REFORMED WITNESS
Volume XVI, July 2010, Number 7
Our Viewpoint - Part II
Chapter 3 of the book, Sin and Grace
By Henry Danhof and Herman Hoeksema
The Biblical Concept of Grace
To arrive at an accurate conception of the operation of the will of God, we cannot proceed from the meaning of the word grace in our everyday usage of the term, nor even from its usage in Holy Scripture. We must study specific terms and the use of words, but it must be done with great care. We always run into the danger of arguing from something in man to what is in God. That is the reverse order. We must work theologically. God Himself determines the character of His will, grace, love, hate, wrath, and so forth. But it is also true that we know nothing definite about God apart from God's revelation in Scripture. So we must have a clearly defined idea of God and the operation of His will (which we get from God's self-revelation) before we say anything at all. Such submission to the same Word of God's revelation must also be present when we consider election by His grace, and the accompanying reprobation of His wrath, because both are the operation of His eternal will.
The word grace in Scripture has the meaning of beauty, pleasantness, goodness, benevolence, favor, helpfulness. It also means bowing down, giving of thanks, and showing unrestrained guilt-forgiving love for the unworthy. These meanings are found in the ancient and modern languages that come into consideration in our present study. The last meaning of the word for grace - showing unrestrained guilt-forgiving love for the unworthy, does not actually have that meaning outside of the New Testament, but in Scripture that meaning stands on the foreground, especially in the epistles of Paul. It is then contrasted with such concepts as law, work, duty, and reward.
The word sometimes has similar meanings in our modem languages. The Latin word gratia, from gratus (gratifying), and likely related to the Greek charis (in the sense of "glad," or "favor," or "gracious"), has approximately the same meaning. In Psalm 45, according to the metrical version, we sing this in regard to Israel's king: "Supremely fair Thou art, Thy lips with grace o'erflow; His richest blessings evermore doth God on Thee bestow." It refers to the appealing appearance of this King, given by God in His grace. According to Ephesians 2:8, we are saved by grace, and not by our works of the law.
The Dutch language speaks of a gracious figure, of being in the favor of some one, of being king by the grace of God, or of being an artist by the grace of God. It refers to asking favor, granting, making grace available, as well as gratifying or gratification. In the English we also speak of grace as gratitude; in the Dutch we use gaarne (willingly), graag (gladly), and begeeren (desirable); in the German gerne; and in the Italian grazia (thanks). All of these translations can be used for the Greek charis (grace). These various meanings of the word tell us that grace is rich in content.
But this is by no means sufficient to reach an accurate concept of the grace of God. Indeed, we are not dealing with the use of the word grace, but with the idea of grace - grace as it is in God. Regardless of that, in determining the concept of grace we must emphatically take note of the use that is made of the word in Holy Scripture, the translations of God's Word, the confessions, the liturgical forms, the metrical version of the Psalms, the works of Reformed theologians, and our own usage; we must take note of many related words, such as benevolence, mercy, compassion, patience, kindness, pity, and (though the word is rarely used) endurance. (Compare, for example, Hosea 2:22; Romans 9:23,25; I Peter 2:10; II Peter 3:9,15; James 5:7,11; Romans 3:25; and the metrical version of the Psalms: 6 verse 1; 24 verse 3; 25 verses 3-6, 8, 9; 36 verse 2; 51 verse 1; 77 verses 5-7; 79 verse 4; 86 verse 3; 89; 95; 99; and 103;[1] and the Baptism Form. This comparative study will enable us to see that the same concrete idea is expressed by all these words, and many others, even though it is true that each of these words, some with interchangeable meanings, usually shows us the rich grace of God from a particular viewpoint and in a special relationship.
A study of all sorts of words, terms, and figures that deal with reprobation, such as hate, wrath, anger, and rage, must obviously still be added. This twofold revelation of God's will (electing grace and reprobating wrath) must be carried through in regard to their object, their historical development, and their eternal result.
God's Eternal Counsel
Even at that we are not finished. All of this must be elucidated and interpreted in connection with God's counsel and eternal purpose. We are dealing here with what God wills. That will cannot be explained by something apart from God. The main reason for God's will must be sought in God Himself. God's will reveals itself in connection with man's sin. That sin did not take God by surprise, did not occur in creation apart from His counsel and will. Thus, we are concerned with the study of God's will of electing grace and reprobating wrath as works, which in the end must be ascribed to God. God's grace and disfavor are not determined by one or another attribute in God, but by God Himself - or if we may express ourselves in this manner - by the fullness of God. We must ever diligently guard ourselves against separating the attributes of God. God's attributes are in a certain sense to be distinguished, but are not essentially different from the essence of God, neither individually nor collectively.
We are dealing with God Himself: God's grace and disfavor, His love and His hatred. Election and reprobation are His/God's. He finds reasons in Himself for His will. This is true whether we understand it or not, whether we will it or not.
The Reformed usually designate God's glory as the purpose of this will. Formerly we have sought to define this more accurately by speaking of covenant fellowship or friendship. The concept God's glory is very abstract and has no content for our thinking. This becomes somewhat different when we consider that God is the fully Blessed One in Himself. He is fully blessed as one who lives His life of love as the triune, covenant God. God is the God of the covenant. He is that not only according to the counsel of His will in relation to the creature, but He is that, first of all, in Himself, by virtue of His nature. The family life of God is a covenant of friendship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Indeed, God is one in essence, three in persons. The three persons all possess alike the same divine essence. In their individual independency they are also alike. But in their individual, personal attributes they are different. Their oneness of essence gives them harmony; the equality of persons requires agreement, while the possibility for most intimate fellowship and cooperation lies in the diversity of their individual personal attributes. Oneness and diversity give harmony. The love-life of God, welling up from the unsearchable depths of His being, willed by Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and streaming forth in the many forms of the individual attributes, reveals in a glorious, variegated display the full riches of the eternal friendship of the Trinity.
That divine love-life in God has become, as we see it, the basis for the fellowship and covenant relationship between the Creator and the creature, and between the creatures mutually. That covenant idea is willed by God. He seeks a reflection of His life of friendship in the creature. That is not a cold concept. Nor is there any evidence of insensibility or hardness in it. It is truly an essentially free and sovereign act of God's will. Its essential character is glorious. The life of love and friendship in the family of God is divinely good and beautiful. To cause His creature to share in it is good and beautiful. This sovereign will of the God of the covenant is the will to reveal and glorify that which is divinely good and glorious. The life and friendship of the Trinity is thus completely enveloped in the glow of love and grace.
God's Counsel and Grace
All of this becomes incredibly more amazing and profound when it is related to man's fall into sin and his redemption by and in Christ Jesus. The song of re-creation has far greater depth of tone than the song of creation. We can find good reasons for this most exalted self-revelation and self-glorification of God, even though we are humans of limited understanding. Although we cannot answer all the questions that arise, yet, as we see it, we must seek the solution to the problems in the direction we indicated.
Speaking of grace, we must, therefore, consider that we are dealing with the God of grace. God is gracious. He is beautiful, appealing, glorious, amiable, completely desirable, and worthy of praise. This does not apply merely to His external appearance, but also to His inner being. God is as good as He is great. His goodness is higher than the heavens. He only is good. This exalted God lives with the lowly. He stoops down to them with the fullness of His goodness to cause them to share in the fellowship of His friendship. He does this most eagerly. He persists therein even when man, as far as he is concerned, turns this friendship into enmity through sin. Then it becomes fully evident that God is gracious, merciful, patient, and of great compassion. He justifies the ungodly and causes His mercy to extend to the sinner, in Christ, whom He eternally anointed to be the covenant Mediator. He does not forsake the work of His hands. He reveals that His thoughts surpass those of the creatures, even as His ways prove to be higher than their ways.
He has reckoned with sin. Sin serves Him according to the counsel of His will. It is over against sin that grace scintillates in all its glory, according to His good pleasure which He has determined in Himself. More gloriously, He now impresses His own divine virtue-image upon the consciousness of the person who is fallen in sin but has been enriched with grace in Christ Jesus. He does that in such a manner that this person, filled with the grace of thanksgiving, now bows before Him in praise and adoration and causes the song of the re-created creation to echo through the heavenly throne-chamber throughout all eternity. Man will even increase God's praise, because God provides for all man's need, grants all the means, and makes everything serve His praise.
That is the positive line. With an eternal, unchangeable purpose of irresistible love in Christ His beloved, and through His work of reconciliation and reunion by the Holy Spirit of regeneration and qualification, He turns to His elect people. He brings that people to faith in Christ, makes them worthy of suffering for Christ, and allows them to experience in Christ the covenant of His friendship. The end result is that the tabernacle of God is with men, and God shines forth gloriously in Zion in the perfection of beauty. The grace of God has triumphed.
God's Counsel and the Antithesis
But parallel to that runs the negative line. At the same time and in the same manner [2] as the work of God's elective love delivers, saves and exalts to a fellowship of friendship, there is a separating, banishing, rejecting, humiliating action of God's aversion, hate, wrath, anger and great displeasure in regard to the non-elect along the line of reprobation. This also takes place according to the immutability of God's will. This must be emphasized, for this is often the issue. Here is where the denial of God's revealed truth begins. Many eagerly make the possibility of salvation dependent upon the sinner. We have shown this previously from history, and the Reformed fathers always opposed it. Emphasis must be laid upon the twofold operation of God's will: from the will of God's eternal good pleasure proceeds not only the operation of love, election, and saving grace, but also the operation of hate, rejection, wretchedness, and banishment. Scripture speaks of life and death, of blessing and curse, of light and darkness, struggle, victory, rest, salvation, and the joy of the Lord, but also of increase in unrighteousness, hardening in that which is evil, perishing, condemnation, suffering, punishment, and everlasting fire. Living out of the principles of sin and grace, humanity is divided into friendship and enmity toward God and toward one another. The development of all things takes place along antithetical lines.
This is almost so obvious, as we see it, that in the light of Scripture, history and experience, no one can have any other impression. We are, therefore, of the opinion that we must emphatically warn, not only against maintaining a false antithesis, as, for example, between nature and grace, as is done repeatedly by Kuyper and Bavinck, but especially against a false mixture of spiritually similar elements and the resulting separation of various parts of the same life according to definite, specific areas of life. One essential antithesis exists between God's people and the people of the world in the spiritual-ethical sense of the word: the antithesis of sin and grace. That is the antithesis which Scripture establishes and we must establish. The children of Adam have all things in common, except grace.
The fact of the matter is that God's grace is not general. According to God's witness, humanity is split spiritually into wheat and chaff, into church and world, into bride and harlot, into children of light and children of darkness. But this occurs while both maintain their natural relationship and organic unity. If that were not the case, there would be no essential conflict possible along the entire line of human activity. All creatures in their organic fellowship, according to the counsel of God's providence, experience moment by moment God's sustaining, cooperating, and governing power. By this power they can develop according to their essence, capacity, and place in the organism and according to their eternal destination. Because of this, a conflict is carried on in the very bosom of creation as two parts of it live out of two mutually exclusive principles.
But these principles are of a spiritual-ethical nature, so that natural fellowship as such is not disrupted. Each party makes use of all that belongs to life in this present dispensation in an effort to crowd out the life that proceeds from the opposite principle and to cause its own principle to triumph. Therefore, the regenerated and the unregenerated experience the same influences of divine power. They live in mutual, natural, organic fellowship. This fellowship is according to each one's inclination and need, according to the demand of their natural relationship and original destiny. Although their life here on earth is amazingly interwoven in all sorts of ways, Adam's children, because of their differing spiritual relationship to God, still separate in principle always and everywhere and form a contrast along the entire line of human activity. This contrast keeps pace with the natural organic development of the human race and of all cosmic life, according to the nature of each dispensation and in harmony with the various circumstances of time and place, of life-sphere and relationship. The wedge of God's grace separates them.
That is the fearfulness of God's free grace. If grace were general, there would soon be, even though this was preceded by a period of bitter suffering, a general restoration of all the creatures, and sorrow and crying would flee away forever. Purely from the aspect of principle, there would then be no real conflict. But since God shows mercy to whom He will show mercy, and hardens whom He will, there will surely presently be eternal light but also outer darkness and eternal fire, weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Therefore, it must not surprise us at all that throughout the ages it is precisely the doctrine of grace that has been contradicted. If we have learned from experience to taste that eternal election is meant for us, that we are God's children, and that God wills to be our Friend; if we have learned that the bonds of God's covenantal mercy have drawn us out of the estrangement and the bondage of sin and out of all the power of the enemy, then we have discovered indeed that the mystery of election is great. Then the humbled heart praises God's mercies, and the mouth rejoices: "I am once again the possession of the Lord." Then the Pelagian in us dies, and we, as far as we are concerned, desire to be saved only by grace. Then we understand men like David, Paul, Augustine, Luther, Ursinus, the Reformers in general, and the true martyrs. Then the doctrine of grace is indispensable for us, but also gloriously pleasant.
Denials of Grace
But as soon as we lack only a little of that rich, conscious knowledge of the mercies of God, the situation changes. As beautiful as the doctrine of grace may be, and how seemingly easy it is to grasp it, it is extremely difficult to live out of the principle of grace. The sinner wants no grace, and the one on whom grace is bestowed wants only as much as has been bestowed. It is not difficult to see the reason for this. Sin is putting oneself in God's place. When the sovereign God comes with the irresistibly powerful work of His grace in absolute independence from the creature, He clashes with the enmity of the sinner. By nature the sinner refuses to subject himself to this irresistible power. He is willing to be saved, but with a salvation invented and realized by himself. He does not want God's grace. As long as God's irresistible grace has not caused the sinful individual to lay aside all enmity against the Creator and has not made him understand and love God's sovereign good pleasure down into the very deepest imaginations of his heart and desires of his soul, he will continue to detract from the work of God's grace. Man's sin and God's grace are mutually exclusive of each other.
Thus it is to be explained that not only all unbelievers, but also a great mass of Christians, do not want the doctrine of God's free grace. That God's grace is made dependent upon sinful man is a common error. Men are not opposed to God's grace if the disposal of it pleases man. Naturally, if this latter were true, man would, by grace, triumph over God. Therefore, men try to change God's grace into a work of man. They make all kinds of distinctions and speak especially of conditions. They speak of baptismal grace, preparatory grace, helping grace, covenant grace, and lastly now also of a common grace that our human race enjoys, and whereby in the so-called sphere of natural life, men are enabled to live a life that is pleasing to God, although only particular grace is saving. Mostly they speak of an objective grace, of which the subjective application is dependent upon sinful man.
All these distinctions have actually no other purpose than to maintain something in the sinner over against God - a certain capability for natural or spiritual good, or a certain claim upon something in God, even though that be nothing more than God's compassion.
But that is impossible. Such a vain, basically wicked attempt must fail. In the bestowal of mercy, it is the sinner in man that is put down. Irresistibly, God forces His grace upon the person who is at enmity with Him and makes him a partaker of grace. The naturally hostile inclination of the sinner is turned to friendship. The sinner who receives mercy begins to will what God wills, and because God wills it. Henceforth he finds his knowledge in God's Word and His pleasure in God's will. If his heart becomes afraid, when he sees that God's freely sovereign grace is not common, but that it sets apart the human race and tears asunder the organic bonds of our natural fellowship; and if he is frightened by an eternal hell for the reprobate, then he does not set a false sympathy for sinful man over against that divine good pleasure, but he works out his own salvation with fear and trembling and declares among the people that the Lord is just. In no way whatever does he try to justify sinful man over against the sovereign God. But out of friendship toward his Father in Christ, he holds high the good pleasure of the Lord in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, as revealed in the holy gospel. In this way the idea of God's covenant is realized in him in principle. God's love in Christ finds an echo in his heart and vibrates through his deeds. He is once again friend of God.
God's friendship is a specific aspect of God's favor toward His people. By the wonder of God's grace, the enmity of sin between God and His chosen people in Christ is abolished, the relationship of friendship is restored, and henceforth God and His people, in fellowship together, go up in battle against sin, Satan and the whole realm of darkness. That is the language of our confessions - and liturgical forms. The historical realization of this relationship of friendship begins at the very moment when in the earthly paradise God put enmity between Satan and the woman. Its complete accomplishment is in the great day of the Lord. In the meantime, it is the history of salvation, the realization of the covenant of grace. By the wonder of grace, God lifts the creation in Christ out of its fall and brings it to its eternal destination while organically separating the reprobate. The course is not back to the paradise that was lost, nor is there a history running parallel to this history of redemption, a development of the life of creation that at the beginning made itself manifest only in kernel form and later would enter as a double fruit into glory. No, after the fall, the bond that bound us in Adam is broken, but the bond that binds us in Christ remains; and what is now bound together in Christ enters into the glory of the re-creation in and by Christ. That which is not eternally bound up in that Mediator and Redeemer is separated and dashed down into destruction as the organic totality of election is lifted up.
After the fall, the course of events is not essentially different, but it is deeper. There is no actual restoration of the old, but God's creation-plan for the creature is realized according to the purpose of His eternal counsel in a much deeper manner. All history is included in that plan. God's eternal purpose is realized in the development of all creation, in mutual organic relationships, natural fellowship, spiritual separation, and all this in relation to Christ.
Organic Development of the Human Race
This historical development proceeds along organic lines. It is bound to the organic existence, life, and development of Adam's natural descendants. God created us organically and placed us in an organic relationship, so that our life can develop itself only organically. This must be borne in mind. Adam is not merely our moral representative, our juridical head, so that the guilt of his first sin is reckoned to all human beings, and they are reckoned as worthy of condemnation before God. This does not explain history. Adam was also the principle or seed of the organism of mankind. From him all human individuals are partakers of the human nature. And now, through the sin of Adam as organic head, that general human nature is corrupted. At our birth we all share in that corrupted nature, and in our own individual ways we develop the sin of our generation. Thus, in the course of the ages, the sin of the human race is fully realized in the sum total of the sins of each human individual. In this way we can understand that we also daily increase our guilt. And we can also understand that, as our Catechism states, by the fall of Adam and Eve our nature became so corrupt that we are conceived and born in sin. The disobedience of Adam involves us, because he is the father of us all, and we all have sinned in him.
In and by Adam, man sinned. Man was the friend of God; therefore, sin is breach of covenant. He was king of creation, and as such he dragged the entire creation along with him into the fall. In paradise mankind existed only in its juridical head and organic principle; therefore, that first sin was reckoned to all human beings, and that sin was further developed by various human individuals. This latter takes place along the lines of the natural development of our generation and the development of the totality of creation.
All human individuals in their organic solidarity are connected to the root sin of their organic head, and by their individual sins they bring the sin of the human race to its complete development. We found that thought also in Kuyper in his Uit het Woord, in his E Voto, and in his Dictaten Dogmatiek. This idea is also emphatically on the foreground in our Catechism.
But our Reformed theology has not done full justice to it. An attempt was made to explain our actual sins by our inherited pollution, as punishment of our original guilt, that is, the guilt of Adam reckoned to us. However, this is impossible, since guilt, pollution, and sin are completely dissimilar concepts. Sin implies guilt, and guilt is punished by death. The principle of that death we already have in our pollution. But the actual sins or sinful deeds of the individual children of men grow out of the root of the one principle sin of the human race. This is due to man's organic relationship to the head of the race, Adam. Mankind is an organism. The various members thereof are both individual and independent persons who share in Adam's guilt. But they are also related to each other in a thousand ways and are connected organically to the principle sin of the head of the race, Adam. Thus the sin of the human race has an organic character. As a result of this, it also applies to everything: to our life of sin, but also to the operation of the curse, death, destruction, and the temptation of the devil. It applies to the work of the Holy Spirit, the incarnation of the Word, the gathering of the elect, and the reprobation of the non-elect. It applies to the life of grace in the human race, its spiritual development, its application of principles, and the course of the spiritual battle. It applies to all the world events in this present dispensation.
This is the way we understand the course of history. In paradise we have the kernel; at the end of the ages, we have the ripened fruit. Immediately after the fall, God puts the principle of enmity between the devil and the woman and between the spiritual seed of both. At the return of the Lord, the enmity is complete. Between these two points lies actual history. Adam and Eve, having received the grace of God, desire to bring forth the spiritual seed. But according to God's will, they also bring forth the children of the devil. They share their corrupt nature with both kinds of children. But God works in His elect the principle of regeneration. Thereby the development of the human race is antithetical. Mankind lives out of two principles which separate. Enmity and conflict arise. The children of men cannot understand each other. The one loves God; the other hates Him. Those who are born according to the flesh persecute those who are born according to the Spirit. Cain kills Abel. The conflict broadens as time goes on. All available means are used. There is no possibility of neutrality. Before the flood, an attempt of both parties to create a fellowship in their natural life only led to an amalgamation of those who were spiritually dissimilar, and it dashed the first world into a watery grave, in which it was kept unto the eternal fire. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. He walked with God, his Friend.
The history of the second world is similar to that of the first. Very soon the new kernel begins to show agreement with the old shell. In his son Canaan, Ham becomes the bearer of the curse over against Shem, who is privileged to call himself according to the name of the Lord. Again there are giants on the earth. Mankind plots violence against heaven. God disrupts the work of the children of men. The principle of the kingdom of Babel is laid: the principle of a human world-power. God places His people who arise from Abraham over against that world-power. This people shows us in typical form the church of the new dispensation and the eternal kingdom of Christ. More particularly it also allows us to see in this history the spiritual conflict between the people of God and the world-powers that are opposed to God. However, it is saved only in its spiritual remnant. The distinction between flesh and spirit runs also through these people, as is also the case in the church in its historical existence here on earth.
The history of the kingdom of mankind is that of the principle of evil. Nebuchadnezzar's dream-image teaches us that. It is thoroughly ground to powder by the Stone out of God's mountain. Its development is certainly regressive. It returns to the earth, and no place is found in the eternal kingdom of Christ for its final fruit. Therefore, the lines of the historical development of the enmity set by God in the life of our race run, on the one hand, along the line of Cain, Lamech, Nimrod, Pharaoh, Sennacherib, Nebuchadnezzar, Antiochus Epiphanes, Judas, Nero, the Antichrist, and Gog and Magog with their confederates; on the other hand, it runs along the line of Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Daniel, Mattathias, Stephen, and the church of witnesses and martyrs. The battle is spiritual. Scripture does not speak of a complete cosmic development, of which some so eagerly dream. World events are suddenly cut off by a catastrophe: the solving of the world-riddle by King Jesus. Then follows judgment upon the acquired-fruit of men's works, upon what was done in the body, whether good or evil. The antithesis of eternity is that of friendship and enmity.
We must even now judge and evaluate all things according to that standard. The question is, in what spiritual-moral relationship do we stand toward God? Everything else is subordinate to that. Nothing has real value unless we possess it, enjoy it, and use it in God's favor in Christ and in His fellowship and service.
That is impossible apart from regeneration. God's Word absolutely condemns the sinner from the viewpoint of his life-principle. Out of that principle, only evil can develop to its full manifestation. Even if, in our opinion, sin has not at the moment fully developed (which, if circumstances were different, could very well happen), it does not in the least detract from the reality of man's guilt in Adam. The fact remains that the sinner is able to develop only out of a wrong life-principle. Things can get worse, but things can never get better. The sinner sins in every relationship of life, with every talent he possesses, and with all the means at his disposal.
But all is turned about in principle in the life of the regenerate. Naturally, sin still works in such a one, and he is also bound to his own place in the organic totality of things, but he is born of God with a spiritual life-principle, detached from the sinful life-principle. And so he is in this world, but not of this world.
The Principle of Regeneration
We must determine our place in the community in harmony with that principle. First of all, we must bear in mind that the principle of regeneration is the beginning of eternal life. It is not a mere restoration of that which perished in sin. We do not stand once more where Adam stood before the fall. By virtue of that new principle, we cannot live anew the same creation life so that we would be able to show to the unregenerate a way to life in the things of this world. The fact is that the original life is not lived anymore. The sinner lives perversely, and in his blindness he attempts to make this earth a paradise, an effort in which he will never succeed. But God's child possesses a life which simply is not found here in this world. That life is foreign here. It is at home in heaven.
For that very reason God's child is a stranger here on earth. In life-principle he differs completely from the unregenerate. There is no possibility whatever for a communal cooperation aimed at the advancement of the so-called creation-life, or general human life, both because that life does not exist, and because development occurs in two mutually exclusive directions.
What both can do is to make use of the things of creation. But even as they do this out of different principles, they also do it with a different goal in mind. Neither one can end in the created things as such. Man is inclined to be religious; therefore, with all that he is and owns, he will always bow down in worship, praise, and thanksgiving, either before the true God or before that which he has set up in God's stead.
But something very important must be added. Here on earth the Christian represents the cause of the Lord. His task is not to subject this creation to himself, but to support the cause of Christ. In the cause of Christ, it is indeed given to him by grace not only to believe in Christ, but also to suffer for Him. That should be understood. Otherwise we will, without being aware of it, turn back to live again out of the original creation-life. That is not possible, nor is it permissible. The earthly paradise is closed to us forever. Through sin we are estranged from all true life and stand damnable before God. But we are shown favor in Christ. He restores life to us: not the old life, but resurrection life. Christ was dead and is alive again, and now He lives unto all eternity. He is the resurrection and the life; He gives us resurrection life. We enter into His victory, and thereby into His rest. Furthermore, we are made worthy to suffer for Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him. We are thereby made God's party.
It will certainly be evident to everyone that in this way we are kept from setting up a false antithesis. We do not want an "ant-ithesis" - between nature and grace, between the material and spiritual terrain arid sphere. The creation is God's, stolen by Satan or abandoned by the sinner, but regained by Christ, and in fellowship with Christ it is again our possession in spiritual principle. However, during this dispensation Christ's kingdom does not come in an external form. Nor do we possess the typical bounties of Israel of old. We live and die in the world as far as our physical existence is concerned. Only later will we be changed. Thus, as Christians we do not have our own land, kingdom, king, city, house, school, state and the like, as did Israel of the past. We do not even have a "home rule," as the Jews in the time of Christ. We are in the dispersion. We are strangers upon the earth, and our captivity lasts until Christ returns.
We place the antithesis between the life-principle of sin and that of grace. We do that because Scripture demands it. Paul thanks God that we formerly were servants of sin, but now, having been made free from sin, we are made servants of righteousness (Romans 6:17,18). We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit that is from God, in order that we should know the things that are given to us of God (I Corinthians 2:12). In fellowship with Christ, who is God's, Paul, Apollos, Cephas, the world, life, death, and present and future things are ours (I Corinthians 3:22,23). But now we must also suffer with Christ, and not regard the things that men see. To these also belongs our light affliction, which swiftly passes away. We must regard the things that men do not see, which are eternal. We must no more walk as the Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their minds, darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their hearts. They are past feeling. They have given themselves over to lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness (Ephesians 4:17-19). We must not think it strange concerning the fiery trial that tries us, nor complain to each other because of social injustice, nor love this present world or the things in the world. But as pilgrims and strangers, we must withhold ourselves from the carnal lusts that war against the soul.
We do not go out of the world, because we are placed here by God, not because this world is not good enough for us or because we must associate with and raise to a higher level its so-called world-life. Our task is to cause the revelation of the true life of God in Christ to shine forth in this world. That life must be placed over against the life of sin. The antithesis between that twofold life must be brought out. Everything must be directed toward that end: energy, gifts, talents, terrains, spheres, institutions, capital, ability to work, knowledge, and power, with all else that may stand at our service. All must be employed by us as means to the full development of ourselves from the principle of grace. This entire earthly creation is a means for man and must, therefore, be used by us against the work of unrighteousness. In that way we can reveal ourselves as God's participants in the covenant. He who fails in this is in principle a friend of the world. It must also be understood that there is no other way in which we can cooperate with the world. This is the only line of action that can be followed.
Naturally, by doing this we stir up a battle in the world. The world does not so readily allow us to condemn it and its life-principle. On the contrary, the world will attempt to convince us of the correctness of its viewpoint, or force us to be silent. Now if both parties continue to carry on the conflict along the line of human deliberation, inclination, expression, and effort to the very extreme, with the weapons of defense and assault, then it will become evident that the human race is like the house that is divided against itself. Then it will also become evident that one cannot strictly speaking draw a definite line of separation anywhere, not even between church and state. The principles simply divide our entire human society. There is then no possibility of a solution to the world-problem. On the contrary, the division and the confusion increase. Our society reaches a dead end. Everything cries for the return of Christ.
But this should not deter us. We must be on our guard that we do not, as Kuyper does with his common grace doctrine and as happens all around us, allow God and sinful man to arrange themselves in an alliance against physical evil. Evil is of a spiritual-ethical nature, and is in man. Therefore, only God and those who have received His grace can fight against sin, Satan and the kingdom of darkness; then only with spiritual weapons. It must be clearly understood that the conflict of the ages centers in the name of the Lord and the covenant of our God. Attacking a few external results of sin is of no avail; the real evil only thrives the more profusely. To know the actual struggle, we must go to Gethsemane and Golgotha. History itself teaches plainly that no people, however highly civilized they may be, has ever known, apart from God's regenerating grace, how to develop an actual higher moral life before God. The various spiritual attitudes toward God have always divided the children of men.
Principles must carry through. That will cause the conflict to intensify and become more extensive, and especially become more fearful if the enemy turns the steel sword of the magistrate against us. But that may not be reason for us to give up the conflict, nor may we put our trust in unlawful weapons. For that matter, they would be of no advantage to us. The battle is the Lord's. He brings it about. He withdraws all disguises from us at the right time. If we truly confess the name of the Lord, sooner or later we will certainly come into conflict. After all, we cannot remain standing in a neutral position. There is no possibility of an armistice, nor even of giving quarter. Nor can we expect aid from any earthly means or from our own strength. Trusting only in the name of the Lord, we must defend the cause of the Lord. His cause will triumph, and God will cause us to see His salvation.
Back to the topFootnotes
- The reference is to the Dutch Psalm
book. In The Psalter, the numbers and verses would be these: 12:1; 59:3;
67:2, 3, 5; 94:1, 2; 140:1; 212:5, 6; 216:3; 233:3; 242; 254; 265; and
278:3.
[back to article] - Hoeksema was later to pay more attention
to the conclusion of the Canons in his development of sovereign reprobation,
especially the rejection of the Arminian charge that "in the same manner
in which the election is the fountain and the cause of faith and good
works, reprobation is the cause of unbelief and impiety." He never denied
these earlier statements concerning reprobation, but he clarified the
way in which reprobation is subservient to election. In this passage
he refers to the fact that election and reprobation are equally sovereign
decrees of God.
[back to article]
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