Command - Exhort - Supplicate
There is an important distinction between a commandment, an exhortation, and a supplication. A disregard for this distinction or ignorance of it is liable to lead us into erroneous doctrine and practice. The verbs used to express these three ideas are said by grammarians to be in the imperative mode. The force of this mode, under the same form, depends upon the relation of the parties. If a superior speaks imperatively to an inferior, it is a command; if an equal speaks to an equal, it is an exhortation; if an inferior speaks to a superior, it is a supplication. God commands us, we exhort each other, and we supplicate him.When the commandment was given to Adam he was able to keep it. In breaking it he lost the ability he had, but he was not released from the obligation. He was unable to be as pure as the law of God requires, but this loss of ability did not remove the obligation. If it had removed it, then Christ could not have been required to keep the law for his people, and God could not, in justice, punish the finally lost for their continual violation of it.
To exhort means, primarily, to excite, to animate, to stir up. We cannot exhort a stone, a plant, or a beast, because neither of these can be excited, animated or stirred up. It would be equally as inconsistent to try to exhort a dead sinner to spiritual action as it would be to try to exhort a corpse to move. If such could be excited to spiritual action by exhortation, then depravity as always believed by the Baptists and as taught in the Bible would not be true, and we would be compelled to abandon the doctrine of election and special atonement.
In delivering an exhortation in good faith there is always some hope of reaching, in a favorable way, the party we exhort. We may consitently exhort an alien sinner to turn from certain evil practices, and we may consistently exhort a child of God to gospel obedience, because in each case we are hopeful of reaching the party favorably. But to try to exhort a dead sinner to do what we know he cannot do, would be as inconsistent as to try to exhort a blind man to see, because we can have no hope of either doing what we exhort him to do.
From these indisputable facts it follows that exhortation implies ability, on the part of the one exhorted, to do what he is exhorted to do. If we were to be heard trying to exhort a man to fly we would be judged of unsound mind, for the reason that the man possesses no ability to fly. But it might be argued that God could give him the ability to fly. Very true, but it would still be unreasonable to exhort him to fly before God gave him that ability. Arminians are consistent from their standpoint in exhorting unregenerated sinners to accept Christ, to repent of their sins, and thus make the start in the work of their own salvation, because they argue that the sinner has the ability to do it. But for one who contends that the sinner is totally depraved and helpless to exhort in such a way is to make himself rediculous before an intelligent people.
An unregenerated sinner is to be regarded as a convicted criminal in prison. To try to exhort such a person to escape from the prison or to clear himself of his crime, or to take any step for his own release from the crime committed, would be sheer folly. We might show him his guilt and prove to him the justice of his being imprisoned and of the further punishment to be inflicted upon him, but we could have no thought that this course would secure his reprieve.
Those who advocate the docttrine that God has absolutely decreed all the wicked acts of men, hold to the theory that God's people are passive in obedience the same as they are in regeneration. In opposing their doctrine we have contended that such a theory destroys the propriety of exhorting the people of God to obedience, because if they have no ability to obey there can be no reason for exhorting them to obedience. In this we have taught that exhortation implies ability, and we still believe it.
To supplicate is to beg or ask for earnestly and humbly; to seek by earnest and humble prayer. To be acceptable with God our supplications to him must be free from hypocrisy.
J. R. D.
Copyright c. 2005. All rights reserved. The Primitive Baptist Library.
