Reading Tom Nettles
I was a 5 point Calvinist for a long time before I was converted. I did believe that God only intended Christ to die for the elect, and also that all of these elect would be saved. But I still did not understand the nature of the atonement.
It’s one thing to say it’s effective, and another to say why it must be effective.
The death saves not only because of God’s sovereign will but also because of God’s justice. That is what I did not understand, and I think it’s what Piper still does not understand. Even if the death is not for everybody but it’s a “death in general” for the elect to be applied particularly by the Spirit, then the justice of God is not being taught.
Now this can be caricutured. As in, if I had committed one more or less sin, and if there had been one or less elect person, then Christ would have suffered more or less. That cannot be, since it is the death which saves.
In saying that, I hope I am not being dismissive of the sufferings or of the active obedience.
The same caricature could be applied to “active obedience”. if there were one more elect, then Christ would have had to do x amount of duties to the law that this one more elect was supposed to do. No, there is only one death, one obedience, one resurrection etc…
And yet we must be careful in dismissing a “commercial view” of the atonement, not only because Christ can and does do things by measure (healing some but not others) but because the Bible does talk about being bought by blood and belonging. We need to talk about sins being imputed.
The best discussion in print on this is by Tom Nettles in By His Grace and For His glory. Even though I disapprove his defense of Andrew Fuller, Nettles is quite good on refuting the “offer”. His book makes Macarthur and Phil Johnson and a lot of the double talking Calvinists mad, and that’s reason enough to buy it.
Check out his chapter on Christ Died for our Sins, According to the Scriptures. Nettles refutes the Dordt formula (sufficient/ efficient) while at the same time being honest about the history of most Calvinists liking it.
Nettles quotes Andrew Fuller: “We could say that a certain number of Christ’s acts of obedience becomes ours as that certain number of sins becomes his. In the former case his one undivided obeidence affords a ground of justification to any number of believers; in the latter, his one atonement is sufficient for the pardon of any number os sins or sinners.
Nettles explains that Fuller “misconceives the biblical relation of imputation. Justification should not be considered as analogous to atonement but rather to the imputation of Adam’s sin”.
Error one: it’s tantamount to identifying the doctrine of effectual calling with atonement. What one really means by definite atonement is that the difference is not in the atonement but in the Spirit’s work of calling.
“A second error is subtle in nature and involves a shift in the understanding of the sacrificial death. Although Jesus’ death is spoken of as passive obedience–and though the concepts of reconciliation and propitiation are defined as activities accomplished in the Father’s setting forth God the Son–when the sufficiency of the death of Christ arises, the emphasis shifts from the Son’s passive obedience to what he actively accomplished by his infinite divine nature.”
“While cheerfully admitting the sufficiency of Immanuel’s death to have redeemed all mankind, had all the sins of the whole human species been equally imputed to Him, we cannot perceive any solid reason to conclude that his propitiatory sufferings are sufficient for the expiation of sins which he did not bear, or for the redemption of sinners whom he did not represent. For the substitution of Christ, and the imputation of sin to him, are essential to the scriptural doctrine of redemption by our adorable Jesus…
And from Dagg (Manual of Theology, p330): “Some have maintained that, if the atonement of Christ is not general, no sinner can be under obligation to believe in Christ, until he is assured that he is one of the elect. This implies that no sinner is bound to believe what God says, unless he knows that God designs to save him…
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For the Elect Alone 
December 2, 2013 at 8:33 pm
David Allen, Whosoever Will, 2010, p 83—Redemption understood as literal payment makes the atonement secure its own application.”
Andrew Fuller–”if the specificity of the atonement be placed in the atonement itself, and not in the sovereign will of God, it must have proceeded on the principle of PECUNIARY satisfactions. In commercial payments, the payment is equal to the amount of the debt, and being so, it is not of sufficient value for more than those who are actually liberated by it.
letter to Ryland #3, 2:708
For Andrew Fuller, Christ’s death is specific only because of God’s sovereignty not because of God’s justice, and not because of the nature of the atonement.. Fuller makes a distinction between the nature of the atonement and its design and application.
But unless we believe in eternal justification, don’t we all make a distinction between the atonement and its legal application? Yes, there is a time gap, but the question remains about the imputation of specific sins to Christ and the nature of the justice of Christ’s death at the cross.
btw, Dabney is no better than Andrew Fuller on this point. Dabney claims: “Satisfaction was Christ’s indivisible act, and infinite vicarious merit, the whole in its unity, without numerical division, subtraction or exhaustion. ,,The expiation is single and complete, and in itself considered, has no more relation to one man’s sins than another….Only as it is applied in effectual calling, does the expiation become personal and receive a limitation.” Systematic , p 528
December 2, 2013 at 8:54 pm
p 507, “Punishment God Cannot Twice Inflict”—Garry J Williams
“My argument stands against an unspecified penal satisfaction narrowed only by its application. The sacrifice for sin in Scripture is itself specific…If the penal substitution of Christ has no relation to one person’s sin, then it is not in itself God’s actual answer to any sin, and therefore not penal at all…An unspecified “No” is not an answer to anything; it is without meaning….I cannot see how anyone who excludes the identification of Christ’s satisfaction itself with teh specific sins of specific individuals can avoid the logical outcome of denying its truly penal character.
p 508 “The hypothetical universalists (Davenant) limit the death of Christ AS AN ACT OF PROCUREMENT to the elect only. Christ did not purchase the conditions of application for the lost, but only for those predestined to life.”
December 11, 2013 at 1:34 am
p 579, From Heaven he Came
Blocher–Missing in Nettles’ argument (By His grace and for His glory) is the truth that the new -re-created humanity inherits the titles, calling, and organic unity of the original Adamic race. His emphasis on a quantitative element in the atonement, meaning that Christ suffered for the exact specific precise quantity of the sins of the elect (and not the sins of the non-elect). since Scripture attests degrees of punishment (318) does not warrant an one to one correspondence between guilt and punishment, through simple addition.
Blocher–God’s justice is exact, BUT how God determines what death is fit for “the sin of the world”, I do not claim to fathom.
Blocher seems to claim it CANNOT be fathomed. He is always a partisan for being non-partisan.
Nettles agrees that Christ’s punishment by death included no repentance or remorse.
What I am hearing in Blocher at this point is a rejection of imputed or alien guilt, but an affirmation, nonetheless, of universal guilt which comes about through the “organic solidarity of the race” with Adam. I now recall having liked Blocher’s proposal, as you do. But, if I have understood your own comments on this and previous occasions, I don’t hear him saying what I thought you were saying. It is very possible that I simply misunderstood you. That would be nice. What Blocher seems to be saying is that all human beings naturally descended from Adam are guilty of our enmity toward God which originated in Adam. On this reading Blocher’s proposal is not “mediate imputation” (guilty because corrupt) but is also not alien imputation (guilty because of Adam’s act). We are corrupt because we are guilty, hence alienated from God, and this is the effect of our having been in Adam. Thus Blocher’s construct does not support the doctrine of the “age of accountability” which has been embedded in the Southern Baptists’ statement of faith, because everyone is accountable for personal sin from the very beginning of human life as creatures in covenant solidarity with Adam.
I find Blocher’s construct attractive as it applies to original sin. I am trying to get a handle on how this is paralleled in Christ as head of the new covenant people. Momentarily, I was uneasy because I thought it would lead to the idea that just as we become guilty with our first personal act of wilful enmity toward God, so we would become righteous by virtue of faith as an act of personal righteousness. As I now reread fn 64, on p. 133, however, I think I can see how Blocher maintains the parallel between the first and second Adam. On account of our implication with Adam as our covenant head, we begin life with an anti-God tendency that leads us to wilful exercise of rebellion against God from our very beginning. Similarly, those who were chosen in Christ before creation come to a moment of faith, an appropriation of God’s righteousness in Christ which is a wilful act on our part but which has its source in our connection with Christ by God’s choosing.
I hope I have done Blocher justice. I share his aversion to alien guilt and alien righteousness, and I share his commitment to the guilt of everyone in Adam and the righteousness of everyone in Christ, with the source of that guilt and righteousness deriving from our solidarity with Adam and with Christ.
http://thoughtstheological.com/romans-5-and-original-sin/
Volf is dogmatic against the idea of a transfer of INDIVIDUAL guilt to Christ. Collective and general punishment possibly yes. Like the Baptist Andrew Fuller and the New England theology which followed Edwards, many modern evangelicals (Blocher, for example) deny categorically that INDIVIDUAL guilt itself can be transferred.
Since these folks are anti-individualis,, they tend to make salvation conditioned on the church or water baptism rather than on the individual sinner. And they all deny that we can talk about the imputation of the INDIVIDUAL GUILT of the elect to Christ.
Volf, Free of Charge, p147, “ I cannot assume his moral liability, as I can assume a loan he might be unable to pay. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t.
January 13, 2014 at 4:26 pm
Mark,
The men you quote understand and indicate the misuse of the teaching of the sufficiency of the death of Christ.
The “problem” to which those who misuse the sufficiency/efficiency description of the death of Christ appeal is in fact solved by the biblical proclamation that every one who believes from the heart on the crucified Christ will be forgiven and saved. This proclamation is not grounded in Christ’s having died sufficiently for all humans. But it is grounded in Christ’s having died sufficiently and efficiently for all the elect, no matter how enormous their iniquity. And that sufficient and efficient death effects the faith by which all sinners for whom Christ died have applied to them the righteousness of the cross.
David J. Engelsma
June 6, 2014 at 12:07 pm
While in unbelief, no sinner can have assurance that Christ has died for him. When Fuller argued, “It appears equally evident, that there is no necessity, in the nature of the thing, for the party to have any interest in Christ’s death, in order to make trusting in him his duty,”iii he emphasized that a sinner’s duty to believe the gospel does not depend on an actual provision having been made for him. The argument hypothesizes that for the non-elect the death of Christ includes nothing from which they could find forgiveness should they came to him for such; for them he was neither substitute, sacrifice, nor propitiation. Given such a case, even if a supplicating sinner could view the content of forgiveness procured by the death of Christ and upon such a view found that no investment for the forgiveness of his sins was made, still the only proper and dutiful posture for him is the supplication of mercy, for receiving mercy is the only path to a restoration of dutiful submission to the governing prerogative of God.
This particular part of his argument he abandoned upon being challenged by Dan Taylor. It is not at all certain that Fuller actually believed, at the time of the publication of the Gospel Worthy, what he later called the “commercial” view of the atonement, but it is clear that he did not reject it as inconsistent with the free offer of the gospel.
http://theblog.founders.org/fuller-and-the-atonement-part-1-it-is-enough-that-jesus-died/
June 6, 2014 at 12:15 pm
Very quickly after the appearance of Gospel Worthy, Fuller limited his defense to only one of these implied options as a clear expression of his personal theology. This came as a response to the challenge from Dan Taylor, a General Baptist, in a book entitled Reply to Philanthropos, published in 1787. Fuller, in an 1803 letter to John Ryland Jr., recounted the impact that Taylor’s argument had on him. “I freely own that my views of particular redemption were altered by my engaging in that controversy.”v He sought to answer Taylor “without considering the sufficiency of the atonement in itself considered” as a sufficient ground for universal gospel invitations, but could not justify it….
All I suppose,“ Fuller continued to maintain, “is that provision was not made effectually to persuade every one to embrace it; and that, without such effectual persuasion, no one ever did, or will, embrace God’s way of salvation.”xii
mark: Andrew Fuller make preaching invitations to everybody depend on sufficiency for everybody, but in doing this, he only shifted to insufficient provision to persuade everyone to “accept the offer”. Instead of asking, can I accept if Jesus did not die for me, Andrew Fuller asked, can I accept if God does not give me the ability and will to accept? But Fuller also contradicted this, with his suggestions of a kind of universal ability.
In the attempt to say that some people are lost but only because of themselves, it is very difficult to avoid the idea that some people are saved because they used the prevenient grace provided to accept “union with Christ”.
June 6, 2014 at 12:25 pm
http://theblog.founders.org/fuller-and-the-atonement-part-3-until-you-have-paid-the-last-penney/
John Owen—That the reconciling death of Christ should be applied unto any, made a price for them, and become beneficial to them, according to the worth that is in it, is external to it, doth not arise from it, but merely depends upon the intention and will of God.”
Nettles: Thus Owen argues that its efficacy is only by covenantal sovereignty. Surely this is not entirely correct. A sober examination of that idea would suggest to us that benefits derived from the atonement are intrinsic to it and dependent, not solely on the purpose of God concerning it, but on the justice of God necessary to it. Thus, while Christ’s death expressed the covenantal purpose of God in redeeming the elect, it also demonstrated the justice of God in setting Christ forth as a propitiation.
Hebrews 2:3 For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable and every transgression or disobedience received a JUST RETRIBUTION, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?”
February 13, 2015 at 10:23 pm
Ten Ways to Teach a False Gospel by Arrogantly Rejecting any Dogma about God having Already Imputed the Sins of Only the Elect to Christ
1. Naselli often denigrates any idea that general atonement or two wills atonement are heresies. He continually begs the question by insisting that those “evangelical options” are not heresies. He does not hesitate to use the “hyper” word to designate those who disagree.
2. Naselli insists that we not only agree that those who hold the tow heresies are our brothers but that we describe the heresies in a way approved by the heretics. For example, even though the heretics deny that God has already imputed the specific sins of the elect to Christ so that Christ has already made penal satisfaction for these sins, Naselli insists that we agree with the heretics that they still teach “penal substitution”.
3. Naselli is dogmatic that universalism is heresy but that a general atonement which does not effectively atone is not heresy. Instead of actually pointing to any real person who now denies the need for evangelism, he assumes that the folks who deny any responsibility to believe the two wills false gospel are also people who deny any responsibility to believe the true gospel (or obey God’s law.) Referencing Ian Murray and Peter Toon and Curt Daniel does not define “hyper”, but only shows it to be a relativist term which depends more on where “evangelicals are now” than it does in clarifying the nature of God’s external command to believe the true gospel.
4. Naselli denigrates any notion of what they call a ‘commercial or mathematical” view of the atonement as if such descriptions fail to talk about God’s purpose or Christ’s priesthood, even though Naselli has just agreed that words like “infinite” and sufficient” and “efficient” can be used ambiguously (flexibly) —by those with the two heresies and by those who claim to believe in effective atonement. But read Tom Nettles for more on the importance of commercial language.
5. Naselli teaches that the atonement is “unlimited in its sufficiency, its value, and offer” even though he calls universalism a heresy. But how can the death of Christ be enough if God never imputed the sins of the non-elect to Christ? And how can the death of Christ be enough for every sinner if in the end it is not enough to save every sinner from God’s wrath? How can the death of Christ be enough if it’s not enough to purchase and provide faith in the gospel for every sinner for whom Christ died?
6. Naselli asserts that Packer overstated the importance of the extent of the atonement . Packer wrote in his introduction to Owen’s Death of Death that “universal atonement is destructive to the gospel.” But Nasseli disagrees with Packer about the implications of universal atonement not logically be consistent with a substitutionary atonement. But Naselli assures us, “this doctrine is not necessarily at the heart of the gospel.” He follows the liberal policy of Grudem’s Systematic Theology and claims that “other doctrines are much more significant.”
7. Naselli denies that “only non-Calvinists can tell a non-Christian that God loves them”. Naselli knows that some Reformed folks don’t think we should say “Jesus died for you” to all sinners, but he insists that such a “statement is true and right”. At this point Naselli quotes his pompous mentor DA Carson being condescending to other Reformed teachers who are “young”. Apparently it has never occurred to Carson that anybody who disagrees with him about the two heresies might be as mature and thoughtful and as well read as he is. They always think it’s the other fellows who are being “schismatic”
8. It’s like Bill Clinton saying “it depends in what you think is means”. It depends on what you think sex means. Thus Naselli—A Calvinist can tell a non-Christian that “Jesus died for you” because non-Christians generally understand the “for” to mean that the benefits of the death of Jesus are “available IF THEY REPENT AND BELIEVE.’ But why should anybody actually believe the gospel want non-Christians to believe the false gospel that God loves them and that their salvation depends on the sinner? It seems that “the Calvinist” in question does not believe that the sins of the elect have already been imputed by God to Christ. A person who teaches that sinners impute their own sins to Christ is neither a Calvinist nor a Christian.
9. Naselli gives us the impression that he now has a “complete understanding” of what it means to be flexible and to be “evangelical” and what is and is not “heresy”. He ends with the truth that not any of us understand anything perfectly, but does not apply this lesson to himself when he pontificates on what Calvinists can say or what “the more significant doctrines are” He seems to forget that he also has a finite mind when he separates himself from those who call the two heresies heresy. What looks like “tolerance” on closer look is one more “limited understanding” of the gospel, especially when it discounts the factor of God having already imputed the sins of the elect to Christ.
10. those who accuse the other of being strident don’t seem to notice that they are using an ad hominem argument. They think that only the others use such arguments. For 45 years of my life, I was very proud of the good Reformed doctrine I learned in books and in how I had advanced in understanding over other Christians. But there came a day when God taught me to fear Him, and when I discovered that I had not yet been born again, and that the evidence of this was that I did not yet even know or believe the gospel.
Perspectives On the Extent of the Atonement, ed by Nselli and Snoeberger, B and H Academic, 2015 http://www2.bhpublishinggroup.com/PDF/9781433669712_sampCh.pdf
February 13, 2015 at 10:28 pm
first thing they want you to agree to is that it’s not the gospel ware—-a first-order discussion of a second-order doctrine. The contributors to this volume agree that the question of the extent of the atonement falls short of being placed in the top tier of doctrines central and non-negotiable to the Christian faith, yet they also rightly see the importance of this doctrine for faith and practice. Hence, the discussion here is spirited yet charitable, firm yet gracious
Happily the dire predictions of what lies at the bottom of the slippery slopes situated on either side of this debate are rarely realized
The debate on the extent of the atonement of Jesus Christ has long been expressed as a debate between correspondence (exegesis) and coherence (theology). On the one hand, many texts suggest a general atonement, announcing, apparently, that Christ has borne in common the sins of the whole human population (Isa 53:6; John 1:29; 3:16; 12:32; 2 Cor 5:14–15, 19; 1 Tim 2:4–6; 4:10; Titus 2:11; Heb 2:9; 10:29; 2 Pet 2:1; 3:9; 1 John 2:2; 4:14; etc.). Too often those who hold to particular redemption dismiss such texts or respond with exegesis that smacks of special pleading.4 On the other hand, those promoting universal theories of atonement sometimes dismiss the theological tensions that their positions raise: the nature of substitution, the problem of double jeopardy, and the specter of universalism. All too often justification for this dismissal comes in the form of the trump card of biblical correspondence: the Bible says Christ died for all people, so whether or not this makes sense, it must be true—absolutely clear statements are not threatened by the theologian’s inability to coherently harmonize them with the systematic whole. Rather, such theological antinomies stand as monuments to the mysterious character of the Creator, whose thoughts and ways far exceed those of his creatures. This does not mean that those adhering to a definite atonement have no supporting texts or that those adhering to a general atonement have no theological concerns.
• On the particularist pole we could have added at least two views: (1) the so-called “commercial view,” a minority variation of particularism that denies the atonement’s infinite value and excludes common grace from the atonement,9 and (2) the “eternal application” model that sees the accomplishment and application of atonement as simultaneous—either in eternity past or on the cross.10
9 Thomas J. Nettles argues for this less common particularist understanding (though without using the commercial label) over and against Andrew Fuller’s more widely held historical expression of particularism (By His Grace and for His Glory: A Historical, Theological, and Practical Study of the Doctrines of Grace in Baptist Life, rev. and exp. 20th anniversary ed. [Cape Coral, FL: Founders Press, 2006], 335–59).
February 13, 2015 at 10:29 pm
Nowhere does Scripture say Christ merely made provision to expiate sin, propitiate wrath, or reconcile people to God. Rather, he actually took away sins (John 1:29), bore God’s wrath (1 John 2:2; 4:10), redeemed us (Gal 3:13–14), and reconciled us to God (Rom 5:10– 11; 2 Cor 5:18–19). For this reason, then, the title of Murray’s little book is not Redemption: Provided and Applied, but Redemption: Accomplished and Applied
For advocates of universal atonement, God did accomplish all that he intended. But God did not intend to effectually redeem anyone; he simply intended to provide redemption for everyone. And in this, they claim, God was perfectly successful. 3 The precise relationship of faith to atonement is a matter of debate among advocates of universal atonement. All agree, however, that faith delimits the application of the universal atonement.
Details about the source of this faith vary between advocates of general atonement. Some suggest that all people possess the native capacity to believe (Pelagianism), others that faith is made available as a manifestation of prevenient grace (Picirilli and most Arminians), and still others see faith as connected with an efficacious call (Lightner and many “four-point” Calvinists). In any case it is the sinner’s failure to believe that limits the application of atonement.
Christ died to make simultaneously both a “universal atonement” and a “limited redemption.”44 Historically, this centrist view finds its greatest early Protestant endorsement in the school of Saumur and its greatest early champions in John Cameron and especially Moïses Amyraut.45 Amyraldism, which is properly a minority variation of Calvinism, early on adopted Peter Lombard’s understanding that Christ’s death was “offered . . . for all with regard to the sufficiency of the price, but only for the elect with regard to its efficacy, because he brought about salvation only for the predestined.”46 The connotative elasticity of the phrase “sufficient for all but efficient for the elect” proved useful as a vehicle of mediation at Dordt, where in 1618–19 a mixed body of both “high” Calvinists and Amyraldians crafted a united response to the threat of the Arminian Remonstrance—the famed Canons of Dordt, from which the wellknown “five points” derive.
Click to access 9781433669712_sampCh.pdf
June 27, 2015 at 5:20 pm
Amyraut—“Sin seems to have changed not only the whole face of the universe, but even the entire design of the first creation, and if one may speak this way, seems to have induced to adopt new councels”
and thus God becomes the God who declares not the end from the beginning but the end from the fall
the fall is conditioned on the sinner, and the creation is either plan a or no plan at all
did God make the world, and then decide (after man decided) what to do with the world
why must we deny that death is God’s work also?
why must we deny that the fall of Adam is God’s work also?
why must we keep talking about what Adam “could have done” or “might have done”?
was God’s plan a to be glorified in a church of human Adams who never sinned? (Ephesians 3:20)
March 17, 2015 at 11:29 pm
Tom Nettles, By His Grace And For His Glory ” . from the chapter on world missions ” .
“Offer” is not used in Scripture to describe how God gives his gifts to men … The word offer has too dormant a connotation to incorporate the vivid and active images picturing the effectuality of gospel preaching : the blind see , the dead live , the sleepers awaken , the sinners’ resistance is aggravated , and a sweet-smelling savor rises to the nostrils of God . In apostolic examples of preaching , we see little of what might be called ” offer ‘ and much of what is called ” command . ” Men are commanded to lay down arms and surrender to God , who demonstrates his sovereign holiness in all his actions — creation , providence , and redemption — and promises of forgiveness encourage those who truly comply . The unabridged version of the gospel simply cannot be contained within the normal connotations of the word offer.”
Grace cannot be “offered .” Grace is purely within the sovereign prerogatives of God and those who argue for the validity of offering grace place themselves in the position which they claim is so presumptuous in the hyper-Calvinist . To offer grace is to determine human responsibility from a supposed knowledge of the divine intentions toward all men in particular . Those who argue for general atonement on this basis pursue the same erroneous line of thought . Neither the evangelist nor the sinner need have guarantees that grace accompanies their interaction for the responsibility of either to be established . It is enough that both know that God commands all men everywhere to repent an .
Grace is the sovereign bestowment of salvific blessings. Its appearance among men is purely a matter of sovereign discrimination . Such an understanding is nothing less than historic evangelical Calvinism . An ” offer ” of grace presupposes a redefinition of the word grace
May 24, 2015 at 12:54 am
http://booksataglance.com/book-reviews/prevenient-grace-gods-provision-for-fallen-humanity-by-w-brian-shelton
Does Responsibility Entail Ability?
First, his candid admission that he accepts Wesley’s view of God’s obligation to give grace has helped me see that this theological presupposition must be behind the Arminian insistence on universally operative prevenient grace. Stated in his own words, Dr. Shelton asserts, “it is an issue of the justice of God that the sons of Adam are expected to repent if they cannot repent; accountability without opportunity should be posited as unjust.” He does want the reader to acknowledge, however, that the Arminian argues more from the clarity of Scripture than from any extrapolation of a theory of justice. But the two cannot be so easily parted. This idea of the injustice involved in the Reformed view of total depravity serves as a hermeneutical assumption for large numbers of Scriptures. If you are committed to the principle that God’s commands or the stated conditions of salvation are just only if God has already granted enabling grace as a remedy to inherited depravity, then every command ipso factobecomes an argument for prevenient grace. Shelton shows the thoroughness with which this assumption penetrates the Arminian system when he argues, “If there is human responsibility yet there remains perpetual inability for responsibility in repentance, then the free will passages (as simple as John 3:16) are moot.” How is John 3:16 a “free-will passage?” It states a certainty built on a state of existence: “so all those believing into him would not perish but would be having eternal life.” The statement of such a condition, “all those believing into him,” is just as true for those that espouse effectual grace as for those who contend for a non-effectual prevenient grace. That this implies the Arminian idea of free will is not demanded by the text at all, but only by the inference drawn from the no-grace-no-justice assumption.
Again, Dr. Shelton responds, “it [the concept of “dead in trespasses and sins”] must be reconciled with the human responsibility passages in Scripture in which all of humankind is expected to repent. They must be harmonized in systematic theology, without depravity eclipsing human responsibility.” Certainly; the Reformed view never denies human responsibility, but affirms it as an absolute existing in all persons as moral agents irrespective of how God may move on them with unmerited favor. Sinners are responsible for their sin apart from the divine prerogative to bestow or not bestow grace. Brian, however, infers from the expectation to repent a gracious bestowal of moral ability. In another part of his response he notes, “Add the call for repentance and obedience throughout Scripture to this passage [Hebrews 10:12] set to land on a paradoxical combination of grace and ability that is the basisof prevenient grace” (italics mine).This piggy-backing of grace onto the command does not come from any element in the text, but only from the assumption that a command is illegitimate and unjust unless it is given in the context of a restored moral ability. With this hermeneutical principle, the textual “basis of prevenient grace” seems vast. Reject the principle that command always implies sufficient grace, and the textual basis for universal prevenient grace becomes sparse.
The few remaining texts (Dr. Shelton mentions specifically John 1:9, Romans 2:4, John 12:32, and Titus 2:11) more fittingly express an element of the Reformed soteriological view, but this is not the place to argue that. Moreover, the whole idea of obligatory grace is so contrary to the biblical presentation of grace as pure gift that it is beyond surprising that it could be seriously considered. If our fall in Adam and our consequent depravity (admitted by Arminians) renders God a debtor to humanity and an unjust sovereign if he has does not reverse the inherited condition, then the covenantal arrangement was both unwise and unjust from the beginning. Such an idea of God’s initiating an arrangement that is unjust is absurd and establishes a systemic irreverence in the entire Arminian scheme. Its primary concern seems to be the vindication of the human complaint “God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us,” rather than the justification of God. (Romans 3:3-8).
How Do Fallen Sinners Come to Believe?
A second issue that has not been cleared is the question of how the human soul chooses the principles of holiness and righteousness intrinsic to the gospel presentation without a bias of mind and heart approving those gospel elements. Dr. Shelton notes on one of his major biblical defenses of prevenient grace related to John 1:9, “The context is not an excuse for predestination to salvation in order to see the Light, but a paradoxical irony that the ‘light shown [sic] in darkness’ but those unwilling would not see.” Precisely! This passage concerns an enlightenment that would give to an unbiased heart abundantreason to worship and adore the great wonder of the knowledge of God but, in coming to fallen persons, still leaves them unwilling, that is, with a moral propensity in opposition to the true and pure worship of God. The question here is not one of either predestination or election to salvation (that must be discussed separately as should the doctrine of atonement) but of the character of the present grace that brings the sinful moral agent from the state of unwillingness to willingness. Elements of persuasion falling on hearts still biased toward evil only produce hearts more hardened still.
If freedom is defined as moral neutrality or equilibrium, then there can be nothing in a gospel presentation that moves a person either one way or another, and any coincidental response must be prompted by something other than the moral texture of the gospel. On the other hand, if grace moves the soul into a disposition in which holiness and righteousness are seen as excellent and desirable (Philippians 3:7-9), the gospel presentation will be met with the response of faith. An enabling that stops short of creating a heart that is congruent with gospel conditions is no enabling at all.
Tom J. Nettles
November 29, 2015 at 7:45 pm
let’s not forget that Nettles is a tolerant southern baptist who continues to see Arminianism as one form of the gospel. http://theblog.founders.org/shaping-an-icon-billy-graham/
March 7, 2016 at 12:14 am
Nettles thinks Andrew Fuller is the way into the truth, i think Fuller is the way people stop short of the truth, and mistake his lies for truth
http://theblog.founders.org/fuller-and-the-atonement-a-way-out-or-a-way-in/
July 12, 2016 at 3:22 am