Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus (2 Tim 2:3).

Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted (2 Tim 3:12).

The identity of the Christian, which is found in Jesus Christ, includes with it the sufferings of Christ. In other words, to be united to and thus identified with the once crucified Savior means that the Christian’s life in this present mode of existence will necessarily entail suffering. What is in view from the perspective of these verses is not suffering as such, but suffering as a Christian. Furthermore, it is not suffering that a Christian may endure because of his indwelling sin, corruption, or foolish actions that is in view (though that may be in view in other passages). Rather, it is suffering that arises precisely because of one’s identity with Christ who suffered for us.

In the first verse take note of Paul’s metaphor of a soldier. Timothy, in his particular capacity as a minister of the New Covenant, is likened to a soldier. Surely, however, the analogy of a soldier is proper not just to ministers of the Gospel, but to each individual Christian. And not just to Christians as individuals, but to the church corporately in its present mode of existence living in the midst of this present wicked and perverse generation (Phil 2:15). So, the church corporately, as well as each individual Christian, is called to be a soldier. Specifically, Christians are called to be soldiers of Jesus Christ. Christ is himself the captain of the army of the Lord (cf. Josh 5), and believers are his soldiers. Further, the Christian is called to be a “good” soldier of Jesus Christ. But what does it mean to be a “good soldier?” It is, in fact, to “share in suffering.” The goodness of the soldier is qualified in terms of suffering. And specifically suffering that comes in warfare. And the warfare in view is that which comes by enemy opposition.

What it means to be a good soldier who suffers in the midst of warfare is given further expression by Paul in 3:12, the second verse above. And once again, the suffering that is assumed by Paul here is not mere human suffering which is common to all – inclusive of believer and unbeliever. But the suffering that is in view is the suffering that comes to those who “will be persecuted.” Further, the persecution that arises is not opposition from unbelievers as such. Unbelievers may in fact oppose a person – whether a believer or fellow unbeliever – for good reasons (such as lawful cases of legal prosecution, or self-defense, etc). But what is in view here is opposition, persecution (i.e., suffering) that arises in opposition to those who “live a godly life.” In a different context Jesus speaks about those who are “persecuted for righteousness sake” (Matt 5:10; cf. 1 Peter 3:14). But, one more important idea needs to be underscored. Note that for Paul it is those who “desire” to live a godly life who will be persecuted. There is something, according to Paul, about the godly desires and affections of the believer which elicits a counter-response of opposition by unbelievers.

One contextual observation is necessary here. The persecution here may in fact be state-sponsored opposition to the righteous living of Christians. In context, Paul mentions his own persecution in v. 11, in the cities of Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra (cf. Acts 13 and 14). It is interesting to note that the persecution that arose there always came by “the Jews.” In some instances, like in Iconium, “the rulers” are mentioned as complicit in the plot to stone Paul and Barnabas (14:5). Women “of high standing” and “leading men” are mentioned in Antioch (13:50). However, leaders or city officials are not mentioned at all in Lystra. But what is striking for our purposes is that while officials may or may not be involved in the persecution of Paul and Barnabas, it is the general population of the cities, specifically unbelieving Jews, who lead the opposition. In other words, it does not appear to be the state who is the primary antagonist to the Gospel and the “good soldier of Jesus Christ.” In short, the “persecution” here does not seem to come only, or even primarily, from the state. It comes from all manner of unbelievers.

In summary, Paul seems to give here principles of how the Christian is to identify with Christ – principles which are also given by our Lord himself in the Gospels as well as Peter (we could also include the other authors of the NT as well). In other words, part and parcel of the Christian’s identity is that he will be opposed and be persecuted when he acts as a good soldier with a desire to live a godly life (Jesus said, “If they persecuted me, they will persecute you,” John 15:20). Now, that does not necessarily mean the persecution will be as intense as it was in Paul and Barnabas’ instances. It may come in greater or lesser intensity. But it will come – always.

These exegetical observations seem to leave very little room for a triumphalist view of the Gospel and the church vis-a-vis the culture. While certainly God may in fact ordain times and seasons and places where the church is persecuted and opposed less intensely than in others, the lack of evidence of any promise of God that this will happen (either on a local or global scale) is remarkable. Therefore, the church should expect that the default mode of her existence, until the vindicating return of her Savior, will be that of constant warfare. She is always the church militant and never the church triumphant this side of Glory. The church’s present mode of existence is rightly described by the Westminster Standards as the Kingdom of Grace, and not yet the Kingdom of Glory (cf. Westminster Shorter Catechism 102). Now she lives by grace in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9), and only after the parousia will she live free of militancy and in a state of triumphal rest.

In the meanwhile, the more we desire to live godly lives the more we should expect persecution. Living a godly life in the midst of this crooked generation is not an option. But rather than think our godliness will transform the world and tame it now, we should expect that it will only all the more exasperate the opposition of the world. Will sinners be converted under our faithful witness? Yes, we should expect they will. Will many be converted under our faithful witness to Christ? Only God knows, but we should pray to that end. But even here we should expect, as happened in Paul’s ministry, the more sinners that are converted to Christ the more opposition the church will face. Conversions, even mass conversions, do not subdue the world’s hatred for Christ, but rather incite it.

Can we hope and pray for a day and an age when the church will live globally in peace, with unbelief and evil generally marginalized? Sure! What a great prayer that is! But if that happens it will happen not because the Bible promises it. It does not. In fact, the promise the Bible gives us is that if we are faithful Christians that means persecution for us. But despite being opposed at every turn, if we are faithful soldiers God will give us the victory. Not a victory of this-worldly triumph (too many Christians hope for too little!). But a greater victory than that. The victory of eternal life in Immanuel’s land where righteousness will dwell forever.

It is often assumed that Karl Barth’s thought is the antithesis of medieval scholasticism. It is true that Barth is exceedingly critical of Aquinas. But does Barth offer us a better theological program than that offered in Scholasticism? Van Til answers that question with a resounding no.

For instance, in Common Grace and the Gospel Van Til says:

In the first place it means that we cannot join Karl Barth in reducing God as He is in Himself to a relation that He sustains to His people in the world. Barth virtually seeks to meet the objector’s charge that Christianity involves a basic contradiction by rejecting the idea of God as He is in Himself and of God’s counsel as controlling all things in the world. He says that Calvin’s doctrine of God’s counsel must be completely rejected. Only when it is rejected, is the grace of God permitted to flow freely upon mankind. And that means that God’s love envelops all men. To be sure, for Barth there is reprobation but it is reprobation in Christ. The final word of God for all men, says Barth, is Yes. It matters not that men have not heard of the gospel of Jesus of Nazareth. For Jesus of Nazareth is not, as such, the Christ. All men are as men, of necessity in Christ. All grace is universal or common grace.

From the historic Christian point of view this is simply to say that the concept of grace is so widened as no longer to be grace at all.

How truly Herman Bavinck anticipated, as it were, this most heretical of heresies of our day when he pointed out that in the last analysis one must make his choice between Pelagius and Augustine. The grace of God as Barth presents it is no longer distinguishable from the natural powers of man. All men to be men, says Barth, must have been saved and glorified from all eternity in Christ.

This is how Barth would meet the objection against the idea of the sovereign grace of God. There is no longer any sovereign God and therefore there is no longer any grace. (pp. 154-155)

What Van Til says here takes some unpacking. I will do so in several points.

First, Van Til notes Barth’s rejection of Calvin’s view of God’s eternal decree (cf. CD II.2, 67-76). Calvin affirms an absolutum decretum. This is the view that God, from eternity past, has elected some onto eternal life and some unto eternal damnation (i.e., double predestination). Barth believed that this was abstract theology, beginning as it does with an abstract decree of God-in-himself. Barth proposes instead a thoroughly Christological revamping of God’s decree. The idea is that Jesus Christ himself forms the two sides of election. In his humanity he is the elected man, and in his divinity he is the electing God (CD II.2, 76). And it is this relation-in-act which constitutes God’s being as it is. As he will later say, God’s “being is decision;” i.e., his decision to elect humanity in Christ’s humanity (CD II.2, 175).

Second, this means that God’s grace is to and for all of humanity in the humanity of Jesus Christ. The humanity of Jesus Christ, in the eternal decision of election, is the vicarious humanity of all humans. In other words, because his humanity is the object of God’s electing grace and since his humanity represents all of humanity, that means all of humanity receives the electing grace of God. All humans are elect. God’s grace is – as Van Til says above – permitted to flow to all mankind. That means that God’s grace is universal. Or, we might say, common. It is given to all men, regardless of whether or not they consider themselves Christians. Grace is common to all – believer as well as unbeliever.

Third, Van Til says that Barth’s position is that God’s being as well as man’s being is constituted by relation to one another. There is no abstract God, or God-in-himself. God’s being is a being-in-relation (to man). Likewise, man’s being is a being-in-relation (to God). This relation is found in Jesus Christ who is himself the relation between man (his humanity) and God (his divinity). Man’s being then is a being of grace. Humanity is elected man and therefore is “full of grace.” This applies not just to his status as elect, but to his very being. Van Til is troubled by this, in part, because if everything is grace then nothing is grace. If every man is a recipient of grace then grace has lost its meaning. Grace can be understood as grace only over against condemnation. And while Barth affirms Christ is both the elect man and reprobate man, yet no man is actually reprobate. All are elect. That turns what Calvin regarded as special grace into common grace. Common grace and the Gospel are confused in Barth.

Fourth, as he said earlier, this makes Barth’s position almost indistinguishable from the analogia entis of Scholasticism. Van Til notes

For it is of the essence of the analogy of faith … that the ideas of God and man be thought of as correlative to one another. God is then nothing but what He is in relation to man through Christ, and man is nothing but what he is in relation to God through Christ. If the idea of correlativity between God and man was already involved in the analogy of being, it came to its full and final expression in the idea of the analogy of faith. (Common Grace, 130)

In other words, just as man and God are related to one another by the common idea of being (something the two share), so likewise with Barth’s view of analogy. God and man are related, they are as Van Til says elsewhere, “correlative” to one another in the eternal decision of God in election in Christ. For Thomas it was being that served as a common ontological notion which God and man have in common. For Barth it is God’s act of electing grace which holds them in common. But in either scenario God becomes dependent on something other than himself in his existence. God’s being as the electing God depends on his relation to man, just as man depends on his relation to God in Christ for his being. In God’s Time for Us I argue that this relation occurs in the “time” of God’s grace in Christ. This “time” serves as a substitute for a metaphysical notion of being. But whether we are talking about time or being, either way there is an ontological tertium quid which serves as an abstract ontological commonality relating God and man.

Barth, no less than Thomas, fails to properly maintain the creator-creature distinction. And with that, he – no less than Thomas – fails to properly maintain the antithesis between believer and unbeliever (since grace is common to all). This gives the unbeliever a certain kind of autonomy and libertarian freedom to believe as he wants about God. Barth, in some ways, out-scholasticizes and out-rationalizes even Thomas himself! If nature is grace for Barth then all theology is natural theology, even while it is at the same time gracious theology. If Barth were consistent with his theology, then there really could be no Nein! to natural theology, but only a full and unequivocal yes and amen.

On October 31st, 1517, Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses to the church door in Wittenberg. These were dark, dark days; the gospel had been shackled by the superstitions and idolatries of the Roman Catholic Church and consigned to her dungeon where its light was hidden from the world. But Luther’s action that day would initiate its emancipation by sparking the Protestant Reformation. The Reformers rescued the gospel from Rome’s dungeon and brought it to the hilltops from where its light could again emanate as a beacon of salvation for all to see. To remember this day in the history of Christ’s church, brothers from various Reformed denominations have contributed articles on each of the five solas of the Reformation: sola scriptura, sola fide, sola gratia, solus Christus, and soli Deo gloria. Together they form the five-fold light of the gospel that overcomes the darkness.

– Daniel Ragusa

Introduction

Christians the world around believe in salvation by grace. In fact, many on both sides of the Protestant/Catholic divide believe that salvation is by grace alone. The Lutheran-Catholic ecumenical document, The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, attests to this in paragraph 15: “Together we confess: By grace alone [emphasis mine], in faith in Christ’s saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping and calling us to good works.” Here we have what seems to be a definite statement by both Lutherans and Catholics that salvation is by grace alone. Does this mean that the Reformers were wrong to assert sola gratia or “grace alone”? What does “grace alone” mean anyway? What was the issue at stake?

In order for us to understand “grace alone,” we need to revisit a debate that began in ancient times between Augustine and Pelagius and continues to this day between Augustine’s defenders and his critics. This look at “grace alone,” then, will be a historical overview not a biblical one, though I hope to intersperse biblical thought throughout. Since this debate began with Augustine and Pelagius, I will spend most of my time with them.

Augustine and Pelagius

The debate between Augustine and Pelagius was over the nature of the fall of man, of God’s grace, and of predestination. Pelagius taught that Adam’s fall into sin affected him only, thus he denied that men were fundamentally corrupt and sinful. Instead he taught that man is basically good, but can become sinful by means of imitation or immoral choices. Grace, therefore, was not necessary, but only auxiliary. It was there to help, but man could be righteous apart from it. Furthermore, Pelagius had a severe distaste for Augustine’s teaching on predestination, arguing that it made preaching useless. If man could not do what God willed, then there was no point in God commanding anything. And if God predestined some to eternal life and others to eternal damnation, then God will save regardless of whether man chooses for good or not. Predestination, he thought, amounted to a license to sin.

Augustine did not always hold to the view of sovereign grace and predestination. He mentions in his Retractions that before he became a Bishop, he taught that man’s faith came first and God’s grace was a response to that faith. He later came to teach sovereign grace after a fuller consideration of the Apostle Paul’s teaching, who said, “And what do you have that you did not receive?” (1 Cor. 4:7), and of this statement by Cyprian: “We must boast over nothing since we have nothing of our own.”

Once he understood what the Apostle Paul said concerning man’s inability and God’s sovereign grace, Augustine taught that, since the fall, man is completely incapable of doing any good that would merit anything from God. Adam and Eve were capable of being good and righteousness in their original state, but when they fell, they became guilty and thoroughly corrupted themselves, and not only themselves, but their guilt and corruption fell upon the whole human race. Augustine based this teaching upon Romans 5:12, “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned.”

Since man is thoroughly corrupt, he cannot do anything that would merit God’s grace. Moreover, man cannot even cooperate with God’s grace in any way. God’s grace must precede every salvific act for and in man. If man has faith in Christ, it is because God graciously enabled him to do so. Faith does not precede God’s grace, as the Pelagians taught; rather, as the Apostle Paul taught, “it is a gift of God” (Eph. 2:8).

Augustine argued, based upon Philippians 1:29, that man was not given grace to have more faith, but simply to have faith. This verse, as well as Ephesians 2:8, was proof for him that faith does not precede God’s gift of grace. But as to why some believe and others do not, Augustine taught, based upon Ephesians 1 and Romans 9, that it is because God predestines some to believe unto eternal life and others to remain in their sin and unbelief. The grace of God precedes man’s faith from all eternity, yet His grace prepares man’s will and enables him to believe in time. More accurately, he said, “Predestination is the preparation for grace, while grace is its actual bestowal.” The Triune God works from all eternity to bring about in time the salvation of man, as 1 Peter 1:3 states, “Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.”

Augustine did not only see this idea of predestination in the Apostle Paul’s teachings, but also in the teachings of Jesus Christ. He turned to John 6 and saw the same view of the priority of grace as in Paul. Jesus clearly taught that if a person is to come in faith to Christ, it is necessary for God to move him by His grace. “All that the Father gives me,” Jesus said, “will come to me” (6:37), and “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” (6:44). This is very similar to Jesus’ prayer in Matthew 11:25-30, where He gives thanks to the Father for revealing to babes what He hid from the wise. He says further in v. 27, “No one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.” The difference here from John 6 is that it is the Son revealing sovereign grace as well as the Father.

Augustine clearly taught that predestination was not based upon God’s foreknowledge of faith or human worthiness. It is a predestination based solely upon God’s gracious disposition. He wrote, “If one examines and asks why anyone is worthy, there are not lacking those who say that it is due to the human will. But we say that it is due to God’s grace or predestination.”

There were those who were (and still are!) troubled by this teaching. Why didn’t God predestine all unto everlasting life? Augustine left this mystery to God, but he wrote, “But why is it not given to all ought not to disturb a believer who believes that because of the one all have entered into condemnation, which is undoubtedly most just, and that there would be no just grounds for blaming God even if no one were set free from it. From this we are shown that it is a great grace that many are set free and recognize what they deserved in those who are not set free.” Augustine also echoes the Apostle Paul’s sentiment in Romans 9:20, “But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God?” It is God’s prerogative to show mercy to whomever He will have mercy and compassion to whomever He will have compassion (Rom. 9:15).

It is important to remember that Augustine did not teach that man’s will is violated by God’s grace. Post-fall man is corrupt and cannot do any meritorious good. Nevertheless, he sins of his own will. God does not force him to sin. So, too, those who believe are not forced to believe. When Jesus said, “All that the Father gives me will come to me,” he did not mean that they came grudgingly. God works in them so that they willingly believe and come to Christ with thankful hearts. Even though Augustine called faith a gift, he taught that man’s faith was his own. Augustine never denied that man possessed a will; he only taught that his will was corrupt and needed God’s grace to choose for the good.

This teaching, said Augustine, brought glory to where it is due—to God alone. Those who taught that faith preceded God’s grace gave glory to man. He wrote, “Not wanting, then, to resist these very clear testimonies [from Rom. 12:3 and Eph. 6:23] and yet wanting to have his believing from himself, a person makes a deal, as it were, with God and claims for himself a part of his faith and leaves a part for God. And what is more presumptuous, he claims the first part for himself and gives the second part to God, and in that work he says belongs to both, he puts himself first and God second.”

Semi-Pelagianism

Pelagianism was condemned by the Council of Carthage in 418, which was later upheld by the Council of Ephesus in 431. Yet, despite this condemnation, there were still those who continued to be troubled by Augustine’s view. Men such as John Cassian and Vincent of Lerins sought a middle way between Augustinianism and Pelagianism. Their view came to be known in the sixteenth century as “semi-Pelagianism,” though disciples of Augustine saw their view as “the remnants of the Pelagian heresy.” They agreed with Augustine that Adam’s fall affected the entire race, but they did not teach a thorough corruption. They taught that there remained enough good in man to respond to God’s call to faith and repentance. In their view, faith still preceded God’s offer of grace, yet, they argued against Pelagius, God’s grace was still necessary to salvation; a person cannot be righteous without it.

They taught that man cooperated with God’s grace, that he could resist and reject God’s grace, and that he could even fall away from God’s grace. These notions were all rejected by Augustine. Any cooperation, he taught, was because God enabled that cooperation by grace, and this grace never failed in its application. Here he was echoing the Apostle Paul who said, “for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13), and “He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6).

The second Council of Orange in 529 condemned semi-Pelagianism and upheld Augustinianism. Canon 20 sums up well both the necessity and the priority of grace: “That a man can do no good without God. God does much that is good in a man that the man does not do; but a man does nothing good for which God is not responsible, so as to let him do it.” The Council of Orange, however, was not an ecumenical council, so its canons were never considered to be the universal teachings of the church, even though it claimed catholicity to its teachings.

This debate, therefore, continued through the Medieval period, most notably in the ninth century between Gottschalk, an Augustinian, and Hincmar, a semi-Pelagian. Gottschalk was not alone in his day in affirming all the points of Augustine’s view of grace, but he was nevertheless attacked. And because of his views he was whipped, defrocked, forced to burn his books, and imprisoned in a monastery until his death around 868. This is indicative of how the tide rose in favor of semi-Pelagianism in the church. Still, Augustine’s view of grace and predestination remained in favor by several Medieval theologians, such as Anselm of Canterbury, Peter Lombard, Thomas Aquinas, and Thomas Bradwardine.

The Reformation

As we can see, the Reformation did not begin the debate, but merely carried on the debate. The early Reformers, nearly to a man (at least those who ended up breaking away from the Roman Catholic Church) sided with Augustine on the nature of the fall, grace, and predestination. They agreed that man was thoroughly corrupt and unable to do anything that merited God’s favor and that God’s grace was sovereign and objectively preceded every salvific act in man. The Roman Catholic Church, however, decided in favor of semi-Pelagianism at the Council of Trent, as it does to this day.

John Calvin, in particular, was an adept student of Augustine. He taught that Adam’s fall into sin brought guilt and corruption upon the whole human race. Thus, since the fall man is not capable of any saving good. In fact, he said, according to the Apostle Paul, only damnable things are produced from man’s nature. Calvin cites Romans 3:10-18 which concludes that “there is none who does good, no, not one.”

It is because of his corruption that man cannot seek salvation in himself but must look entirely elsewhere. He cannot come to any saving knowledge of God except through faith in Christ. He cannot justify or sanctify himself apart from any union with Christ. All of this is a gift of the Holy Spirit, who works faith in believers’ hearts and unites them to Christ from whom they receive the blessings of salvation, especially justification and sanctification. But this would never have occurred unless God first predestined them to salvation. Thus Calvin could say in his commentary on Ephesians, “The foundation and first cause, both of our calling and of all the benefits which we receive from God, is here declared to be his eternal election. If the reason is asked, why God has called us to enjoy the gospel, why he daily bestows upon us so many blessings, why he opens to us the gate of heaven, — the answer will be constantly found in this principle, that he hath chosen us before the foundation of the world.”

Calvin taught, as Augustine did, that God’s sovereign grace did not violate man’s will, but made him willing and able to receive the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ. The faith that God granted was man’s own, but God worked it in him by the grace of the Holy Spirit. He taught, too, that God’s election was not based upon a foreknowledge of man’s faith or merit, but based solely upon God’s grace.

This Augustinian and Calvinistic teaching of man’s corruption and God’s sovereign grace was codified in every Reformed confession. And Reformed churches today continue to confess, as the Belgic Confession does, “We believe that, all the posterity of Adam being thus fallen into perdition and ruin by the sin of our first parents, God then did manifest Himself such as He is; that is to say, merciful and just: merciful, since He delivers and preserves from this perdition all whom He in His eternal and unchangeable counsel of mere goodness has elected in Christ Jesus our Lord, without any respect to their works; just, in leaving others in the fall and perdition wherein they have involved themselves” (Art. 16).

In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, this debate was revived within the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands, this time in the form of the teachings of James Arminius. After his death in 1609, his disciples drew up five articles known as the articles of Remonstrance. They took issue with Belgic Confession’s view of election and grace. They instead taught that 1) God’s election was based upon a foreseen faith, 2) Christ died for all men, but only those who believe receive forgiveness of sins and redemption, 3) unregenerate man is not utterly dead in sin and has some power to choose what pleases God, 4) man can resist God’s grace, and 5) saved man can fall away from grace. These teachings were all condemned by the Synod of Dort in 1618/1619.

The Synod, however, affirmed that God’s election unto faith and everlasting life was based solely upon God’s grace and that reprobation is God justly leaving the non-elect in their sin and obstinacy. It also affirmed that, though Christ’s death was sufficient enough to redeem all of mankind (Canons of Dort II.3), yet because of God’s decree, it was effectively applied only to the elect.

The Synod also affirmed that man was thoroughly corrupt and incapable of any act that was pleasing to God. Because of this, man’s conversion is a gracious act of God through the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit. At no point does man cooperate with his own conversion. And rather than being a grace that man resists, this work renews his will so that he desires to be converted and believe in Christ.

Finally, the Synod affirmed that saved man will not fall away from grace. God’s grace is able to save to the full, and there is no one who can snatch a believer out of God’s hand. These teachings were later rearranged and became known as the “The Five Points of Calvinism,” often seen in the acronym “TULIP” or total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and perseverance of the saints. It should be noted, however, that this is not the sum of John Calvin’s teaching, but merely a part.

The Modern Period

The debate that began with Augustine and Pelagius and was carried through the Medieval and Reformation periods continues to this day. In the eighteenth century in America, Jonathan Edwards carried on this debate with the Arminians of New England in his famous book popularly titled, Freedom of the Will. The issue at stake for Edwards was not so much a proper view of man in his fallen and corrupt state, but a proper view of God and of His glorious grace. Edwards understood Calvinism to be biblical; anything less promoted a view that did not give God the glory due His name. Edwards wrote in his sermon, “God Glorified in Man’s Dependence,” “Let us be exhorted to exalt God alone, and ascribe to him all the glory of redemption. Let us endeavor to obtain, and to increase in, a sensibleness of our great dependence on God, to have our eye on him alone, to mortify a self-dependent, and self-righteous disposition. Man is naturally exceeding prone to be exalting himself, and depending on his own power or goodness, as though he were he from whom he must expect happiness, and to have respect to enjoyments alien from God and his Spirit, as those in which happiness is to be found.”

The debate continues today. There are still those who side more or less with Augustine and the Reformation or with Pelagius, semi-Pelagianism, or Arminianism. Books continue to be written defending Augustinianism or semi-Pelagianism and Calvinism or Arminianism. Reformed believers, however, continue to beat the drum of “grace alone.” Why do we do this? It is because views of grace, whether Pelagianism, semi-Pelagianism, or Arminianism, that fall short of the Augustinian (and, we would insist, biblical) standard, cannot be said to give God’s grace its proper due. In other words, it is because we also hold to that other sola of the Reformation, soli Deo gloria, “Glory to God Alone.”

Conclusion

In sum, the watch-word “grace alone” has to do with how we understand man’s fall into sin, God’s gracious recovery, and predestination. Pelagius denied that man was corrupt. He had the ability to be righteous and do meritorious works. Therefore, grace was not necessary to man’s salvation, but only as an aid when needed. The semi-Pelagians saw grace as necessary, but man was not completely corrupt. He retained some spiritual abilities, thus he was able to cooperate with God’s grace. Predestination was downplayed as an inhibitor to preaching and Christian morality. The Roman Catholic Church today still holds this view, but is careful to note that man cannot of his own strictly merit anything from God. It is in this way that Catholics can affirm “grace alone” without denying man’s cooperation with grace. Arminians, too, affirm the necessity of grace, but, like the semi-Pelagians, end up teaching that man cooperates in some way with this grace. Only the Augustinian and Reformed view teaches that salvation from start to finish is all of God’s grace, never of man’s work lest anyone should boast. “Grace alone” is a safeguard against boasting and ensures that we truly give glory to God alone.

For Further Study

• Saint Augustine, “The Predestination of the Saints” and “The Gift of Perseverance” in Selected Writings on Grace and Pelagianism. Translated by Roland Teske. Edited by Boniface Ramsey. New City Press, 2011.
• John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion. Translated by Ford Lewis Battles. Edited by John McNeill. Westminster Press, 1960.
• The Canons of Dort. See Cornelis Venema’s exposition in But for the Grace of God.
• Michael Horton, Putting Amazing Back into Grace. Baker Books, 2011.
• Alexander Y. Hwang, Brian J. Matz, and Augustine Casiday, Eds. Grace for Grace: The Debates After Augustine and Pelagius. Catholic University of America Press, 2014.
• Matthew Levering, The Theology of Augustine. Baker Academic, 2013, pp. 71-87.

In episode 31, your hosts Rob and Bob, continue their discussion about Dispensationalism. In picking up our discussion of Dispensational Theology once again, we discuss “The Dispensation of Grace” a.k.a. The Church Age.

What is the Dispensation of Grace? Why is is also known as the Church Age? How does it relate to the Dispensation of Law? How does it relate to the Mosaic Covenant? Why did Jesus come into the world?

We’ll discuss these and other related questions in this episode of Theology Simply Profound.

Theology Simply Profound is a podcast of Westminster Presbyterian Church, an Orthodox Presbyterian Church, serving the western suburbs of Chicago, where God powerfully speaks through his means of grace.

Music credit: pamelayork.com. Thank you, Pamela York, for the use of your beautiful jazzy rendition of “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” We encourage our listeners to check out her website and consider purchasing some of her music.

Participants: Rob McKenzie, Robert Tarullo

The relationship between nature and grace has been deemed the central thought of the theology of Herman Bavinck (1854–1921). Getting the relationship right is important for a proper understanding of the interaction between the natural and the supernatural, creation and re-creation, the church and the world.

Jan Veenhof, the successor of G.C. Berkouwer at the Free University of Amsterdam, penned a 700-page dissertation entitled Revelatie en Inspiratie that treated Bavinck’s doctrine of revelation. A small section of it has been translated and published in a booklet by Albert M. Wolters entitled Nature and Grace in Herman Bavinck.[1]

Roman Catholicism: Nature/Grace Dualism

Veenhof begins his study by placing Bavinck’s nature/grace formulation within its polemical context against the Roman Catholic viewpoint. Bavinck was keenly aware that the Catholic formulation of the relationship between nature and grace was not a mere peripheral error, but a systemic one.

In the New Testament, the concept “world” has two denotations: (1) the world as fallen under the dominion of sin and (2) the same world as the object of God’s love (Jn. 3:16–17). Bavinck observes that this qualitative opposition was substituted by Catholicism for a quantitative one. He writes,

In Roman Catholicism, “the world” more and more loses the ethical significance that it has in the Scriptures. That which is natural is not sinful [a qualitative opposition], but it is that which constitutionally does not attain the supernatural [a quantitative opposition]. The supernatural is a donum superadditum. … Consequently Christianity and grace, which have entered the world to enable us to attain the supernatural, the visio Dei, do not reform and recreate the existing order, but only complement creation. Christianity transcendently supervenes upon the natural, but does not penetrate and sanctify it. Thereby Roman Catholicism, which calls itself catholic in a preeminent sense, has altered the nature of the catholicity of the New Testament. The catholicity of the Christian principle, which purifies and sanctifies everything, has been replaced by the dualism that puts the supernatural in a separate position alongside, or rather in a transcendent position above the natural. Creation and re-creation remain two independent quantities over against each other.[2]

What you find then in Catholicism is not the annihilation of the natural, but its devaluation. The natural is incomplete in and of itself and needs to be complemented by Christianity and grace to raise it, or better yet consecrate it to a higher order. The opposition then is not between the holy and the unholy, but between the consecrated and the profane. In Bavinck’s words, “It reduces the ethical to the material, and looks upon the natural as something non-divine not because and insofar as it is impure, but because it is incapable of attaining the supernatural. Catholicism makes the cosmos profane.”[3]

Bavinck saw the Reformation as replacing this dualistic world and life view of Catholicism. The Reformers, according to Bavinck,

rediscovered the natural, restored it to its rightful place, and freed it from the Roman Catholic stigma of being profane and unconsecrated. The natural is not something of lesser value and of a lower order, as though it were not susceptible to sanctification and renewal, but rather required only to be bridled and repressed. It is just as divine as the church, though it owes its origin not to recreation but creation, though it is not from the Son but from the Father.

Grace, then, is not a substance to be added to the natural that raises it to a higher supernatural order (a quantitative transformation). Instead, grace liberates man from sin (a qualitative transformation). It is not opposed to the natural, but only to sin. In this way, grace has only become necessary because of sin. It is not necessary absolutely, but only per accidens. In short, the physical opposition of the natural and supernatural in Roman Catholicism is replaced by the Reformers with an ethical opposition of sin and grace.

The recreating power of grace then does not result in a second creation, nor does it add substantially to the already existing natural order; rather, “it is essentially reformation.”[4] Grace reaches as far as curse is found. “Grace is the power of God that liberates mankind from sin also inwardly, in the core of its being, and shall one day present it without spot or wrinkle before God’s face.”[5]

Veenhof’s comment is apt: “Grace militates against sin in the natural, but it does not militate against the natural itself; on the contrary, it restores the natural and brings it to its normal development, i.e., the development intended by God.”[6] In Bavinck’s own words, “Grace does not repress nature, including the reason and understanding of man, but rather raises it up and renews it, and stimulates it to concentrated effort.”[7]

Bavinck was also aware of the lack of harmony amongst Protestants on this topic. He saw Calvin’s position as the most agreeable. He writes, “In the powerful mind of the French Reformer, re-creation is not a system that supplements creation, as in Catholicism, not a religious reformation that leaves creation intact, as in Luther, much less a new creation, as in Anabaptism, but a joyful tiding of the renewal of all creatures.”[8]

For more on the nature/grace dualism in Roman Catholicism see a previous interview with Dr. Lane G. Tipton entitled Nature/Grace Dualism.

The Eschatological Outlook of Bavinck’s Nature/Grace Formulation

While Bavinck’s position could be summarized from the above discussion as “grace restores nature,” it is important to note that he is not advocating mere repristination, that is, the restoration of an original state or condition. In other words, grace does not simply bring us back to the Garden in Bavinck’s thought. While the original order is restored in the sense that sin’s qualitative and ethical influence is expelled, it is not “as though nothing had happened, as though sin had not existed, and the revelation of God’s grace in Christ had never occurred. Christ gives more than sin took away; grace did much more abound.”

“The redemption by grace of created reality, the reformation of nature, is not merely repristination, but raises the natural to a higher level than it originally occupied.”[9] Bavinck understood there to be an eschatology in the Garden before the entrance of sin into the world:

The pre-Fall situation of man, and of the whole earth, was a temporary one, which could not remain as it was. It was of such a nature that it could be raised to a higher glory, but could also, in case of man’s transgression, be made subject to vanity and corruption.[10]

Grace does not restore man to this original, sub-eschatological state of temporariness; rather, grace brings the world to this higher glory. “The fact must not be neglected, however, that this higher glory constitutes the goal to which the earth had been directed from the beginning. Therefore it is certainly not added to the creation as a foreign component.”[11] Bavinck’s formulation that “grace restores nature” understands nature as having imbedded in it an eschatological goal, which grace achieves. For Bavinck understands that grace

does not grant anything beyond what Adam, if he had remained standing, would have acquired in the way of obedience. The covenant of grace differs from the covenant of works in the road, not in its final destination. The same benefits are promised in the covenant of works and freely given in the covenant of grace. Grace restores nature and raises it to its highest fulfillment, but it does not add a new, heterogeneous component to it.

It could be said, then, that in Bavinck’s thought grace restores nature unto its eschatological goal.

For Further Study

For more on the relationship between nature and grace see the 2016 Reformed Forum Regional Theology Conference, God’s Word in Our World: Nature, Grace, and the Foundation of Divine Revelation. The plenary address by Dr. Camden Bucey pertains especially to the above essay: Nature, Grace, and the Eschatology of Salvation.

Notes

[1] Jan Veenhof, Nature and Grace in Herman Bavinck, trans. Albert M. Wolters (Sioux Center, IA: Dordt College Press, 2006). The booklet can be purchased here.

[2] Herman Bavinck, De katholiciteit van christendom en kerk (Kampen, 1888), 19. Quoted by Veenhof, 10-11.

[3] Bavinck, Katholiciteit, 21. Quoted by Veenhof, 11-12.

[4] Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3:578.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Veenhof, 18.

[7] Herman Bavinck, De Bazuin XLIX, 43 (October 25, 1901). Quoted by Veenhof, 18-19.

[8] Bavinck, Katholiciteit, 32. Quoted by Veenhof, 15.

[9] Veenhof, 24-25.

[10] Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3:182.

[11] Veenhof, 25.

In episode 26, your hosts Rob and Bob, pick up the discussion of Dispensationalism. Today we discuss the nature of a dispensation and the first three dispensations of Dispensational Theology and some of the continuing differences with Covenant Theology.

What is a dispensation? What makes a dispensation? What is the nature of a dispensation? Does it differ from a covenant? Is it historical? What is the Dispensation of Innocence? What is the Dispensation of Conscience? What is the Dispensation of Human Government?

We’ll discuss these and other related questions in this episode of Theology Simply Profound.

Theology Simply Profound is a podcast of Westminster Presbyterian Church, an Orthodox Presbyterian Church, serving the western suburbs of Chicago, where God powerfully speaks through his means of grace.

Music credit: pamelayork.com. Thank you, Pamela York, for the use of your beautiful jazzy rendition of “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” We encourage our listeners to check out her website and consider purchasing some of her music.

Participants: Rob McKenzie, Robert Tarullo

In episode 19, your hosts Rob McKenzie and Bob Tarullo, with special guest Melodie McKenzie, discuss questions like, Who is Noah? Why all the judgment? Is their any grace in this story?

We’ll discuss these and other related (and sometimes unrelated) topics in this episode of Theology Simply Profound.

Theology Simply Profound is a podcast of Westminster Presbyterian Church, an Orthodox Presbyterian Church, serving the western suburbs of Chicago, where God powerfully speaks through his means of grace.

Music credit: pamelayork.com. Thank you, Pamela York, for the use of your beautiful jazzy rendition of “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” We encourage our listeners to check out her website and consider purchasing some of her music.

Participants: Rob McKenzie, Robert Tarullo

On episode 13, your hosts Rob McKenzie and Bob Tarullo, discuss the doctrine of Total Depravity and how this important teaching of Scripture relates to you.

Theology Simply Profound is a podcast of Westminster Presbyterian Church, an Orthodox Presbyterian Church, serving the western suburbs of Chicago where God powerfully speaks through his means of grace.

Theology Simply Profound is where simple Christians discuss the profound things of God.

Music credit: pamelayork.com. Thank you, Pamela York, for the use of your beautiful jazzy rendition of “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” We encourage our listeners to check out her website and consider purchasing some of her music.

Participants: Rob McKenzie, Robert Tarullo