The Sovereignty of God.
Part II. Zion's Advocate, April 1904, Vol. 43, No. 4.
The fact that election is founded wholly upon the sovereign will and pleasure of God, and not in the least upon any act or merit of the persons chosen, as proved in our former editorial, affords the greatest possible consolation to those who have received evidence of being thus elected. First, they view no act of theirs as being sufficiently meritorious to entitle them to a choice on God's part to be his own favored children and heirs of a fadeless and incorruptible inheritance. What could they have done to furnish God with a reason for thus favoring them, and render him unjust in their exclusion from such favor? Only blind pharisees can claim to have done such a great work as this would seem to require. As no act of theirs could entitle them to such a gracious recognition, it affords great consolation to know that no act to this end was required, but that mercy has been extended to them from the sovereign will of God alone. Secondly, they know they possessed no inherent merit while they were enemies to God, and even enmity against him, that could have induced him to choose them. So it is a comfort to know that God chooses such as have no merit, or he could not have chosen them. Since the choice was without act or merit on their part, he who has chosen them will never revoke his choice, because they can never have any less merit than when his choice was first made known to them. This foundation is firm indeed - this hope is sure and steadfast.God's determination to do all his pleasure and the immutability of his counsel, are clearly shown in the gift of Christ to live and to die for his chosen ones ages and ages after the election took place. If there could be any failure in his determination or change in his counsel the one would have failed and the other changed before he sent his darling Son into the world. But he spared not his own Son. He delivered him up for all whom he had chosen in him. Justice demanded the shedding of innocent blood in order to the exercise of mercy in the forgiveness of sins. The offering up of Christ to that end was entirely of the sovereign determination of God. It was also the voluntary act of Christ, for he chose to do the will of his Father and to finish his work. See Rom. 8: 32 in connection with John 4: 34. God proved that his counsel should stand and that he would do all his pleasure in laying the iniquity of his elect on Christ (Isaiah 53:6), and in that way actually obtained eternal redemption for them (Hebrews 9:12). It is through this redemption that they have forgiveness of sins, which proves it to be entirely according to the riches of his sovereign grace (Ephesians 1:7). It is by this grace that they are freely justified through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus (Romans 3:24).
In this passage, "Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ," the word freely is translated from the Greek dorean, which means without a cause. This Greek word is found in the original of the Saviour's language, "They hated me without a cause," in which it is translated without a cause, meaning there was no cause in Christ for their hating him. So in the passage, "Being justified freely (dorean)" it is declared that there was no cause in the ones justified why God justified them. The cause of their redemption and justification, therefore, was entirely in him who redeemed and justified them. Since the redemption and justification of the elect of God could only be accomplished by Jesus giving himself for them, it was a work far above and beyond anything they could do. That God who conceived of that sure plan for the accomplishment of their redemption in the secret chambers of eternity, that God alone could carry it out in fulfilment of his own sovereign design. The great transaction on the cross was the work of wicked hands, yet the delivery of Christ into the jaws of death was by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. Acts 2:23.
In the death of Christ a purchase was made, as the following passage declares: "Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood." Acts 20:28. A purchase is made by paying the price required. The objects purchased can have no voice in the transaction, it being solely the act of the purchaser. The objects purchased belong to him who paid for them. It is true that it behooved Christ to suffer, which means that he was under obligation to pay the price, but he was a sovereign in assuming the obligation. So the sovereignty of God in choosing the persons to be redeemed and giving them to Christ (Hebrews 2:13), and the sovereignty of Christ in receiving them and assuming the obligation of redeeming them, is the great origin of this wonderful transaction. The thing purchased is the church of God. The church of God is his people, whom it was said Jesus should save from their sins. Matthew 1:21. The price paid is the blood or life of Christ. Thus he is said to have given himself for them to redeem them from all their iniquity. Titus 2:14. It must have been the pleasure of God that all for whom Christ gave himself should be purchased by that gift. Those for whom he died were actually atoned for and purchased. They are not their own, therefore, because they are bought with a price. I. Corinthians 6:20. One price was paid for all, and that was sufficient for the purchase. It was God's own price, which his justice demanded and which his wisdom provided. As the payment was demanded by his own justice and was provided by his own wisdom, it cannot fail to satisfy the full demand and completely redeem those for whom it was paid. The transaction is entirely God's, and as he is a sovereign being and will do all his pleasure, it cannot fail.
The judgments or irrevocable decisions of omnipotent Jehovah are sufficient to make mount Zion rejoice and the daughters of Jerusalem to be glad, for his praise is unto the ends of the earth, according to his great name, and his right hand is full of righteousness. Well may we tell the towers of Zion, mark her bulwarks and consider her palaces. See Psalm 48: 10-13. Wisdom has indeed builded her house (Proverbs 9:1), of which all her children may well be proud. "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!" That sinners, altogether undeserving of his notice, should be so remembered and provided for is the greatest wonder the angels ever beheld, but their wonder at this is not greater than their admiration will be at the final accomplishment of all his pleasure in the behalf of those sinners.
Part III, Zion's Advocate, May 1904, Vol. 43, No. 5.
God's sovereignty is seen in the work of the Holy Spirit. God's sovereignty in the salvation of sinners implies that he can either bestow salvation on any of them, or refuse to bestow it, without the least detriment to the glory and perfection of any of his attributes, except wherein he has declared that he will or will not bestow it. As the case now stands, it cannot be said absolutely that God can bestow salvation on any or withhold it from all, because he has already declared that he will bestow it on some, and thus he has bound himself by his own promise. He has promised that his people shall be saved from their sins, and this people were foreknown and chosen by him. Every one that is born again is a child of promise as Isaac was. But be it remembered that God was not obliged to make any promise. The obligation was assumed by him in a sovereign way and altogether free from constraint.
God is an infinitely holy being, in whose sight the heavens are impure. He is of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look upon iniquity. But he can save the greatest of sinners without giving any sanction to sin or mitigating his abhorrence of it or his displeasure against it. This has only been done by the sufferings of Christ for those very sinners. It is impossible to see how it could have been done in any other way. The Holy Spirit quickens those very ones into divine life and gives them a holy nature. This work is sovereign, for it is not the result of any influence on the part of the sinners thus quickened or any other existing intelligence. No one has any power to induce or hinder it. It is represented as a creative act, which is necessarily a sovereign act. We cannot conceive of a work that would be more absolutely sovereign than the resurrection of the dead, by which the work of regenerating sinners is frequently represented.
An affront offered to God and contempt cast on his authority are assaults made upon the honor of his majesty. Yet God saves the very sinners who have offered affront to him and cast contempt on his authority, without the least sacrifice to the honor of his divine majesty, for full satisfaction has been made for these vile and infamous offences by the death of Christ. The sovereign application of the merits of that death to those sinners by the Holy Spirit fully sustains the honor of Jehovah's majesty.
The justice of God requires the full punishment of sin. As the Supreme Judge of the world, his judgment is always according to the strict rules of justice. It is not as a judge so much as a sovereign that he extends mercy to any. The strict justice of God as a judge, and his mercy as a sovereign, must be made to agree ere the salvation of a sinner can be accomplished. This is done by the sufferings of Christ, in which sin is fully punished and justice is entirely satisfied. Justice cannot require any more than the sufferings of Christ as an atonement for the sins of those for whom he suffered. When the Spirit gives eternal life to those for whom justice has thus been satisfied, the sovereign choice of God is manifested and his right to bestow mercy upon whom he will is recognized.
God, who cannot lie, declared that death was the penalty of sin, but he saves sinners consistently with the truthfulness of this declaration, for those who are released from an eternal death are released because Jesus died for them. He was their surety, and, therefore, all were dead for whom he died, because they died in their head and representative, Jesus, and in their experience they die to all hope of salvation through anything they can do. Thus "mercy and truth are met together: righteousness and peace have kissed each other." Psa. 85:10.
All this is expressed in the sublime language of Jesus as recorded in John 5: 21: "For as the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will." The raising of the dead is an act of Almighty power. As Jesus declares that he quickens whom he will, that act is a sovereign one. It is by the Holy Spirit alone that he accomplishes this, for he declares, "It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing." That some sinners are quickened while others are not, all being sinners alike, proves the act of quickening to be a sovereign one, done according to the good pleasure of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.
The doctrine of the sovereignty of God cannot be made to harmonize with the theory of conditionalism. The latter cannot stand before the former. To prove that God acts in a sovereign way in the salvation of sinners effectually destroys the doctrine that sinners are saved by conditions which they perform. The fact, stated plainly in God's word, that salvation is by grace and not by works, sets aside every idea of human merit and bases the salvation of sinners entirely upon the sovereign will and pleasure of God.
A conditionalist may reason, that as he came to Christ, he knows he performed a condition necessary to his own salvation. It is not really certain that he has ever come to Christ; and if he has, the Father drew him there, for no one can come to Christ except the Father draw him. Since the coming is the effect of the Father's drawing, it cannot be a condition of that drawing. Another may contend that he believed in Christ in order to his own salvation. That notion is too absurd for any intelligent mind to accept it when its absurdity is made clear. Imagine a person, who disbelieves a certain statement, concluding to believe it in order to obtain a reward that is offered to all who believe it, and you will discover the absurdity of the notion that belief is ever performed as a condition. Another may say that he loved Christ and accepted him as his Saviour, which was a condition of his salvation. But before he loved him his mind was enmity against him (Romans 8:7). Imagine a person, who hates another, concluding to love him and accept him as a friend and companion because a reward is offered to all who do so, and you will see how impossible and ridiculous such a theory is. Arminianism will always be found wanting when weighed in the balance of human reason, to say nothing of its unscripturalness. Viewed from any standpoint whatever, it will not stand the test of a critical examination.
It becomes us, with the greatest humility, to adore the wonderful sovereignty of God. It is in this that his infinite greatness and exaltation appear. "See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no God with me. I kill, and I make alive; I wound and I heal; neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand." Deuteronomy 32:39. Jehovah thus describes his own majesty. He inspired David to say, "Our God is in the heavens; he hath done whatsoever he pleased." Psalms 115:3. Jesus praised and glorified the Father for the exercise of his sovereignty in revealing spiritual things. "I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight." Matthew 11: 25, 26. Let us adore him for his absolute and universal dominion, abasing ourselves in the presence of the Almighty One who has the right to dispose of us to all eternity as he pleases.
Those who have been delivered from the power of darkness and translated into the kingdom of light, should attribute it to grace alone, and give all the glory to him who makes them to differ from others. Such have no right to exalt themselves in the least degree, nor can they, by right, glory in any other except the Lord. They should exalt the name of God who chose them in Christ and set his love upon them before the world was, and the name of Christ who bore their sins in his own body on the cross, and the name of the Holy Spirit who called them out of darkness into his marvelous light. As no cause for all this exists save in God himself, he deserves the praise of it all. To his great name be honor and power, glory, and dominion, for ever and ever. Amen.
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