how God is minded toward men and what is His purpose toward them, he will turn away completely from the voluntas abscondita and judge concerning God’s will toward us solely from His Gospel revelation in Scripture, which includes both the universalis gratia and the sola gratia. That is the theology of the Lutheran Confessions. The Formula of Concord fixes the exact point where God’s ways become unsearchable for us, namely, in the revelation that God knows all things and all things are subject to His will and decision (Trigl. 1081, F. C., Art. XI, 54–57), and, above all, in the historical fact “that God gives His Word at one place, but not at another; removes it from one place and allows it to remain at another; also, that one is hardened, blinded, given over to a reprobate mind, while another, who is indeed in the same guilt, is converted again.” The Formula of Concord accepts this historical fact on the basis of Rom. 11:33 as an inscrutable mystery and does not draw it into the [Vol. 2, Page 43] voluntas revelata. Nor does it assert this fact to abrogate the sola gratia, after the fashion of the synergists, or to destroy the gratia universalis, after the fashion of the Calvinists. It leaves the revealed sola gratia intact and does not teach a lesser guilt and a better conduct on the part of the saved, but ascribes to them the same guilt and the same wicked conduct. So also it leaves the revealed universalis gratia intact; it names as the cause of perdition not a divine will of particular grace, but man’s rejection of the gracious will of God (cf. F. C., 57–61). The authors of the Formula are well aware that in teaching the universalis gratia and the sola gratia they are confessing two truths that seem to annul each other. But they hold fast both truths, because both truths are clearly revealed in Holy Scripture and, according to God’s will, “we should not reason in our thoughts, draw conclusions, nor inquire curiously into these matters, but should adhere to His revealed Word” (F. C., 55), and let His unsearchable judgments and inscrutable ways, as these face us in history, be and remain unsearchable and incomprehensible.

We submit a somewhat extended discussion of Luther’s position as to the voluntas revelata and abscondita, since men are insisting to this day that Luther’s doctrine is identical with Calvin’s and that Luther, differing from the Formula of Concord, taught contradictoriae Dei voluntates.⁷⁹ But Luther’s position is identical with that of the Formula of Concord, as is apparent from a letter Luther wrote in 1528 to an unknown person, which summarizes his teaching on this point.⁸⁰ Luther here says that God Almighty “knows all things and that all actions and thoughts in all creatures must come to pass according to His will (iuxta decretum voluntatis suae).” But he at once adds: “It is nevertheless His earnest will and purpose, indeed, His command, decreed from eternity, to save ali men and make them partakers of eternal joy, as is clearly stated Ezek. 18:23, where He says: ‘God does not desire the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn and live.’ Now, if He desires to save and have with Him the sinners who live and move under the wide and high heaven, then you must not separate and exclude yourself from the grace of God by your foolish thoughts which are inspired by the devil.” Observe that Luther calls it “foolish thoughts which are inspired by the devil” when a person mingles God, in so far as He is to us absconditus and incomprehensible in His [Vol. 2, Page 44] knowledge, operations, and will, into the certain, revealed Word and so renders universal grace uncertain to himself. In a letter of the year 1531 (St.L. X:1746) Luther says: “Such thoughts are nothing else than a prying into God’s majesty” and “surely the temptations and fiery darts of the abominable devil.” Drastically Luther adds: “If they come up in your heart, let them come out at once, just as one quickly expectorates when dirt is splashed into his mouth.” Such thoughts, Luther says, one must “send home to the devil,” telling him: “If you really are so wise in these things, then ascend to heaven and dispute with God Himself; His answer will soon shut you up.” In this way Luther constantly speaks of the revealed and the inscrutable will of God.⁸¹

Luther’s teaching may be summed up thus: There are for our human mind unfathomable depths and an unsearchable will in God, such as God’s omniscience, His all-pervasive activity, and particularly the question: Cur alii prae aliis? But we human beings must not make this will the object of our knowledge; the attempt to explore this will of God and to read from it God’s intentions toward us is foolish presumption and makes for eternal perdition. The revealed will of God is the sole source of our knowledge of God’s will toward us. God, who has revealed Himself in Christ, who lay in the manger and hung on the Cross, and who reveals Himself in the objective signs ordained by Him, namely, in the Word and the Sacraments, as willing to save all men, that is God as He actually feels toward us, of that will of God we are sure. On that [gracious] God our faith must confidently (cum certa fiducia) rely.

It is to be noted that Luther speaks in this way not only in the later years of his activity, as in his Commentary on Genesis (6:5; ⁸² [Vol. 2, Page 45] 26:9⁸³), but specifically also in 1525 in De Servo Arbitrio. He there writes: “God, therefore, must be permitted to remain (unsearched) in His own nature and majesty; for in this respect we have nothing to do with Him, nor does He wish us in this respect to have anything to do with Him. But we have to do with Him as far as He is clothed and delivered to us in His Word; for in this He presents Himself unto us, and that is His beauty and glory, in which the Psalmist exalts Him as being clothed …. We are to consider His Word only and to leave that will inscrutable; because it is by His Word and not by His inscrutable will that we are to be guided; for who can direct himself according to a will that is inscrutable and incomprehensible? It is enough to know only that there is in God a certain inscrutable will; but what, why, and how far that will wills, it is not lawful for us to inquire, to wish to know, to be concerned about or to reach unto; it is only to be feared and adored. Therefore, it is rightly said: ‘If God does not desire our death, it is to be laid to the charge of our own will if we perish.’ This, I say, is right when you speak of the God who is proclaimed [in the Bible]; for He desires that all men should be saved, since He comes to all through His saving Word, and [if anyone is damned] it is the fault of the will that does not receive Him, as He says Matt. 23:37: ‘How often would I have gathered thy children [Vol. 2, Page 46] together, and thou wouldst not.’ ” (St. L. XVIII:1795f.)⁸⁴ In a letter written in the same year to the Christians in Antwerp he gives the same advice.⁸⁵

True, also Calvin says that we should not seek to explore the hidden will of God, but rely on Christ and the Gospel.⁸⁶ But how can Calvin direct men to rely on Christ and the Gospel since he teaches that only some of the hearers of the Word have a claim on Christ? As a matter of fact, he does not direct men to Christ and the Gospel, but to their inward renewal and sanctification, or to the gratia infusa. The Christ to whom Calvin directs men is not the Christ who bore the sins of the world and is preached in the Gospel as the Savior of all [Vol. 2, Page 47] sinners, but an interior Spiritus illuminatio. He states expressly that the universal call (universalis vocatio), by which God invites all men to come to Him, even those whom He does not intend to save, but whom, by giving them the Word, He only leads to greater damnation, cannot be made the criterion of God’s will toward us. The true index is the special call (specialis vocatio) or the internal illumination of the Holy Spirit. Inst. III, 24:8: “There are two kinds of calling. There is the universal call, by which God, through the external preaching of the Word, invites all men alike to come to Him, even those to whom He designs it as a savor of death and the ground of a severer condemnation. Besides this, there is the special call, which, for the most part, God bestows on believers only when by the internal illumination of the Spirit He causes the Word preached to take deep root in their hearts …. Few, therefore, out of the great multitude that are called are chosen; the calling, however, not being of that kind which enables believers to judge of their election.”

Calvin is also under a delusion when he distinguishes between the hidden depths in God and the revelation in God’s Word (Inst. III, 21, 1. 2; 24, 3). The depths of the Godhead are not hidden to Calvin; they are so clear to him that by them he cancels the revelation in the Word (the gratia universalis).—It is amazing how often Calvin contradicts himself in presenting his doctrine of the will of God toward men. For example, he says again and again that one reason why the call through the Word is couched in such general terms is that the reprobate may have no excuse, but must condemn themselves doubly to hell because of their rejection of the love and grace of God.⁸⁷ Calvin forgets entirely that according to his doctrine there is no love and grace of God for the reprobate, hence also no possibility of their despising God’s love and grace.⁸⁸[Vol. 2, Page 48]

It has become quite fashionable to speak of an essential agreement between Luther and Calvin in their profession of a revealed and a hidden will in God. Both certainly used these terms, but in the matter itself they differed completely. The following points show their complete disagreement. 1. Luther lets the Word of God, Scripture itself, tell him what the gracious will of God is, how far it extends, and what it effects. Calvin lets the result (effectus) or the historical experience (experientia) determine what God’s gracious will is. 2. Luther leaves universal grace as taught by Scripture wholly intact; he says, as we heard above, that it is “foolish” not to believe it on account of the incomprehensible judgments of God. Calvin is astonished at the folly of people who still believe a universal gracious will of God, since the effect of the Gospel is only “particular.”⁸⁹ 3. Luther teaches that God works also on those who are finally lost to produce faith in them and avert their damnation,⁹⁰ but that this operation of God, exerted through the Word, may be resisted and that therefore the failure of the Word must be charged to human resistance (cf. what was said under “Serious and Efficacious Grace”). Calvin denies all this; men cannot thwart the will of God,⁹¹ and so God does not at all work on those who are lost to convert them.⁹² 4. Luther accepts a seeming contradiction between God’s revealed will and the incomprehensible [Vol. 2, Page 49] judgments of God; eternal life will show that there was none.⁹³ Calvin places the incomprehensible judgments of God in real contradiction to the revealed will; he seeks to establish a harmony by nullifying the revealed will by the hidden.

A Reformed theologian of our day, E. F. Karl Mueller, has called attention to the essential difference between Luther’s and Calvin’s doctrines in these words: “It is a fact that the character of Luther’s faith, which rested immediately on the Word and the Sacraments and on nothing else, emphasizes over against the ‘Sacramentarians’ the so-called objectivity of the means of grace, i.e., not only their trustworthiness, but also their operation in every case, often in a manner that finally had to undermine the predestinarian faith” (R. E. 3d ed., XV, 599). That is correct—except that Luther never held the predestinarian faith in the sense of a gratia particularis.

Concluding Remarks

The teaching of Luther and the Formula of Concord that both the universalis gratia and the sola gratia must be upheld without any rationalizing compromise and that therefore the question: Cur alii prae aliis? must remain unanswered in this life, has been thoroughly condemned through the course of the centuries down to our own time. The criticism runs the gamut from downright rejection of this doctrine to friendly excuses for it. Shedd denies, from his Calvinistic standpoint, all right of existence to the position of Luther and the [Vol. 2, Page 50] Formula of Concord. He claims that there are only “two great systems of theology which divide evangelical Christendom: Calvinism and Arminianism” (Dogmatic Theology I, 448). Luthardt does the same thing from his synergistic standpoint; he insists that if one would retain the universalis gratia, the sola gratia must be given up.⁹⁴ Also well-meaning later Lutheran dogmaticians, e.g., Gottfried Hoffmann, list among the “rather hard statements” Luther’s and Brenz’s (and the Formula of Concord) statements that in this life they could not answer the question: Cur alii prae aliis?⁹⁵ These criticisms reveal the theological backwardness of the critics. Only the Calvinists and synergists presume to answer the question. And since Scripture does not take either the Calvinistic or the synergistic position, but teaches both the universalis gratia and the sola gratia, those who answer the question have abandoned the principle that Scripture alone is the source and norm of doctrine.

Both of the attempted solutions make faith in Christ entirely impossible. Calvinism does that. Wherever the doctrine is taught that the grace of God does not exist for the greater part of mankind, every. hearer, particularly the sinner convicted by the Law, must remain in doubt whether there is grace for him. But such doubt absolutely destroys faith. The reason why many in Calvinistic communions still come to faith lies in the fact that preachers as well as hearers forget the gratia particularis. There are Calvinistic teachers who insist that especially when one is harassed by doubt, recourse must be had to the Scripture statements which speak of universal grace.⁹⁶ Thus Calvinism, whose advocates are so sure of their case and designate the teaching [Vol. 2, Page 51] of universal grace as folly (cf. Boehl, Dogmatik, p. 282 ff.), completely refutes itself.

Also Arminianism and synergism, which does not let salvation depend solely on the grace of God in Christ, but makes human self-determination, self-decision, better conduct, lesser resistance, lesser guilt, etc., the deciding factor, cannot produce faith in the grace of God in Christ. Let the notion prevail that God is gracious only to him who can show correct behavior, a lesser guilt, etc., before God, and the poor sinner, crushed by the Law, will not dare to stretch out his hand toward divine grace. He will be unable to believe, for it is the nature of faith to rely solely on grace.⁹⁷ When a man claims that he excels others by having lesser guilt and that he is therefore somewhat entitled to divine grace, Scripture definitely describes such an attitude as a defection from grace.⁹⁸ But here, too, the practice often is better than the theory. Luther already in De Servo Arbitrio declared that many who in their disputations make much of the meritoriousness of their conduct, before God and in their hearts relied solely on grace.⁹⁹

Finally, it is clear that both the Calvinistic and the synergistic attempt at solution changes the Scriptural concept of saving grace as gratuitus Dei favor propter Christum into gratia infusa. Whoever [Vol. 2, Page 52] denies the universal gracious disposition of God proclaimed in the Gospel must necessarily direct those who seek grace to the effects of grace in man, that is, to the gratia infusa. Synergists do this from the outset by asserting that conversion and salvation do not depend alone on God’s grace in Christ, but also on the better human conduct. Thus all who would be wiser than Scripture and would answer the question: Cur alii prae aliis? in this life, land in the Roman camp, in work-righteousness.

Here again we perceive how closely related to one another the Christian doctrines, as revealed in Scripture, are. They form a unit. They are, in the language of Luther, an unbroken ring. To correct one or the other doctrine for the purpose of removing gaps or seeming contradictions, in the interest of a so-called scientific system, can only result in the destruction of the cardinal doctrine of Christianity, justification by faith without works.

[Vol. 2, Page 53]  42 The objection that these passages refer to cases that cannot actually occur (thus Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, II, 481) would destroy the whole argument of the Apostle.43 Thomasius arranges the Scripture passages in this order: “God’s saving will is universal; it embraces all men, 1 Tim. 2:4: ‘Who would have all men to be saved,’ the totality of the apostate race; John 3:16: κόσμος; particularly Rom. 11:32: ‘God hath concluded them all in unbelief that He might have mercy upon all’; He excludes no one from salvation, 2 Pet. 3:9, not even those who spurn it, just as Christ also died for those who take offense at Him and reject Him, Rom. 14:15; 1 Cor. 8:11; 2 Pet. 2:1.” (Dogmatik, 2d ed., I, p. 423.)44 De elect. et reprob., § 37: “We oppose to this opinion [particular grace] that beneficial will of God by which He earnestly desires and strives for the conversion and salvation of all men; of this beneficial will Scripture has testified by words, Christ by tears, God Himself by an oath.”45 Formula of Concord: “We must in every way hold firmly and sturdily to this, that, as the preaching of repentance, so also the promise of the Gospel is universalis, that is, it pertains to all men, Luke 24:47. For this reason Christ has commanded ‘that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations.’ ‘For God loved the world and gave His Son,’ John 3:16. Christ bore the sins of the world, John 1:29, gave His flesh for the life of the world, John 6:51; His blood is ‘the propitiation for the sins of the whole world,’ 1 John 1:7; 2:2. Christ says: ‘Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,’ Matt. 11:28. ‘God hath concluded them all in unbelief that He might have mercy upon all,’ Rom. 11:32. ‘The Lord is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance,’ 2 Pet. 3:9. And this call of God, which is made through the preaching of the Word, we should not regard as jugglery, but know that thereby God reveals His will, that in those whom He thus calls He will work through the Word, that they may be enlightened, converted, and saved.” (Trigl. 1071, F. C., Sol. Decl., XI, 28 f.)46 They argue: “If God Himself would work the appropriation of salvation, the obedience of faith, conversion, then certainly predestinationism [i. e., the denial of the gratia universalis] would be the inevitable result” (Luthardt, Die Lehre vom freien Willen, p. 276). This charge will be fully investigated in the loci on “Conversion” and on “Election.”47 Consider his powerful words on John 1:29: “In yonder life it will be our eternal joy and delight that the Son of God condescends so deeply and shoulders my sin; not only my sins, but also the sins of the whole world, committed from Adam on down to the very last man, He takes upon Himself as committed by Him, and He suffers and dies for them that I may be without sin and obtain eternal life and bliss …. And this text is God’s Word and not our word, devised by us, that God slew this Lamb and that this Lamb in divine obedience to the Father took upon Him the sin of the whole world. But the world will have nothing of it …. What more should the Lamb do? The Lamb says: You are all condemned, but I will take upon Me your sins; I have become the whole world, have assumed the person of all men from Adam on. In place of the sin which we got from Adam, He will give us righteousness. And I should certainly say: That I will believe …. That men, however, do not believe, is not due to a failure of the Lord Jesus, but the fault is mine. If I do not believe it, I remain in my condemnation. I must simply say that God’s Lamb has borne the world’s sin and that I am earnestly enjoined to believe and confess this, yea, to die in this faith. Ay, but you might say, who knows whether He bears also my sins? I can easily believe that He bore the sins of St. Peter, St. Paul, and other saints; they were pious people; if only I, too, were St. Peter or St. Paul! Do you not hear what St. John here says: ‘This is the Lamb of God that bears the sins of the world’? You cannot deny that you are a part of the world …. If, then, you are in the world and your sins are a part of the world’s sin, this text tells you: All that bears the name of sin, the world and the world’s sin, from the beginning of the world down to us and to the end of the world, lies on this Lamb of God alone; and since you, too, are a part of the world and remain in the world, you, too, will share in enjoying the good things of which this text speaks.” (St. L. VII:1717 ff.)48 Once he changes “all men” into “many men” (De corrupt. et gratia, c. 14), then again into “omne hominum genus” (Enchir. ad Laur., c. 103). Here he even puts the meaning into the words: “As though he had said that no man would be saved except him whom God desired to save.” Augustine feels that these interpretations do not give the meaning of the passage, and so he says finally in despair: “And in whatever other manner it might be understood—if only we are not forced to believe that God willed the happening of something and it did not happen.” He has lost sight of the Scripture truth that when God works through means, He can be resisted (Matt. 23:37; Acts 7:51).49 Cf. Chemnitz, Loci, locus “De Iustif.,” p. 728. The fundamental error of Augustine was that because Pelagius, his opponent, denied the renewing power of grace, he so stressed the gratia infusa that the first and principal meaning of grace, namely, favor Dei propter Christum, which forgives sin, receded, to say the least, very much into the background of his theology. Justification became for him not merely God’s verdict of justification, but it also consisted in the infusion of powers of [divine] grace.50

The Formula Consensus Helvetica, opposing the attempts made within the Reformed Church to modify the doctrine (Amyraldism), declares: “Christ … in the time of the New Covenant, became surety for those alone who were given Him through the eternal election as His peculiar people, His seed and heritage. For these alone, the elect, He, according to the decreeing counsel of the Father and His own intention, subjected Himself to dire death; these alone He restored into the bosom of the paternal grace; these alone He reconciled to God, the offended Father, and delivered from the curse of the Law. All this being true, we cannot approve the opposite doctrine of those who hold that Christ, according to His own intention and the counsel both of Himself and of the Father who sent Him, has died for all and everybody, adding the impossible condition, namely, if they believed.” Particularly clear are also the words of Beza: “There never was, nor is, nor will be a time when God willed or wills or will will to have compassion on every single man.” (Respons. 2. ad acta Colloq. Mompelg., p. 194; see Quenstedt, Systema, II, p. 11.)

Friedr. Spanheim: “This is the sum of our opinion: Neither can a will to have compassion on all and everyone for salvation be ascribed to God, nor a will to have all and everyone redeemed by Christ, nor a will of calling all and everyone through Christ; therefore universal grace must not be taught nor defended” (Disp. de gratia univers., Thes. 5, p. 231; see Quenstedt, ibid.). The Westminster Confession of Faith declares: “Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, effectually called … but the elect only” (Ch. III, 6).51 Calvin: “For they are not all created with a similar destiny; but eternal life is foreordained for some and eternal damnation for others. Every man, therefore, being created for one or the other of these ends, we say, he is predestinated either to life or to death.” (Inst. III, 21:5; also III, 24, 12.)52

Most of the Reformed Confessions agree with the Canons of Dort, which declare that God determined “to leave a part of mankind in the common misery into which they precipitated themselves by their own fault and not to grant them saving faith and the grace of conversion” (see Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, III, p. 555). The Westminster Confession of Faith: “The rest of mankind God was pleased, according to the unsearchable counsel of His own will, whereby He extendeth or withholdeth mercy as He pleaseth for the glory of His sovereign power over His creatures, to pass by and to ordain them to dishonor and wrath for their sin, to the praise of His glorious justice.”

American Presbyterians have not changed the wording of this statement. However, the General Assembly adopted a Declaratory Statement and a Brief Statement of the Reformed Faith, both of which have the tendency to grant Arminianism equal right with Calvinism among Presbyterians. The declarations just quoted are to be found in E. F. Karl Mueller, Die Bekenntnisschriften der ref. Kirche, 1903, p. 941 ff. They are reviewed in Lehre und Wehre, 48, p. 182 f., and 49, p. 187 f.53 The Amyraldists took their name from Moses Amyraldus (Amyraut), who died 1664 as professor in Saumur. See A. Schweizer, Zentraldogmen, II, p. 292 ff. In R. E., 2d and 3d ed., he says: “Amyraldism clings to actual particularism, only that it adds an ideal universalism. Its main proposition is: ‘There is in God a will to save all men under the condition of faith, a condition which they could in themselves fulfill; but which, because of the inherited corruption clinging to them, they inevitably spurn, so that this universal will of grace actually saves no one. Besides this, there is a particular will in God, according to which He has from eternity determined to save a certain number of persons and to pass by all others.’ ” Quenstedt’s judgment must stand: “The Hypothetical Calvinists must be put in the same class with the Categorical Calvinists” (Systema II, p. 11).54 See Inst. III, 24, 15–17. Calvin counters the statement of the Prophet Ezekiel (33:11) that God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but desires that the wicked turn from his way and live, with the assertion: “Experience teaches that He does not will the repentance of those whom He externally calls in such a manner as to affect all their hearts.” And when, then, we say that one cannot trust the universal promises, he answers: “However universal the promises of salvation may be, there is no discrepancy between them and the predestination of the reprobate provided we attend to their effect.”55 The Baptism of John was not an empty ceremony, but John baptized “for the remission of sins” (Mark 1:4).56 Calvin, in his Commentary, on 1 Tim. 2:4: “The Apostle is speaking of all kinds of men, not of the individual persons.” The same thought is expressed in Inst. III, 24, 16. “World,” in all passages which say that Christ redeemed the “world,” means, according to Shedd (Dogmatic Theology II, p. 479) the Church. Chamier: “Though God wills the salvation of all men according to His voluntas signi, or His conditioned will, or His non-efficacious will, nevertheless He does not will the salvation of all according to His voluntas beneplaciti, or His absolute will, or His efficacious will.” (Panstrat. III, 7, 6; cf. Quenstedt, II, p. 13.) Cf. F. Pieper: “Geraten Lutheraner angesichts der Schriftstellen, welche von der Praedestination handeln, in Verlegenheit?” (Lehre und Wehre, 44, pp. 65–166.) This article considers all the arguments employed by the Reformed for changing the universal statements of Scripture into particular ones and shows that all the passages adduced by the Confession of Faith for a gratia particularis do not prove it.57 Luther: “Christ uses a very appealing and comforting simile when He compares Himself to a clucking hen …. There is no fowl, yea, hardly any animal, which so lovingly and earnestly looks after her young or chicks as does the hen. See how she lives and labors for her chicks; she even assumes a wholly different voice and call when she leads her chicks. See how she ruffles her feathers and spreads her wings, yes, may even fly at one’s neck, so that no animal shows such an affection as does a hen …. Here Christ is painting a portrait of Himself; and He has often proved by His actions that He is like a clucking hen. For first there was Moses; he, too, gathered the people under the divine Word and its protection. The same thing also David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and all the Prophets did—they were the feathers and wings, under which wings and pinions God would gladly have gathered together the Jewish people. But Christ says here: David you drove away, Isaiah you killed, Elijah you east out, and all the other Prophets you murdered and would not come under these wings. In like manner I and my Apostles are now clucking hens, we cluck and call: Give ear to us, creep under our wings, etc. And as long as God sends preachers and gives Ills Word, He is spreading His wings for us to creep under them, there to seek protection, shelter and defense against the hawk, the devil, and all his angels.” (St. L. VII:1260 f.)58 See, further, Lehre und Wehre, 1898, p. 99.59 For instance, by Dieckhoff, in the predestinarian controversy; see Lehre und Wehre, 1887, p. 117 ff.: “Widerstehliche und unwiderstehliche Gnade.”60 See also 2 Cor. 4:6: “God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness [at Creation] hath shined in our hearts [in conversion] to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” Cp. F. Pieper, Grunddifferenz, etc., p. 16 f.61 Luther says in his Bondage of the Will: “According to 2 Thess. 2:4, anyone might be exalted above God as He is preached and worshiped, that is, above the Word and worship of God, by which He is known unto us and has intercourse with us. But above God not worshiped and preached, that is, as He is in His own nature and majesty, nothing can be exalted, but all things are under His powerful hand.” (St. L. XVIII:1794.) This Biblical concept of the “divine self-limitation” was familiar to Luther (see Oettingen, Dogmatik, II, 1, 591, on the charge that Luther and the Formula of Concord knew nothing of a “divine self-limitation”). The modern synergists use this phrase of “divine self-limitation” in the false sense that God does not work faith in the Gospel by Himself, but calls for human co-operation.62 In nature we have an analogous case. The natural life in plants, animals, and man is generated and preserved by God’s almighty power, and still man, with his limited power, may prevent, or destroy, the life of the plant and the animal and man.63 Meyer’s Commentary: “Recompense—it will come upon them (the Jews) as a requital for what they did in rejecting faith in Christ.”64 Luther on these words: “Christ here praises the righteousness of God in that He hides these mysteries from these ‘wise and prudent,’ because they would be above God, not under Him. Not that God really and willingly hides it, for He commands that it be preached publicly under the whole heaven and in all lands, but because He has chosen such a message which the wise and prudent by nature detest and which remains hidden from them by their own fault; they refuse to receive it, as Isaiah (6:9) says: ‘See ye indeed, but perceive not.” Behold, they see it, that is, they have the doctrine which has been preached among them plainly and publicly, and yet they do not perceive because they turn their backs upon it and will have none of it. Thus they by their own blindness hide the truth from themselves.“ (St. L. VII:133 f.)65 Lehre und Wehre, 1898, p. 101 f.: “When theologians keep on insisting that obduracy is a proof for particular grace, they have fallen prey to a signal deception of Satan. Obduracy proves the very opposite. We would expand the statement of Gerhard quoted above thus: God’s universal, serious will of grace is proved a) by the words of Scripture, b) by the tears of Christ, c) by the oath of God, and d) by the retributive judgment of obduration, that is, the wrath of God against those who despise His ardent love in Christ and resist the Holy Spirit.” Luther on Matt. 18:15, “I would in truth gladly help them, says God; therefore I send them My Son; but their hardened heart is opposed to My will and their salvation” (St. L. VII:195).66 The Apol. Conf. Remonstr. calls grace “efficacious grace, depending on the outcome,” in the sense that: “it be held that grace has of itself sufficient power to produce the assent of the will, but because that is only a partial power, it cannot produce the actual condition without the co-operation of the free will of man and accordingly depends for its success on free will.” (Cp. Winer, Komp. Darstell., 3d ed., p. 81 f.)67 Thus Latermann and most of the modern Lutherans; cf. Luthardt, Christl. Glaubenslehre, 1898, p. 441 f.—The Lutheran Standard of February 28, 1891: “According to the revealed order of salvation the actual final result of the means of grace depends not only on the sufficiency and efficacy of the means themselves, but also upon the conduct of man in regard to the necessary condition of passiveness and submissiveness under the Gospel call.” See F. Pieper, Grunddifferenz, p. 19 ff.68 Formula of Concord, Trigl. 1081, 57–64: “No injustice is done those who are punished and receive the wages of their sin; but in the rest, to whom God gives and preserves His Word … God commends His pure grace and mercy, without their merit. When we proceed thus far in this article, we remain on the right way, as it is written Hosea 13:9: ‘O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in Me is thine help.’ ” Cf. F. Pieper, Grunddifferenz, pp. 12–26.69 Mark 16:15f.; John 3:16; etc. According to Scripture, the light of salvation comes to a country only with the preaching of the Gospel. Large Catechism: “For all outside of Christianity, whether heathen, Turks, Jews, or false Christians and hypocrites, although they believe in and worship only one true God, yet know not what His mind towards them is, and cannot expect any love or blessing from Him; therefore they abide in eternal wrath and damnation. For they have not the Lord Jesus Christ, and, besides, are not illumined and favored by any gifts of the Holy Ghost” (Trigl. 697, Large Catechism, Art. III, 66).70 In an opinion rendered by the Faculty of Wittenberg to the Council of Nuernberg, 1533, Luther says: “The absolution under consideration is conditional; it has, just as also an ordinary sermon and every, absolution, both general and private, the condition of faith; for without faith it does not loose and is nevertheless not an erring key. For faith does not rely on our own worthiness, but on the absolution and says yes to it.” (St. L. XXI b:1850.)71 Heerbrand: “Faith is not a condition, neither is it, properly speaking, required as a condition. For justification is promised and offered not on account of the worth and merit of faiths nor in so far as it is a work. For faith, too [as a work or inherent quality], is imperfect. But it is the mode, I might say, of accepting the blessing offered and imparted through and for Christ’s sake.” Then, comparing faith to a hand, he adds: “The hand is not called a condition, but the medium and instrument by which the alms are accepted.” (Comp., p. 379 sq.) When later theologians call faith a condition of appropriating the Gospel, they, too, are careful to bar out any “ethical” concept of faith. Thus Seb. Schmid writes: “True, justifying faith has long been called a ‘condition’ by our theologians, but not as a moral, but rather, if I may so call it, a physical condition or as the necessary instrument. For when I say: ‘If you will believe, you will be saved,’ I do not call that a moral condition, for the fulfillment of which you are to be saved, but I call it the necessity of an instrument, through which you are to be saved” (Articulorum, F. C. Repetitio, p. 285, in Baier-Walther, III, p. 268). Writing against the Romanists, who ignore this twofold use of conditional statements, Gerhard points out: “The particle ‘if’ is either etiological or syllogistic; it names either the cause or the result. In legal statements: If you do that, you will live, the particle ‘if’ is etiological, since the obedience is the cause because of which eternal life is given to those who observe the Law; but in the evangelical promises: ‘If you believe, you will be saved,’ the particle ‘if’ is syllogistic, for it denotes the divinely constituted mode of the application, for which faith alone is fitted.” (Loci, loc. “De Ev.,” § 26.)72 Chrysostom (Homil. I in Epist. ad Ephes.) speaks of a θέλημα προηγούμενον (antecedent will) and πρω̂τον (first will), according to which God wills that the sinners should not be lost, and of a θέημα δεύτερον (second will), according to which God wills the ultimate damnation of those who persist in their sin. John of Damascus (De orthod. fide, II, 29): “The first (scil., that God would save all men) is said to be the antecedent will …, the second (that God will punish the sinners), the consequent will.” Cf. the historical exposition in Buddeus, Institutiones, 1741, p. 227.73 The Reformed theologian Voetius replied to the question: “Is the will correctly divided into wills antecedent and consequent?” as follows: “If by antecedent will there is understood the divine will in its proper sense, or the voluntas beneplaciti, the question must be answered negatively. For in Cod, or in the act of God s will, or in a part of this act of God’s willing, there is neither a sooner nor a later, neither an antecedent nor a consequent, neither a condition nor something conditioned, but a pure, simple, and indivisible act of the will, by which He wills everything that He wills, just as He, in a single, most simple act, thinks whatever is thinkable.” (Select. disputationum, P.V., p. 88. Quoted in Heppe, Dogmatik der ref. Kirche, p. 71 f.)74 Thus Hollaz shows at length that when Lutheran theoIogians distinguish between an antecedent and a consequent will, they do not posit time in God or actually assume parts in God’s will; rather “it is called God’s antecedent and consequent will ab ordine rationis nostrae (according to our mode of thought) which distinguishes different acts of God’s will according to the different objects and considers one act before the other” (Examen, P. III, §: 1. e. 1, qu. 5). Reusch: “In puncto rationis (according to our ideas) one perfection of God must often be conceived of before a second perfection of God can be conceived of” (Annotationes in Baieri Comp., p. 176).75 Gerhard: “Though God’s attributes are not distinct either from one another or from the divine essence, still the weakness of our intellect requires that they be dealt with one by one. ‘God condescends to us in order that we might surge, upward’ (Augustine, de spec., c. 112), and since we are human beings, He speaks to us in a human manner.” (Loci, locus “De Nat. Dei,” §: 51.)76 Baier calls attention to the fact that the theologians are not of one mind on this question when he says: “This [consequent will], as some definitely explain it, results from our depravity; according to it God wills, because of our sin, e.g., to punish, to damn. Others give this will a wider significance, saying that it is caused or occasioned by something in us, either by sin or something else.” (II, p. 36.)77 Luther: “That operation of God is called the will of the sign whereby He comes forth to us and deals with us cloaked in external things which we can apprehend, such as the Word of God and the Sacraments instituted by Him” (Opp. Exeg. 2; 173; St. L. I:489). Luther usually has the Gospel in mind when he speaks of the voluntas signi. But that he also includes in the voluntas signi the Law, in so far as it is revealed in Scripture, is occasionally stated by him. He thus says of the Ten Commandments and the examples of God’s wrath: “These also are the will of the sign” (St. L. I:491).78 There can be no doubt that v. 32 is speaking of the universal divine mercy which embraces Jews and Gentiles, of the gratia universalis. This is the sequence of thought: the Gentiles must not exalt themselves above the Jews. For God has not rejected entirely even the Jewish nation, as the Gentries were inclined to assume (vv. 17–24), but gathers His Church also from the Jews—during the time of the Gentiles—in keeping with the promise given the fathers (vv. 25–29). The current unbelief of the Jews can prevent this as little as the former unbelief of the Gentiles could prevent Him from having mercy on the Gentiles (vv. 31–32). And this the Apostle proves with the dosing statement: “For God hath concluded them all,” Jews and Gentiles, “in unbelief, that He might have mercy on all.” Jews and Gentiles come into consideration here not as being elect, but as being unbelievers, whose unbelief God would remove.79 Thus Dieckhoff, in the controversy on election. See Lehre und Wehre, l886, p. 193 ff.80 St. L. X:1736 f. In De Wette, III, p. 354.81 Some of the principal passages in Luther are: St. L. I:488 ff.; II:174 ff.; III:811 ff.; VIII:785 ff.; IX:1358 ff.; X:1526 ff., 1736 ff., 1744 ff.; XIII:199 ff.82 Opp. exeg. II, 172 sqq.; St. L. I:488 ff.: “In the New Testament we have Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, Absolution, and the ministry of the Word. They are what the Scholastics call voluntas signi, which we must view when we desire to know the will of God. But quite another thing is the voluntas beneplaciti (the will of His good pleasure), the essential will of God, or His bare majesty, which is God Himself. From this we must turn our eves away …. But let all of us take care that we abide in these signs in which God has revealed Himself to us—the Son, born of the Virgin Mary, lying among beasts in the manger, and the Word, Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and Absolution. In these tokens we see and find God in a way in which we can bear Him, in which He comforts us, lifts us up into hope, and saves us …. The Son of God, therefore, who became incarnate, is the cover in which the Divine Majesty with all His blessings so offers Himself to us that no sinner, no matter how wretched, should be afraid to approach Him with the certain trust (cum certa fiducia) of obtaining forgiveness.”83 Opp. exeg. VI, 292 sqq.; St. L. II:176 ff.: “In my book The Bondage of the Will and elsewhere I have taught that we must distinguish when we deal with the knowledge or with the essence of the Godhead. For we are arguing either about the hidden God (de Deo abscondito) or the revealed God (de Deo revelato). In God, in so far as He has not revealed Himself, we can have no faith, nor can we have any knowledge or cognition of Him. Indeed, here we must hold to the axiom: What is above us is not for us. For such thoughts seek to spy out something more sublime, above and beyond God’s revelation, are entirely diabolical, through which nothing more is accomplished than that we precipitate ourselves into destruction; they hold up before us an objectum impervestigabile [an inscrutable object], namely, God not revealed …. God reveals His will to us through Christ and the Gospel. Behold, you have My Son! Whoever hears Him and is baptized is written in the book of life. This I reveal through the Son, whom you can grasp with your hands and see with your eyes. This I have wanted to impress upon you with all diligence and accuracy and transmit it to you, for after my death many will bring forth my books and will try to confirm with them their errors and dreams. I have written, among other things, that everything is absolute and must occur, but I have at the same time added that one should look at the revealed God …. There you can become certain of your faith and salvation and say: I believe in the Son of God, who said: ‘He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life’ (John 3:36). Hence there is in Him no damnation or wrath, but the good will of God the Father. Of this same thing I have borne witness also in my other books and teach it even now with a loud voice. Therefore I am excused.”84 The words immediately preceding show that Luther did not, in De Servo Arbitrio, attribute to the Deus praedicatus an impotent, ineffectual sham will, but a voluntas seria et efficax which desires the salvation of all hearers. God, in so far as He approaches us in His Word, “deplores that death which He finds among men and which He desires to remove from them. For the revealed God (Deus praedicatus) strives for this that, our sin and death being taken away, we may be saved.”85 St. L. X:1531: “Most of all he [a fanatic in Antwerp, who had also bothered Luther in Wittenberg] makes much of this that God’s commandment must be good and that God is opposed to sin. Did I ever deny this truth? But he would not admit that God, though He is opposed to sin, gives men over to sin. Such providential dispensation certainly does not occur without His will …. Indeed, how could He inflict this if He did not desire to inflict it? But here he [the fanatic] lets his mind soar up to the skies. He wanted to know how God does not will sin and yet wills it by dispensing it. Yes, he wanted to fathom the abyss of the Divine Majesty and harmonize the two wills.” (This shows that Luther classes the all-pervasive activity of God, according to which everything is ‘of Him and through Him and to Him’ [Rom. 11:36], with the mysteries of the Divine Majesty, from which one dare not make deductions, denying the gratia universalis, human responsibility, etc.) “Neither do I doubt,” Luther continues, “that he will represent me to you as having said that God desires sin to occur. My reply is that he is doing me an injustice. As he is full of lies in other respects, he here, too, does not speak the truth. I say God has forbidden sin and does not want it. That will is revealed to us, and we must know it. But how God gives men over to sin and so wills it, that we are not to know, for He has not revealed it to us …. I therefore pray you that when this spirit tries to disturb you with the lofty problem of the hidden will in God, you withdraw from him and tell him: Is it not enough that God instructs us as to His revealed will, which He has made known to us? Why do you want to make fools of us and lead us to know that which is forbidden knowledge for us and which we cannot know and you yourself do not know? Leave it to God how that happens; for us it is enough to know that He wants no sin. But how He can give men over to sin or wills it, that is not our concern.”86 Inst. III, 24, 5: “If we seek the paternal clemency and propitious heart of God, our eyes must be directed to Christ, in whom alone the Father is well pleased (Matt. 3:17) …. Christ, then, is the Mirror in which we should, and in which, without deception, we may, contemplate our election.”87 Inst. III, 24, 15: “Let us observe, therefore, the design of the Prophet (Ezek. 33:11) in saying that God hath no pleasure in the death of a sinner; it is to assure the pious of God’s readiness to pardon them immediately on their repentance and to show the wicked that their guilt is doubled in rejecting the great compassion and condescension of God.” 24, 17: “But why does he mention all men [namely, in the Gospel promises]? It is done in order that the consciences of the pious may rest the more secure … and that the impious may not plead the want of an asylum to flee to from the bondage of sin, while they ungratefully reject that which is offered to them.” 24, 2: “Heavier judgment awaits the reprobate, because they reject the testimony of His love.”88 Gerhard calls attention to this inconsistency in his remarks on Luke 7:30 and Acts 7:51: “Observe the emphasis in these statements. Of the Pharisees and scribes it is said that they despised the counsel of Cod in refusing to be baptized by John. What was this counsel? Certainly this, that God through the preaching and Baptism of John wanted to call them to repentance and to the Kingdom of the Messiah. An absolute decree and counsel respecting their damnation cannot be found in this passage. For of that we would have to say, not that they despised it, but that they fulfilled it. Of the Jews it is said that they resisted the Holy Spirit; then certainly the Holy Spirit wanted to work in their hearts. But if conversion had been denied them through an absolute decree, they could not be said to have resisted the Holy Spirit; rather it would have to be said that they were obedient to this eternal decree.”89 Inst. III, 24, 15: “One of the passages adduced is Ezek. 33:11, which says that God is not pleased that the wicked should die but rather that he should be converted and live. If we are to extend this to the whole human race, why are not the very many … urged to repentance?”90 He writes in De Servo Arbitrio: “God deplores that death which He finds in the people and which He desires to remove from them. For the revealed God (Deus praedicatus) strives for this: that our sin and death being taken away we might be saved.” (St. L. XVIII:1795.)91 Inst. III, 24, 16: “For if they obstinately insist on its being said that God is merciful to all, I will oppose to them what is elsewhere asserted that our God is in the heavens where He does whatever He hath pleased (Ps. 115:3).”92 Inst. III, 24, 12: “Those, therefore, whom He has created to a life of shame and a death of destruction, that they might be vessels of wrath and examples of His severity, He causes to reach their appointed end, sometimes by depriving them of the opportunity of hearing His Word, sometimes by increasing their blindness and stupidity through the preaching of it.”93 De Servo Arbitrio: “Let us therefore hold in consideration the three lights, the light of nature, the light of grace, and the light of glory. This is the common and very good distinction. By the light of nature it is insolvable how it can be just that the good should be afflicted and the wicked should prosper; but this is solved by the light of grace. By the light of grace it is unsolvable how God can damn him who, by his own powers, can do nothing but sin and become guilty. Both the light of nature and the light of grace here say that the fault is not in miserable man, but in the unjust God; nor can they judge otherwise of that God who crowns the wicked freely without any merit, and yet crowns not, but damns another, who is perhaps less, or at least not more, wicked. But the light of glory speaks otherwise and will in the hereafter show God, whose judgment now is one of incomprehensible justice, to be of the most righteous and most manifest justice. Only that we should for the time [in this life] believe it, reminded and confirmed by that example of the light of grace, which accomplishes a like, miracle in regard to the light of nature.” (St. L. XVIII:1965 f.) Dorner: “Luther does not assume a contradiction [between the revealed and the hidden will of God]; he rather demands that one believe this contradiction to be only a seeming one” (Geschichte der protestantischen Theologie, p. 206).94 He says, in Die Lehre vom freien Willen, 1863, p. 276: “If God Himself wrought the appropriation of salvation, the obedience of faith, conversion, predestinationism [i.e., the denial of the gratia universalis] would be the inevitable result.” That is the language of the later Melanchthon: “Since the promise is universal and there are no contradictory wills in God, there must be in us a reason for the discrimination that Saul is rejected and David received” (Loci, ed. Detzer, I, 74). Recent American and European synergists say the same thing. Cf. Lehre und Wehre, 18, 193 ff.; 37, 293 f.95 Synopsis Theologiae, 1730, p. 598 f.: “The passages that are usually adduced as rather hard language are primarily taken from Luther’s book De Servo Arbitrio and Brenz’s Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, where, in considering the question: Why is it that God graciously confers the gift of faith on Jacob and not on Esau, on David and not on Saul, on Peter and not on Judas, on the one malefactor and not on the other, all being equally guilty counsel. The of sin, they retreat, much too quickly, to the depth of the divine counsel.” The entire discussion (pp. 598–603) is very informative on the position the later theologians took toward Luther and our Lutheran Confessions.96 Cf. Von Scheele, Symbolik, II, 55. Calvin, Inst., III, 24, 17.97 Cp. the Apology, Trigl., 136, 55: “Whenever Scripture speaks of faith, it means the faith which rests on pure grace.” Luther: “As long as man has any persuasion that he can do even the least thing toward his own salvation, he retains confidence in himself and does not despair; thus he does not humble himself before God, but proposes to himself some place, time, or work by which he may at length attain unto salvation.” (St. L. XVIII:1715.)98 Rom. 11:18–22 the Apostle warns the Gentiles: “Boast not against the branches [the Jews],” and would have them know that they stand in faith only so long as they do not consider themselves better than the Jews, but trust solely in God’s goodness (χρηστότης).99 He said (St. L. XVIII:1730): “But I will easily prove to you the contrary of all this, namely, that such holy men as you boast of, whenever they approach God, either to pray or to deal with Him, approach Him utterly forgetful of their own ‘free will,’ and, despairing of themselves, they cry unto Him only for pure grace while at the same time they feel they deserve everything that is contrary. In this state Augustine often found himself, and in the same state Bernard, when at the point of death, said: ‘I have wasted my time because I have wasted my life.’ I do not see that here there was mentioned any power which could apply itself unto grace, but that all power was condemned as being only averse [to God]. Nevertheless, these same saints, at the time when they disputed concerning ‘free will,’ spoke otherwise. And the same I see has happened to all, that when they are preoccupied with terms and disputations, they say one thing, but quite another when they speak of their experience (affectibus) and life. In the former they speak differently than they felt before: in the latter they feel different than they spoke before. But men, good as well as bad, must be judged more by what they feel than by what they say.”Pieper, F. (1999, c1950, c1951, c1953). Christian Dogmatics (electronic ed.). St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House.