Bicknell on Article XVIII: Of obtaining eternal Salvation only by the Name of Christ

(a2) How can we reconcile God’s omniscience with man’s responsibility ? If God when He creates a man foreknows that he will go wrong, is not God responsible for his sin in creating him? How can a God of love create a man who will never enjoy that happiness and union with God for which mankind was made ?

(G8) What do we mean when we speak of God’s elect or God’s

chosen ? To what are they chosen, some privileged position or eternal life? Has then God got favourites ? Why are others not elect ? Are they outside God’s love ?

The questions were violently debated at the time of the

Reformation. In some form they exercise the minds of all men. Historically, three main solutions have been given.

(i) St. Augustine in his controversy with Pelagianism for- mulated his views on this question. In dealing with him we need to remember that they are coloured by his own strong religious experience. He felt that quite apart from any merit of his own God had called him. God’s grace had come into his life, bringing with it a new power to love and serve God. He was convinced that God had a purpose of love for him from all eternity and that God’s grace was enabling him to fulfil it. In the light of this he faced the question ‘ Why is the gift of this transforming grace given to some and not to others?’ His own case showed that it was not earned by any goodness. Hence he answered that we cannot know. It depends on God’s will alone. By God’s decree, without any reference to future conduct, some are chosen as ‘vessels of mercy’ to redemption, others are simply left as ‘vessels of wrath.’ He himself went no further, but some of his followers carried his views to the logical conclusion that these last were definitely predestined to sin and evil. God’s elect are kept faithful to Him by fresh supplies of grace, which endow them with the gift of ‘ perseverance.’ This again is a mystery beyond human comprehension. Perseverance to the end is a sign that a man is predestinated to eternal life. The purpose of God for His elect cannot fail. He had to explain away such texts as ‘God willeth that all men should be saved ’ (1 Tim. 2+), as meaning only that God, as no respecter of persons, willed some men of every age and class to be saved.

(ii) Calvin did little more than systematize this view and draw out its full implications (v. above). This doctrine—apart from personal experience—is based upon one side of St. Paul’s teaching especially Ro. 8 and 9, such as 8”-*°, ‘We know that to them that love God all things work together for good, even to them that are called according to his purpose. For whom he fore- knew, he also foreordained to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first born among many brethren: and whom he foreordained, them he also called : and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.’

Again, in discussing why Jacob was chosen and Ksau rejected even before they were born and had done anything good or

bad (914), and pointing to it as evidence of the freeness of God’s choice, he adds, ‘ What shall we say then ? Is there unrighteous- ness with God ? God forbid. For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that hath mercy. For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, For this very purpose did I raise thee up, that I might show in thee my power and that my name might be published abroad in all the earth. So then he hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardeneth. Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he still find fault 2 For who withstandeth his will? Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God ? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why didst thou make me thus? Or hath not the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel unto honour and another unto dishonour ? What if God, willing to show his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much long-suffering vessels of wrath fitted unto destruction: and that he might make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy ?’

The general impression gained by reading such a passage in isolation at first sight is favourable to something very like Calvinism. Exclusive stress seems to be laid on the power of God and the mysteriousness of its working. But a closer study corrects any such impression. St. Paul is speaking here primarily of nations, not individuals. Jacob stands for the nation of Israel and Esau for Edom (cp. 9” ff.). Again, St. Paul avoids saying that God Himself prepared vessels of wrath unto destruction: he only says that ‘God endured vessels of wrath fitted unto destruction.” He does say explicitly that ‘God prepared vessels unto glory’ (v. 78). But no doubt from one point of view he would even say that God formed vessels unto wrath, just as he says above that God ‘hardened Pharaoh’s heart.’ In such language, he speaks as a Jew. The Jews, ignoring all intermediate causes, assigned all that happened to its ultimate cause, viz. God. A Jew would say equally that God hardens a man’s heart or that a man hardens his own heart ; that God fits a man for wrath or a man fits him- self for wrath. For the process of hardening is due to one of God’s laws, the law of character, and in this sense is the work

of God. The man acts; and his actions produce the result that God’s law renders inevitable. Even so it is worth noting that God’s delay in manifesting His power in punishment is due to His ‘long-suffering’ (cp. Ro. 24). More important. still, these passages cannot be taken by themselves. They repre- sent only one side of St. Paul’s teaching. Elsewhere He speaks of God’s love for all men and of the natural love in man for what is good. His exhortations assume the truth of man’s responsibility. We cannot isolate one step in a long and in- volved argument such as that of the Epistle to the Romans and base a complete theology upon it.

(ui) In opposition to Calvinism, Arminius, who taught at Leyden about 1604 (and therefore after the date of this Article), formulated views previously held by many. He taught that God predestines to eternal life certain men because He foresees that they will use their free-will aright and be faithful to the grace that is given them. ‘This view is called ‘ praedestinatio ex praevisis meritis.’ A very similar view was held by many of the Fathers ; in fact, so far as any doctrine on the subject was formulated at all, in the Church, it was Arminian even in the West until the time of St. Augustine. In the Hast Augustini- anism, never won general acceptance. The only text that offers any support to such a view is Ro. 8°?9. The great majority of Greek commentators take ‘according to his purpose’ to refer not to God’s purpose but to man’s purpose ‘in accordance with man’s free act of choice.’ This is impossible.

Again, the word ‘ foreknew ’ in the next verse has been pressed in an Arminian sense. But the word must be understood in accordance with Biblical usage, and means ‘took note of,’ ‘fixed His regard on’ with a view to selection for some specia! purpose. The strong point of the Arminian view is that it lays stress on human responsibility, and on the truth that sufficient grace is given to all. Its weak point is that it appears to make God’s election not a free gift, as St. Paul tells us it is, but a reward earned in advance by man’s own efforts. Further, it does not really escape the harshness of Calvinism. Predestination accord- ing to foreseen merit logically implies condemnation according to foreseen failure.

(6) We need to bear in mind that Scripture insists upon three great thoughts. (i) God has an eternal purpose of love

for all nations and individuals whom He has made. (ii) Salva- tion and grace are from first to last the gifts of God’s free bounty. (iti) Man is responsible to God for his conduct.

(i) Whatever God has done or is now doing for us, He eternally intended to do. The Gospel is the mystery or secret ‘ which hath been kept in silence through times eternal, but now is manifested ’ (Ro. 16%). God ‘called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before times- eternal but hath now been manifested by the appearing of our Saviour, Christ Jesus’ (2 Tim. 1%!9 cp. Tit. 12). God, by creating a human life, has in some sense made Himself responsible for it. A God of love and justice must have a purpose of love for every single being whom He creates, in the fulfilment of which the created being will find his true satisfaction. In this sense all must be predestined to life. It is this thought that, rightly grasped, has such great moral power. A man needs to feel that he has behind him not only his own efforts but God’s eternal love: that God has a place for him to fill: that nothing can happen to him from outside without God’s knowledge and permission: that it is God’s will for him that he should do right and realize his best self. The success of our life must depend not simply on ourselves but on God’s purpose of love.

(ii) God’s purpose for us is to be realized through union with Himself. This union is brought within our reach through Jesus Christ. It was God’s eternal purpose to sum up all things in Him (Eph. 1°). ‘It was the good pleasure of the Father… through him to reconcile all things unto himself’ (Col. 17°). His redeeming work was no afterthought. He was from all eternity God’s elect or chosen (Is. 421, 1 Pet. 24), ‘the Lamb that hath been slain from the foundation of the world’ (Rev. 138). When we are made members of Christ we share His election. We are ‘chosen in Christ out of mankind.’ It is God’s purpose to bring us ‘by Christ to everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honour.’ ‘He chose us in him before the foundation of the world … having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely be- stowed on us in the Beloved’ (Eph. 1*°, cp. 2*7). The glorious position, ‘sitting in the heavenly places with him in Christ Jesus,’

is, as St. Paul’s language shows, not the reward of our own merit, but God’s free gift. He chose us, not we Him. The initial act is God’s, not our own (1 Pet. 1+?). How is it then that all are not chosen or elect ? The answer lies in the thought that God works out His purpose for the world gradually. No one can deny that spiritual graces and opportunities, no less than temporal, are unequally distributed (ep. Lk. 124*4). Under the old Covenant Israel was by God’s choice an elect nation. To them God granted a special revelation of Himself. They were His people (Deut. 78, etc.). They had many spiritual advantages that the other nations did not have. So to-day the Christian Church is the new Israel (Gal. 61%, Phil. 3°): it has inherited the unique spiritual privileges of the old Israel. The Christian has spiritual advantages that those outside do not as yet enjoy (1 Pet. 291°, Heb, 131°). The Christian, like the Jew of old, is elect, or, to put it m modern English, selected, not because God arbitrarily saves one man and passes over or condemns another, but because God’s plan is to save men through men. The privilege of being elect carries with it the duty of using the advantages bestowed for the good of others. Abraham was chosen that ultimately in him ‘ all the families of the earth might be blessed ’ (Gen. 123). Israel was chosen to do a work for God for the ultimate benefit of the whole world (Is. 49°, 60). Every Christian is called upon to say with our Lord Himself ‘ For their sakes I sanctify myself ’ (Jn. 17). The Church is the Body of Christ through which the world is to be won back to God (cp. Eph. 3814),

(ii) Accordingly, either a nation or an individual may at this moment not be elect for one of two reasons. (a) Their opportunity may not yet have come. As the Article says, God’s spirit works im due season. (b) Their opportunity may have come and been rejected (cp. Acts 13%). In Scripture the ‘ repro- bate’ are not those doomed to eternal damnation by some arbitrary decree of God, but those who disobey the light that is given to them (Ro. 18, 2 Cor. 13°). Thus Scripture seems to show that election is primarily to privilege, but such, if rightly accepted and used, is the means to eternal life. God’s purpose is that it shall be so used. There is the very closest connexion between election and salvation. We are chosen according to God’s purpose, not to any merely earthly destiny. But whether we attain it or no depends upon ourselves. Such election is

God’s method of leading us to salvation, but it needs to be made sure by our own efforts to live up to it (2 Pet. 12°, ep. Col. 312). Attempts have been made to show that election is necessarily to eternal life. Our Lord’s words are quoted ‘ Many are called but few chosen,’ where ‘called’ refers obviously to privilege and ‘chosen ’ to final salvation, and the two are distinguished. But there is nothing in this contrary to what we have said above. Everything depends on the context in which the terms are used. In 2 Pet. 11° they are identified : here they are contrasted, and ‘chosen ’ refers not to this life but to the day of judgment, when God’s award depends upon the right use of the opportunities bestowed upon those who are called. No doubt it is God’s pur- pose of love to bring those who are chosen in Christ to salvation : only our own sloth or wilfulness can thwart this. But as long as we live here we need care and watchfulness (cp. 1 Cor. 92”). (c) We may ask, Is this the teaching of the Articles? There is nothing in the Articles that contradicts it, but the general impression produced is not the same. The reason is that the Articles give only one side of the teaching of Scripture. They deal with salvation entirely from God’s side and ignore man’s co-operation. The complementary side of the teaching of Scrip- ture is passed over in silence. Our relation to God is a very complex one. If we consider all the metaphors by which our Lord illustrates it, we get a very long list. God is our King, our Master, our Judge, our Shepherd and above all our Father. To gain a true proportion we must take into account all these. This group of Articles is practically based upon one and one only, and that the most severe. God is viewed above all as “a Lord Chief-Justice ’ or a ‘moral connoisseur.’ His Fatherly love for the souls whom He has made, His personal dealings with us, our response and all the nobler side of human nature are ignored. Hence the chilly and unreal feeling of these Articles. There is nothing untrue in them, but rather a want of proportion. (d) Behind all these questions lies the problem of the relation of God’s omniscience to man’s free will. This in turn is only one part of the standing mystery of the relation of the finite to the infinite and time to eternity. A definite solution is obvi- ously impossible. Even if the human mind were competent to grasp eternal truth, a large portion of the facts obviously lie outside any human experience. On such questions moral insight

can go further than merely intellectual skill. The teaching of Scripture on such points can hardly be reduced to a system. It is always practical rather than speculative. Scripture holds before us two great counter-truths—first, God’s absolute sovereignty (cp. Ro. 9?° ff.), and secondly, man’s responsibility. Our intellects cannot reconcile them. So far as we can reconcile them at all it is by right action and vigorous moral life. Hach truth finds its completest fulfilment in the moral life of Jesus Christ. We must not shut our eyes to either side of the truth, because it conflicts with our theories. The difficulty reaches its climax in such a case as that of Judas Iscariot. He was elect (Jn. 67°), We cannot but suppose that our Lord called him, because he had certain powers that he might have employed in the work of an apostle and that there was a work in the purpose of God waiting for him to do. On the one hand Christ has the moral insight to foresee his coming fall and its awful consequences (Mk. 141° ff.). On the other hand Judas is regarded as personally responsible. Up to the end Christ does all in His power to save him (Mt. 26°°, Lk. 224). We may not think that such efforts were in any sense unreal or that it was not God’s purpose that he should live up to his privileged position.

Most theologians, no doubt, have held that God’s omniscience is such that He possesses an accurate knowledge of every detail of the future and can foresee who will use the grace given to them. Others, however, hold that though God is indeed omnis- cient, He can only know what is knowable, and that by creating man with free will He Himself introduced a certain element of contingency into the course of the world’s history. For instance, Martensen writes :

‘The contradiction which has been supposed to exist between the idea of the free progress of the world and the ommniscience of God, rests upon a one-sided conception of omniscience, as a mere knowing beforehand and an ignoring of the conditional in the divine decrees. An unconditional fore-knowledge un- deniably militates against the freedom of the creature, as far as freedom of choice is concerned; and against the undecided, the contingent, which is an idea inseparable from the develop- ment of freedom in time. … But such an unconditional fore- knowledge not only militates against the freedom of the creature, it equally is opposed to the idea of a freely working God in

history. A God literally foreknowing all things, would be merely the spectator of events decided and predestined from eternity, not the all-directing governor in a drama of freedom which He carries on in reciprocal conflict and work with the freedom of the creature. If we would preserve this reciprocal relation between God and His creatures, we must not make the whole actual course of the world the subject of His foreknowledge, but only its essential import, the essential truth it involves. The final goal of this world’s development, together with the entire series of its essentially necessary stages, must be regarded as fixed in the eternal counsel of God ; but the practical carrying out of this eternal counsel, the entire fulness of actual limita- tions on the part of this world’s progress, in so far as these are conditioned by the freedom of the creature, can only be the subject of a conditional foreknowledge, 7z.e. they can be foreknown as possibilities, as Futurabilia, but not as realities, because other possibilities may actually take place… While God neither foreknows nor will foreknow what He leaves undecided, in order to be decided in time, He is no less cognizant of and privy to all that occurs… His knowledge penetrates the entanglements of this world’s progress at every point; the unerring eye of His wisdom discerns in every moment the relation subsisting between free beings and His eternal plan; and His almighty hand, His power, pregnant of great designs, guides and influences the movements of the world as His counsels require.’ *

We may compare with this a passage from James’ Will to Believe (p. 181).

‘Suppose two men before a chess-board—the one a novice, the other an expert player of the game. The expert intends to beat. But he cannot foresee exactly what any one actual move of his adversary may be. He knows however all the possible moves of the latter; and he knows in advance how to meet each of them by a move of his own which leads in the direction of victory. And the victory infallibly arrives, after no matter how devious a course, in the one predestined form of checkmate to the novice’s king.’

It may be that such mental pictures are as near as we can get to a systematized understanding of God’s plan as it is revealed in Scripture and experience. We must maintain God’s

sovereignty. He knows all the possibilities that His universe contains. He is always able to overrule history to His purpose. But it may be that it rests with human choice and effort to determine by which of many possible roads the goal shall be reached. Modern thought is increasingly dissatisfied with the idea of life as the mere unrolling of a previously determined system and insists on the part played by the free exercise of rational purpose. Choice has in a very true sense a creative power, since it determines the line along which evolution shall go forward. No doubt when acts are past we can trace them back to the causes that produced them: as we look back on them now they seem to be the one and inevitable result of those causes. But that does not show that the possibility that was actually realized was the only possibility before us at the actual time of choice. Our consciousness seems to point the other way. We must believe, however, that God’s infinite love and power and wisdom can never be baffled or defeated in the final issue.

(e) The moral effect of the doctrine of Predestunation.

The meaning of the second paragraph may be put thus:

(i) On the one hand a knowledge of God’s eternal purpose for us is a challenge to us to live up to it (cp. the closing sentence of the first paragraph). As Dr. Mozley says, ‘The sense of predestination which the New Testament encourages is connected with strength of moral principle in the individual. … No idea can be more opposed to Scripture or more unwarrantable than ‘any idea of predestination separate from this consciousness and not arising upon this foundation.’ * Again, God’s election is a call to us to pass through those stages of the moral life which are the appointed road to sanctification and to use the means of grace that God has ordained. As Hooker says, ‘ There are that elevate too much the ordinary and immediate means of light, relying wholly upon the bare conceit of that eternal election which notwithstanding includeth subordination of means, without which we are not actually brought to enjoy what God secretly did intend: and therefore to build upon God’s election, if we keep not ourselves to the ways which He hath appointed for man to walk in, is but a self-deceiving vanity.’ +

(i) The second half of the paragraph points out the dangers of brooding over the idea of predestination, dangers that were only too apparent at the time of the Reformation. If a man believes himself to be eternally lost by God’s decree, then he may either be led to despair and possibly suicide, or he may decide that as he is to be damned any how, he may as well deserve it by having a good time during his life here. We hear of men taking their lives out of ‘desperation.’ Others, again, who believed themselves to be saved by the decree of God, claimed to live a life of unbridled license since nothing could destroy their election. Thus, whether a man felt himself to be lost or saved he might be thrust ‘into wretchlessness (i.e. reck- lessness) of most unclean living.’

(f) If the opening paragraph of the Article might suggest a Calvinistic interpretation, the last two sentences effectually dispel it. They deny the Calvinistic doctrine of ‘ particular redemption,’ 2.e. that Christ died for all men. ‘ We must receive God’s promises in such wise as they are generally (i.e. universally, for all men) set forth in Holy Scripture.’ The reference is to such passages as 1 Tim. 24. The second sentence runs ‘ In our doings that will of God is to be followed, which we have expressly declared to us in the word of God.’ This rules out a view current at the time among certain Anabaptists that God had a secret will besides His will revealed in Scripture, and that this secret will might cancel the revealed will. Thus God’s promises of salva- tion offered to all might not ultimately be valid.*

Art. XVIII at first sight seems hardly consistent with this last statement. It appears to deny salvation, e.g. to the heathen and those who have never heard of Christ. But this was not in the mind of those who composed it. It is aimed at a particular set of people at a particular time. The Latin title ‘De speranda aeterna salute ’ shows that it is aimed at those who have the opportunity of being Christians. Two alternatives are possible: (i) That it was aimed at those who hoped to win salvation by joining some religious order (here called a law or sect), and observing its rule of life.t (ii) That it is aimed at Anabaptists, who rejected

*It is worth noting that to-day the moral difficulty for most men lies not in the apparent inequality of opportunities for attaining heaven, but rather in the inequality of opportunities in this present life. The centre of gravity

has shifted from the other world to this.:

• See Dixon, vol. v. p. 397. Bs

Christ as Saviour and treated any definite Christian belief as unimportant. In any case it raises a wide question: if belief in Christ is essential to salvation, what are we to say of good heathen or those among ourselves who reject the Christian faith. The answer is this: Christ claims to be the one and only Saviour (cp. Acts 41%). ‘God gave unto us eternal life and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath the life and he that hath not the Son of God hath not the life’ (1 Jn. 5114). But the Church never dares to say of any man that he is finally lost. Those who do not yet know Christ or who die without knowing Him will not ‘be saved by the law or sect they profess.’ There is no Saviour but Christ. But we trust that in His own way and at His own time, He will make Himself known to them. Those who are faithful to the highest that they know are un- consciously serving Him even now. There are many unconscious Christians (cp. Jn. 1016). Christ is the ‘Saviour of all men, specially of them that believe ’ (1 Tim. 41°). In the parable of the sheep and the goats, those who have observed simple moral duties of love and kindness have really been doing them to Christ, and they seem to be the heathen (ra @@vy, Mt. 252). All that we must insist on is that men are bound to do their utmost to attain to further truth, and, when it is found, to live up to it and to the claims that it makes upon them (cp. Jn. 72”).

Notes

• Martensen, Dogmatics, pp. 218-219.
• Augustinian Doctrine of Predestination, pp. 44-45. + Hooker, V. c. 60 § 3.