John Calvin (1509–1564) on John 3:16

16. For God so loved the world. Christ opens up the first cause, and, as it were, the source of our salvation, and he does so, that no doubt may remain; for our minds cannot find calm repose, until we arrive at the unmerited love of God. As the whole matter of our salvation must not be sought any where else than in Christ, so we must see whence Christ came to us, and why he was offered to be our Saviour. Both points are distinctly stated to us: namely, that faith in Christ brings life to all, and that Christ brought life, because the Heavenly Father loves the human race, and wishes that they should not perish. And this order ought to be carefully observed; for such is the wicked ambition which belongs to our nature, that when the question relates to the origin of our salvation, we quickly form diabolical imaginations about our own merits. Accordingly, we imagine that God is reconciled to us, because he has reckoned us worthy that he should look upon us. But Scripture everywhere extols his pure and unmingled mercy, which sets aside all merits.

And the words of Christ mean nothing else, when he declares the cause to be in the love of God. For if we wish to ascend higher, the Spirit shuts the door by the mouth of Paul, when he informs us that this love was founded on the purpose of his will, (Eph. 1:5.) And, indeed, it is very evident that Christ spoke in this manner, in order to draw away men from the contemplation of themselves to look at the mercy of God alone. Nor does he say that God was moved to deliver us, because he perceived in us something that was worthy of so excellent a blessing, but ascribes the glory of our deliverance entirely to his love. And this is still more clear from what follows; for he adds, that God gave his Son to men, that they may not perish. Hence it follows that, until Christ bestow his aid in rescuing the lost, all are destined to eternal destruction. This is also demonstrated by Paul from a consideration of the time; for he loved us, while we were still enemies by sin, (Rom. 5:8, 10.) And, indeed, where sin reigns, we shall find nothing but the wrath of God, which draws death along with it. It is mercy, therefore, that reconciles us to God, that he may likewise restore us to life.

This mode of expression, however, may appear to be at variance with many passages of Scripture, which lay in Christ the first foundation of the love of God to us, and show that out of him we are hated by God. But we ought to remember—what I have already stated—that the secret love with which the Heavenly Father loved us in himself is higher than all other causes; but that the grace which he wishes to be made known to us, and by which we are excited to the hope of salvation, commences with the reconciliation which was procured through Christ. For since he necessarily hates sin, how shall we believe that we are loved by him, until atonement has been made for those sins on account of which he is justly offended at us? Thus, the love of Christ must intervene for the purpose of reconciling God to us, before we have any experience of his fatherly kindness. But as we are first informed that God, because he loved us, gave his Son to die for us, so it is immediately added, that it is Christ alone on whom, strictly speaking, faith ought to look.

He gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him may not perish. This, he says, is the proper look of faith, to be fixed on Christ, in whom it beholds the breast of God filled with love: this is a firm and enduring support, to rely on the death of Christ as the only pledge of that love. The word only-begotten is emphatic, (ἐμφατικὸν,) to magnify the fervour of the love of God towards us. For as men are not easily convinced that God loves them, in order to remove all doubt, he has expressly stated that we are so very dear to God that, on our account, he did not even spare his only-begotten Son. Since, therefore, God has most abundantly testified his love towards us, whoever is not satisfied with this testimony, and still remains in doubt, offers a high insult to Christ, as if he had been an ordinary man given up at random to death. But we ought rather to consider that, in proportion to the estimation in which God holds his only-begotten Son, so much the more precious did our salvation appear to him, for the ransom of which he chose that his only-begotten Son should die. To this name Christ has a right, because he is by nature the only Son of God; and he communicates this honour to us by adoption, when we are ingrafted into his body.

That whosoever believeth on him may not perish. It is a remarkable commendation of faith, that it frees us from everlasting destruction. For he intended expressly to state that, though we appear to have been born to death, undoubted deliverance is offered to us by the faith of Christ; and, therefore, that we ought not to fear death, which otherwise hangs over us. And he has employed the universal term whosoever, both to invite all indiscriminately to partake of life, and to cut off every excuse from unbelievers. Such is also the import of the term World, which he formerly used; for though nothing will be found in the world that is worthy of the favour of God, yet he shows himself to be reconciled to the whole world, when he invites all men without exception to the faith of Christ, which is nothing else than an entrance into life.

Let us remember, on the other hand, that while life is promised universally to all who believe in Christ, still faith is not common to all. For Christ is made known and held out to the view of all, but the elect alone are they whose eyes God opens, that they may seek him by faith. Here, too, is displayed a wonderful effect of faith; for by it we receive Christ such as he is given to us by the Father—that is, as having freed us from the condemnation of eternal death, and made us heirs of eternal life, because, by the sacrifice of his death, he has atoned for our sins, that nothing may prevent God from acknowledging us as his sons. Since, therefore, faith embraces Christ, with the efficacy of his death and the fruit of his resurrection, we need not wonder if by it we obtain likewise the life of Christ.

Still it is not yet very evident why and how faith bestows life upon us. Is it because Christ renews us by his Spirit, that the righteousness of God may live and be vigorous in us; or is it because, having been cleansed by his blood, we are accounted righteous before God by a free pardon? It is indeed certain, that these two things are always joined together; but as the certainty of salvation is the subject now in hand, we ought chiefly to hold by this reason, that we live, because God loves us freely by not imputing to us our sins. For this reason sacrifice is expressly mentioned, by which, together with sins, the curse and death are destroyed. I have already explained the object of these two clauses, which is, to inform us that in Christ we regain the possession of life, of which we are destitute in ourselves; for in this wretched condition of mankind, redemption, in the order of time, goes before salvation.

John Calvin, “Commentary on the Gospel of John,” in Calvin’s Commentaries, trans. William Pringle, 22 vols. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1996), 17:122–26.

16. For God so loved. Christ shows the first cause and as it were source of our salvation. And this He does that no doubt may be left. For there is no calm haven where our minds can rest until we come to God’s free love. The whole substance of our salvation is not to be sought anywhere else than in Christ, and so we must see by what means Christ flows to us and why He was offered as our Saviour. Both points are clearly told us here—that faith in Christ quickens all and that Christ brought life because the heavenly Father does not wish the human race that He loves to perish. And this sequence should be carefully noticed. For such is the ungodly ambition innate to our nature that when we think of origin of our salvation devilish imaginations about our own merits at once creep into our minds. Accordingly, we imagine that God is favourable to use because He has reckoned us worthy of His regard. But Scripture elsewhere extols His pure and simple mercy which abolishes all merits.

And Christ’s words mean nothing different when He says the cause lies in the love of God. For if we want to go any higher the Spirit prevents us with Paul’s declaration that this love was founded on ‘the good pleasure of his will’ (Eph. 1.5). And it is plain that Christ spoke like this to divest men’s eyes from themselves to the mercy of God alone. Nor does He state that God was moved to save us by seeing in us something deserving of such a blessing. He ascribes the glory for our salvation entirely to His love. And this becomes still clearer from the context, for He adds that the Son was given to men that they should not perish. It follows that until Christ vouchsafes to help the lost, all are appointed to eternal destruction. Paul also demonstrates this from the time sequence, for we were loved even when we were enemies through sin (Rom. 5.8, 10). And indeed, where sin reigns we shall find nothing but the wrath of God and the death it bears with it. Therefore it is mercy alone that reconciles us to God and at the same time restores us to life.

This way of speaking, however, may seem to conflict with many testimonies of Scripture, which place the first foundation of the divine love towards us in Christ and say that outside of Him we are detested by God. But we should remember, as I have already said, that the secret love in which our heavenly Father embraced us to Himself is, since it flows from His eternal good pleasure, precedent to all other causes; but the grace which He wants to be testified to us and by which we are stirred to the hope of salvation, begins with the reconciliation provided through Christ. For since He necessarily hates sin, how shall we be convinced that He loves us until those sins for which He is justly angry with us have been expiated? Thus before we can have any feeling of His fatherly kindness, the blood of Christ must intercede to reconcile God to us. But because we first hear that God gave His Son to die for us because He loved us, it is at once added that it is Christ alone to whom, properly speaking, faith ought to look.

He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish. The true looking of faith, I say, is placing Christ before one’s eyes and beholding in Him the heart of God poured out in love. Our firm and substantial support is to rest on the death of Christ as its only pledge. The word only begotten is emphasized, to praise the fervour of the divine love towards us. For men are not easily convinced that God loves them; and so, to remove all doubt, He has expressly stated that we are so very dear to God that for our sakes He did not spare even His only begotten Son. God has most abundantly declared His love toward us and therefore whoever is still doubtful and unsatisfied by this testimony does Christ a serious injury, as if He had been some ordinary many who had died accidentally. We should rather consider that God’s love for His only begotten Son is a measure of how precious our salvation was to Him, that He willed that the death of the Only Begotten Himself should be its price. Again, Christ possesses this name by right, inasmuch as He is by nature the only Son of God. But He shares this honour with us by adoption when we are ingrafted into His body.

That whosoever believeth on him should not perish. The outstanding thing about faith is that it delivers us from eternal destruction. For He especially wanted to say that although we seem to have been born for death sure deliverance is offered to us by the faith of Christ so that we must not fear the death which otherwise threatens us. And He has used a general term, both to invite indiscriminately all to share in life and to cut off every excuse from unbelievers. Such is also the significance of the term ‘world’ which He had used before. For although there is nothing in the world deserving of God’s favour, He nevertheless shows He is favourable to the whole world when He calls all without exception to the faith of Christ, which is indeed an entry into life.

Moreover, let us remember that although life is promised generally to all who believe in Christ, faith is not common to all. Christ is open to all and displayed to all, but God opens the eyes only of the elect that they may seek Him by faith. The wonderful effect of faith is shown here too. By it we receive Christ as He is given to us by the Father—the one who has freed us from the condemnation of eternal death and made us heirs of eternal life by expiating our sins through the sacrifice of His death, so that nothing shall prevent God acknowledging us as His children. Therefore, since faith embraces Christ with the efficacy of His death and the fruit of His resurrection there is nothing surprising in or also obtaining by it the life of Christ.

But it is not yet clear enough why and how faith bestows life on us. Whether it is because Christ regenerates us by His Spirit, so that the righteousness of God may live and flourish in us; or because, cleansed by His blood, we are accounted righteous before God by a free pardon. It is indeed certain that these two aspects are always joined together. But since we are concerned how with assurance of salvation, the central idea is that we live because God freely loves us by not imputing our sins to us. This is why sacrifice is expressly mentioned, by which the curse and death are destroyed as well as sins. I have already explained the trend of these two clauses: they teach us that in Christ we recover the life which we lack in ourselves; for in this wretched state of mankind redemption precedes salvation.

John Calvin, “The Gospel According to St John 1–10,” in Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries, ed. D. W. Torrance and T. F. Torrance, trans. T. H. L. Parker, 12 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994–96), 4:73–75.

See also the material by John Calvin on John 3:16 at Calvin and Calvinism.

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R. L. Dabney (1820–1898) on the Christian’s Duty Towards His Enemies

THE CHRISTIAN’S DUTY TOWARDS HIS ENEMIES

It may be surmised that this is a duty whose “metes and bounds” are ill understood by many of the people of God, and that, consequently, the minds of many of them are harassed with doubts and temptations concerning it. On the one hand, many, perhaps, excuse to themselves criminal emotions under the name of virtuous indignation, and on the other some of them afflict themselves with compunctions for and vain endeavors against feelings which are both proper and natural to us as rational beings.

The embarrassment is increased by the current opinion that there is inconsistency between the teachings and examples of the Old Testament and the New upon this subject. Men read in the former the stern language of the imprecatory Psalms, for instance, of the thirty-fifth, the thirty-ninth, the one hundred and ninth, the one hundred and thirty-seventh, and the one hundred and thirty-ninth, where the inspired man prays: “Let them be confounded and put to shame that seek after my soul.… Let them be as chaff before the wind, and let the angel of the Lord chase them”; or describes the persecuted church as crying to her oppressors: “Happy shall he be that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us”; or protests: “Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? And am I not grieved with those that rise up against thee? I hate them with perfect hatred.” They then turn to the Sermon on the Mount and read the words of our Lord: “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you.” They thereupon imagine a discrepancy, if not a contradiction, between them, and adopt the mischievous conclusion that the two Testaments contain different codes of Christian ethics. This notion, it is to be feared, has a general prevalency. What is more common than to hear Christians, who should be well informed, and who profess full reverence for the inspiration of the whole Scriptures, speak of the morality of the Old Testament, of the Hebrew saint, of the prophet, as harsh, austere, and forbidding, while that of the New Testament, of Jesus, and of the Christian is sweet and forgiving? All these notions are of Socinian or rationalistic origin, and are incompatible with an honest belief in the actual inspiration of the Scriptures. If inspiration is but an “elevation of the consciousness,” a quickening of the intuitions of the transcendental reason, an exaltation of the soul, of the same generic kind with the other impulses of genius, only of a higher grade, then it can be understood how prophets and apostles may contradict each other; although yet they may teach us noble lessons, and such as common men would never have found out of themselves. But if “all Scripture [the apostle means the Old Testament] is theopneustic,” if “holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost,” and the apostles, in their turn, had the promise of the Holy Ghost to “lead them into all truth,” then a real discrepancy between them is impossible; for all truths must be harmonious among themselves. The honest believer can admit, of course, that the partial revelation of the Old Testament, although absolute truth as far as it goes, and as perfect in its principles as the God who gave it, stops short of that fulness of detail to which the New Testament afterwards proceeded. But while there is a difference in degrees of fulness, there can be no contrariety.

The same view commends itself irresistibly to the plain mind from this fact, that Jesus Christ, not to add the apostles, suspended the truth of his mission and doctrines on the infallibility and holiness of the Old Testament. His appeal is ever to them. He cites Moses and the prophets as though he thought their testimony must be the end of strife. Now, if they are not inspired and true, it follows irresistibly that Jesus Christ was either mistaken or he was dishonest. Absit impietas. In either case, he is no Redeemer for us. And, indeed, the former alternative of this dilemma is inadmissible for one who claimed, as he did, an infallible knowledge for himself, a preëxistence of the era of Abraham and the prophets and the authority of the Messiah by whose Spirit those prophets spoke. So that, if the Old Testament were imperfect, Jesus of Nazareth would stand convicted of criminal attempts of imposture!

There is a second reason why such an explanation cannot be applied to the supposed vindictiveness of Old Testament morals: that the same sentiments are expressed in the New Testament. and the same maxims of forbearance which are cited as so lovely in the latter are set forth, both by precept and example, in the former; so that, if a discrepancy is asserted, it must not be between David and Christ, Hebrew and Christian, but both Testaments must be charged with contradicting themselves, as well as each other. Thus, in Acts 8:20, Peter exclaims to Simon Magus, “Thy money perish with thee!” In Acts 23:3, Paul sternly denounces the persecuting chief priest, “God shall smite thee, thou whited wall!” and in 2 Tim. 4:14 distinctly expresses a prayer for retribution upon Alexander, the coppersmith of Ephesus: He “did me much evil; the Lord reward him according to his works.” In 2 Thess. 1:7–10, Christ’s coming “in flaming fire to take vengeance on them that know not God,” is subject of admiration in all them that believe. In the Apocalypse 6:10, the souls of the martyrs under the altar are heard crying with a loud voice: “How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” And in Matt. 11:20, and 23:13, Jesus of Nazareth is heard denouncing awful woes upon the enemies of truth. On the other hand, the Old Testament contains substantially the same precepts of forgiveness, and examples of forbearance, which are so much admired in the New. First, the great truth, which lies at the root of all this subject, that retribution is the exclusive function of the Lord, was first published in the Old Testament, and it is thence Paul quotes it, in Rom. 12:10, “It is written, Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.” It is written a thousand years before (Deut. 32:35; Lev. 19:18), “To me belongeth vengeance and recompense;” recognized by David as a rule for him (1 Sam. 24:12) towards his deadly enemy, Saul,—“the Lord judge between me and thee, and the Lord avenge me of thee; but my hand shall not be upon thee;” repeated in Psalm 94:1, “O Lord God, to whom vengeance belongeth;” and cited against evil men, as a rule which they had violated, twice in Ezek. 25:12, 15, “Edom and the Philistines have taken vengeance, and have greatly offended.” The lovely precept for rendering good for evil is enjoined upon the Israelites in a form most perspicuous and impressive to a pastoral people: “If thou meet thine enemy’s ass or his ox going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again.” (Exod. 23:4.) Israel was enjoined to practice tenderness towards foreigners, a duty ignored then by the pagan world, and especially towards Egyptians, their late ruthless oppressors. (Exod. 22:21; Deut. 23:7.) Job, the oldest of the patriarchs whose creed has been handed down to us, recognizes malice, even when limited to the secret wishes, as an iniquity: “If I rejoiced at the destruction of him that hated me, or lifted up myself when evil found him; neither have I suffered my mouth to sin by wishing a curse to his soul.” (Job 31:29.) David, the author of nearly all the imprecatory Psalms, repudiates malice with holy abhorrence: “If I have rewarded evil to him that was at peace with me; (yea, I have delivered him that without cause is mine enemy,) let the enemy persecute my soul and take it,” etc. (Ps. 7:4.) And in Psalm 35:13, he describes his deportment towards his enemies, as in contrast with theirs towards him, and in strict accordance with Christ’s command: “But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth; I humbled my soul with fasting,” etc. That all this was not mere profession, we have splendid evidence in the sacred history, where he displayed such astonishing forbearance and magnanimity towards Saul, after the most vehement provocation; twice delivering his life from the indignation of his followers, and singing his dirge with the honorable affection of a loyal follower.

This age has witnessed a whole spawn of religionists, very rife and rampant in some sections of the church, who pretentiously declared themselves the apostles of a lovelier Christianity than that of the sweet Psalmist of Israel. His ethics were entirely too vindictive and barbarous for them, forsooth; and they, with their Peace Societies, and new lights, would teach the world a milder and more beneficent code! How impertinent does this folly appear, coming from the petted favorites of fortune, whose willfulness and conceit had hitherto been pampered by a rare concurrence of privileges, so that they had hardly experienced the call for the Christian virtue of forgiveness; and who, as soon as they are crossed (not in their rights, but) in their most arrogant caprices, show themselves incapable of one throb of David’s magnanimity, and break out into a vindictiveness set on fire of hell! He who knows his own heart and human nature will humbly avow, instead of accusing the Psalms of unchristian malice, that he will do well if he never goes beyond their temper, under bitter wrong, and if, while swelling with righteous sense of injury, he can always remit the retribution, in wish, as in act, to God alone.

The consequence of this erroneous admission of actual discrepancy between the morality of the Old Testament and the New is, that expositors have fatigued themselves with many vain inventions to explain away the imprecatory language of the Psalms. The generality of this feeling is betrayed by the frequency of these attempts. A curious betrayal of this skeptical impression exists to this day, in the book of Psalms, in the hands of our own Presbyterian people. Instead of a metrical version of Psalm 109, as it stands in the inspired lyrics, there is a human composition upon the beauty of forgiveness. In the psalm books in use for a whole age among the Presbyterians of England and this country, this hymn was formerly prefaced with the words (Psalm 109), “Christian forgiveness after the example of Christ.” This title the last editors of our psalm book bethought themselves to omit. Any one who compared the human poem with the actual hundred and ninth Psalm could hardly fail to overlook the suggestion of a contrast, that while the uninspired psalmist of our modern Israel gave utterance to Christian forgiveness after the example of Christ, the actual ode of inspiration expressed unchristian revenge after the example of David. How could the feeling be more clearly betrayed that the sentiments of the psalmist were indefensible? Hence ingenious expedients have been sought to explain them away. Of these, the most current is the following: that where our version says, for instance, “Let his days be few, and let another take his office,” the verbs are improperly rendered as imperatives. It is asserted that they may as fairly be rendered as simple futures, “His days will be few,” etc., and then all these passages are converted from imprecations to predictions. The psalmist only foretells the divine retributions. Waiving the insuperable difficulty, that it is only to a part of these texts the explanation even plausibly applies, we perceive this general objection: that if they be all understood as predictions only, yet they are predictions to the accomplishment of which the inspired men evidently looked forward with moral satisfaction. Thus they reveal precisely the same sentiments towards evildoers as though we understood them as appealing to God with requests for their righteous retribution, while they at the same time recognize his sole title to avenge, and the sinfulness of their taking their retaliation into their own hands.

All these inventions, then, must be relinquished; the admission must be squarely and honestly made, that the inspired men of both Testaments felt and expressed moral indignation against wrong-doers, and a desire for their proper retribution at the hand of God. This admission must also be successfully defended, which, it is believed, can be done in perfect consistency with that spirit of merciful forbearance and love for the persons of enemies which both Testaments alike inculcate. Simple resentment is an instinctive emotion, immediately arising from the experience of personal injury. It can scarcely be called a rational sentiment, for it is felt by men and animals in common, and in human breasts is often aimed against irrational assailants. It does not arise in view of the moral quality of the act, but immediately in view of the hurtfulness of the act to the person who feels the resentment. Its final cause is, to energize man for his needful self-defense. Hence resentment obviously has no necessary moral character, more than hunger, thirst, or pain; its moral character only arises when it is regulated or directed amiss. Resentment may be innocently felt, or may be criminal, according as it is properly limited, or is permitted to become inordinate. This is the sentiment concerning which Paul says: “Be ye angry, and sin not; let not the sun go down upon your wrath.” Last, the emotion is strictly personal; its immediate cause is injury aimed at one’s self.

Moral indignation, or moral disapprobation, in its warmer and more emotional type, is an affection often coëxisting with simple resentment, and often confounded with it. But the two feelings are essentially distinct. The moral sentiment is impersonal; it is not directed merely to self-defense, but disapproves of our neighbor’s unrighteous injury as of our own. It is awakened, not by mere hurt, but by injustice; that is, it arises in view of the moral wrong of the injurious act. It is strictly a rational emotion, taking its rise in that highest and noblest form of the intuitions of the reason, the judgment of moral distinctions, and being thus the function only of rational spirits. Hence this sentiment can never be indifferent or negative as to its moral quality, as simple resentment may be; but wherever it is not righteous, it must be wicked. And whereas the final cause of resentment, the subject’s self-defense, requires it to be temporary, the final cause of moral disapprobation requires it to be permanent up to certain limits, which will be defined. No inspired man has said of this sentiment, as a general rule, “Let not the sun go down upon it.” This moral sentiment, as was remarked, often coëxists with resentment. When we are ourselves made the objects of assaults which include both hurt and injustice, the mixture of the two feelings is unavoidable. When we behold such an attack upon a fellow-creature, the impersonal sentiment of moral reprobation may be mixed with a reflex resentment received by the law of sympathy. In both cases the effect is to give a warmer and more passionate aspect to the moral sentiment.

The next truth to be considered is, that the judgment of demerit intuitively accompanies every act of moral disapprobation. The wisest Christian philosophers teach that the idea of obligation is inseparable from the idea of moral rightness in acts. In other words, to say that an act is obligatory is the same thing with saying it is right. Now, obligation implies an obligator. This judgment of the conscience is but an intuitive recognition of a relation between the personal moral agent and a personal moral ruler, God, whose will is the rule of the obligation to him. The judgment of moral disapprobation is, therefore, in its very nature, a judgment of wrong relation between the sinning agent and the personal will of the divine Ruler; it recognizes that holy will as outraged by the sin. Hence, by a necessary law of the human reason, our judgment of the sinfulness of every wrong act includes the decision that the agent has therein demerit; that is to say, it is now right that he should receive suffering for his sin, physical evil for his moral wrong, in a just ratio, as its proper moral equivalent. This judgment, we repeat, is unavoidably included in our judgment of the wrongness of his act. And this relation between sin and deserved Penal suffering, the reason apprehends as morally obligatory. Its preservation is necessary to satisfy righteousness; its rupture is necessarily wrong.

It appears, therefore, evident that if the reason is impelled to this judgment of demerit by the very law of its moral action, and this demand for penal equivalent to sin is a valid part of its moral verdict, the mere entertaining of it as a sentiment cannot be morally wrong. To assert that it can be, would be to assert that the soul may act immorally in the very acts which are immediately directed by the law of its nature as a moral agent. Moreover, as the judgment of moral disapprobation involves a judgment of demerit, affirming the righteousness of the requital of suffering for the sin, it is inevitable that the soul should find a pleasure in the satisfaction of this sentiment; and if the sentiment is moral, the pleasure cannot be immoral. For it is absurd to say that a rational creature is criminal for its satisfaction in the rightful actings of the laws of its own reason. How can the lawful happiness of the creature be more justly defined than as that pleasure which is found in satisfying the righteous and reasonable promptings of its own native powers? “Happiness,” said the most profound of the Greeks, “is virtuous energy.”

It thus appears that the impersonal sentiment of moral reprobation is lawful, yea more, that it is positively virtuous; and that the rational desire for the satisfaction of it cannot be sinful per se. But lest some mistrust of this conclusion should be felt, from the abstract nature of the analysis, it will be confirmed by these further considerations.

1. Every one easily recognizes this sentiment of moral reprobation as the counterpart to that of moral approbation. In the latter, the mind has, as its root, a similar judgment, in the reason, of the virtuousness of the act; it thereby recognizes the agent as meritorious for the act, that is, as righteously entitled to his suitable well-being as its moral equivalent; and the mind finds virtuous pleasure in the satisfaction of this, its verdict, by the actual enjoyment which the meritorious agent has of his reward. That a soul should be capable of witnessing a virtuous act and its reward, and remain wholly devoid of this sentiment and this satisfaction, would of itself argue a criminal defect. The man who is capable of being spectator of some splendid and lovely instance of filial gratitude and fidelity, and of its reward in the benediction of the happy father, and the well-earned honor and prosperity of the pious son, and who can feel no pleasing judgment of approval in his own soul, and no virtuous satisfaction in witnessing the reward of merit, is thereby shown to be a cold villain, capable himself of any ingratitude or treachery to his parents.

But add to this that, in morals, wrong is the necessary counterpart of right, as every moralist admits. As absence of caloric is cold, or absence of light is itself darkness, so, in moral actions, lack of right is wrong. There is, hence, no such thing as a moral neutrality in a case involving positive moral elements. It appears, therefore, very plain that the susceptibility of moral approbation implies necessarily that of moral reprobation; that to be insensible to the latter would involve insensibility to the former. But this, as all admit, would characterize the man as positively evil. Hence it appears that these active sentiments of moral reprobation for wrong doing, so far are they from being unholy, are positively necessary to right character. The reader may find this conclusion confirmed by numerous scriptural testimonies, among which these two, from the New and Old Testaments respectively, may be cited: Prov. 17:15: “He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even they both are abomination to the Lord”; Rom. 1:32: Paul condemns sinners as those who “not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.”

2. When flagrant crimes are committed against the law of the land, and the “gallows is cheated,” the most virtuous citizens feel the craving of their moral nature for the retribution of justice upon the criminal and the grief of its disappointment. This feeling cannot be accused of selfishness, but is wholly impersonal, for it is vividly felt by virtuous persons who have no connection with the object of the outrage, and who suffer no special wrong by it. It is found most often in the most disinterested and noble natures. It is impossible for the subject of it to rebuke himself for entertaining it; for he feels that to lack this feeling would be to lack virtuous regard for the law which has been dishonored and the innocent victim who has been wronged. Sympathy with the right implies reprobation of the wrong.

3. The Scriptures, beyond a doubt, describe the saints in glory as participating in the judicial triumphs of the Redeemer, when he shall pour out his final retributions on the wicked; and the satisfaction of this intuitive sentiment which craves just penalty for demerit is one of the elements of the bliss of the redeemed. Psalm 149:5–9 says: “Let the saints be joyful in glory.… Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a two-edged sword in their hand; to execute vengeance upon the heathen,” etc. The yearning of the martyrs in heaven for a righteous vindication has been already seen in Rev. 6:10; and in Rev. 19:1–3 heaven is heard in jubilee over the judgment of the persecuting Babylon of the Apocalypse. Now, it will scarcely be doubted that it is right for Christians to feel here as they will feel when perfectly sanctified in heaven.

Lastly. Righteous retribution is one of the glories of the divine character. If it is right that God should desire to exercise it, then it cannot be wrong for his people to desire him to exercise it. It may be objected that, while he claims retribution for himself, he forbids it to them, and that he has thereby forbidden all satisfaction in it to them. The fact is true; the inference does not follow. Inasmuch as retribution inflicted by a creature is forbidden, the desire for its infliction by a creature, or pleasure therein, is also forbidden; but inasmuch as it is righteously inflicted by God, it must be right in him, and must therefore be, when in his hand, a proper subject of satisfaction to the godly.

Now, if the feeling of moral reprobation, when thus impersonal or disinterested, is righteous, its propriety cannot be wholly destroyed by the circumstance that he who feels it was object of and suffered by the crime reprobated. The crime is still the same in principle, and is properly the object of the same moral emotions. The only difference is that the temptation of the sufferer to inordinate and sinful resentment is thereby rendered much greater, and he is thereby called to strict watchfulness and self-control, lest the personal feeling, which is mixed with the impersonal, assume the ascendancy, and thus malice usurp the place of righteous zeal; but otherwise no reason appears why it is not as righteous to approve and desire the just penal recompense of the enemy who has assailed the right in attacking one’s self as of the party who has injured our neighbor.

But, it cannot be too often repeated, the righteous desire for recompense never craves to take its vindication into its own hands. The godly man always prefers to remit the penal settlement to a perfect God, and arrests his own forcible agency as soon as the purposes of mere self-defense are secured. It is the declared principle of both Testaments, that God reserves retribution to himself as his exclusive function. He has, indeed, delegated a limited portion of this authority to the civil magistrate, to wield it, as his representative, for a specific purpose. But this is no exception, for when civil society punishes crimes, it is as much a part of God’s providential ordering, and of his providential act, as when he punishes them by sickness or dearth. The principle stands absolute: a limited resentment, purely defensive and temporary, may be man’s; but vengeance is God’s. This is proper, because the injured man is himself a sinner, as well as the injurer; and so rigorous a function is not appropriately wielded by one who is himself exposed to it, and who is seeking to escape it by the door of mercy. It is proper, because man is ignorant of those spiritual conditions of crimes, on which the aggravation or palliation of their demerit so much depends. It is proper, because the impersonal moral sentiment demanding retribution is, in man’s breast, so seldom unmixed with the personal passion of direct or sympathetic resentment; so that it is doubtful whether a human being is ever in a condition to judge a wrong act with perfect equity. It is proper, because God is not only an omniscient and perfect being, devoid of all passion, but is the supreme proprietor and ruler of men, and his will is the source of the obligation which they violate, as well as its infallible rule. Hence, the state of feeling to which the Christian should strive, is, not insensibility to wrong, not indifference to the craving of our moral nature for its just penal recompense, but a hearty willingness to leave that retribution in God’s righteous and unerring hand.

A stage has now been reached in this discussion, at which it is necessary to introduce a few plain distinctions. One is the well-known distinction of divines between the love of complacency and the love of benevolence. The former is founded on moral approbation for the character of its object, and implies moral excellence in it. The other does not, and may exist notwithstanding moral disapprobation of its object. Of the former kind is the love of God the Father for God the Son. Of the latter kind is the love of the Trinity for sinners. Obviously the love of complacency is directed towards its object’s character, while the love of benevolence is directed to the person of its object, and exists in spite of his obnoxious character. And it is thus possible that love may hate the character and compassionate the person of the same man. Such, in fact, was Christ’s love to us “while we were yet sinners.” The adjustment between the New Testament and the Old is partly to be found in this distinction. When Jesus Christ commands us to love our enemies, it is with the love of benevolence and compassion. When David declared that he hated God’s enemies with a perfect hatred, he meant that he did not entertain for them the love of moral complacency, but, as was proper, the reverse. This love of benevolence for the person of a bad man ought to be, in the Christian, the finite reflection of what it is in God, limited only by the higher attribute of righteousness.

Next: To understand the relations of godliness between us and our enemies, the elements involved in their injurious acts must also be distinguished. The sin of a wrong-doer against his fellow involves three elements of offence. One is the personal loss and natural evil inflicted, and is expressed by the Latin divines by the word damnum. The second is the guilt (reatus) or relation of debt to the law, by which the wrong-doer is bound to pay for his act in punishment. The third is the moral defilement or depravity of character (pravitas vel macula), which is both expressed and increased by specific acts of sin. Now, when the Christian is made the object of an unrighteous act, the element of loss, or damnum, is the only one which is personal to him, and therefore the only one which it is competent to him to remit. And since nothing but self-interest is concerned in this element, the great law of love requires the Christian to remit it without price or compensation, provided the moral conditions of the case do not forbid it. And to pursue the aggressor with evil, directly for the sake of this element of his offence, is sinful malice. The second element, that of guilt, is not personal to the injured Christian. It is not his business to pursue the satisfaction for guilt, but God’s. He is to leave this element wholly to God, only taking care that his moral sentiments touching it are conformed to those of the divine Judge. But practically he has no outward duty to perform with reference to it, in any circumstances whatever, unless he is providentially called to fill the office of magistrate in the commonwealth; and then he is bound to execute upon the guilty that portion of the retributive penalty committed to his charge by the laws of God and his country, without either favor or malice; feeling that where guilt is duly affixed, he has no more option to remit any of its penalty than he has to give away another man’s property entrusted to his charge.

The third element, that of the inward defilement represented and fostered in the wrong act, is also impersonal to the injured party. He has no option or license to disregard it, and the love of complacency has no relevancy to a prompting to overlook it. By the very reason that it is his bounden duty to love holiness, it is his duty to be opposed to impurity. He who should argue that his compassion and Christian kindness ought to, or could, lawfully prompt him to overlook this defilement, and restore his approbation and fellowship to the transgressor while still defiled in character, would be as preposterous as he who should say that his compassion justified him in agreeing with the liar that falsehood is truth and truth is falsehood. Kindness and compassion have no application to the case; but our judgment and treatment of the evil must be according to the eternal principles of truth and right. Now, for this third element of moral impurity the only remedy is true repentance, prompted by the renewing and sanctifying agency of the Holy Spirit, and manifesting and fostering itself in outward reform. For the second element, that of guilt, the appointed remedy is the atonement of Calvary, embraced by faith. For the first element, that of damnum, the remedy is reparation.

The light which these distinctions throw upon the Christian treatment of enemies may be displayed by applying them to a concrete instance. Let it be supposed that the crime is a robbery committed upon the goods of a private Christian. There is an element of damnum which consists in the privation of the use and value of the property taken. There is an element of guilt by which the robber is made debtor to the laws of the commonwealth and of God in certain penalties; and there is an element of moral defilement or taint attaching, through the theft, to the robber’s character. Let it be supposed, first, that the offender provides no appropriate remedy for either; that he neither makes reparation of the stolen property nor makes satisfaction to human and divine law, nor exhibits any purification of character by repentance. How ought the injured Christian to treat him? The answer is, that the law of love does not bind him to extend moral fellowship and approbation to a defiled character, nor to intervene between the guilty party and the penal claims of law; for these consequences of the sin are not personal to the injured party. But the law of love may bind him to remit the claim for restoration of the value stolen “without money and without price”; as, for instance, if the thief have become unable to repay; and in any case it binds him to succor the thief when suffering, if he is able, and to perform to him any other duty of humanity, as though he were no aggressor.

Let us suppose, again, that the thief has, from some motive implying no virtue, made exact reparation, but that his guilt is not atoned for and there is no purification of character by repentance. How ought the injured party now to treat him? The answer is, precisely as in the first case. The damnum is repaired indeed, but that element of offence was personal to the injured party, and it was right that he should waive it without reparation at the prompting of Christian kindness.

Let us suppose, again, that the thief has made no reparation of property because he is really unable, but that, having made full atonement to human law, he has by faith embraced the righteousness of Christ for the remission of his guilt towards God and has evinced by a true repentance the cleansing of his soul from depravity. How shall he be treated by the Christian whom he has injured? The answer is, precisely as though he had never injured him. The guilt and defilement of the sin have now received their appropriate remedy. The element which remains uncompensated is the damnum; and it is the Christian’s duty to remit this freely and joyfully, seeing it is personal to himself, at the prompting of love.

Now, it is asserted that, if the imprecatory passages in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments be compared with these conclusions, they will be found to contain nothing inconsistent with them. And if the Christian precept of forgiveness (Eph. 4:32), “Forgive one another, even as God, for Christ’s sake, hath forgiven you,” be examined, it will be found to express the same thing. God is “kind to the unthankful and to the evil” so long as the claims of his justice are suspended; but he does not remit their guilt, nor relax his righteous disapprobation and fixed purpose to punish, without satisfaction to law. Nor does he compromise his purity by adopting the sinner who remains impenitent and depraved. What he does is this: he extends to them, in the midst of their sin, all the compassion which his wisdom, justice, and holiness permit; and as soon as guilt is satisfied by an interest in Christ, and personal defilement purged by regeneration, he graciously overlooks every outrage of his honor and person, and adopts them into his favor as fully as though they had never sinned.

The sum of the matter, then, appears to be this: the law of love does not require the injured Christian to approve or countenance the evil character manifested in the wrong done him, or to withhold the verdict of truth and justice against it when righteous ends are gained by pronouncing it. The law of love does not require him to intervene for delivering the aggressor from the just claims of either human or divine law for penal retribution; nor does it forbid his feeling a righteous satisfaction when that retribution is executed by the appropriate authorities; but the law of love does forbid his taking retribution into his own hands, and it requires him still to extend the sentiments of humanity and the love of compassion to the enemy’s person so long as he continues to partake the forbearance of God, which love of compassion will prompt the injured party to stand ready to forgive the element of personal damnum to his enemy, and to perform the offices of benevolence to his person, in spite of his obnoxious character.

Such a discussion should not be closed without repeating the wholesome caution against the confusion of personal resentment with moral reprobation. The intermixture of the two in the breast of the injured Christian is perhaps unavoidable for imperfect man. The temptation to sanctify the inordinate indulgence of the one under the holy name of the other is dangerous. Hence every child of God under wrong is called to watchfulness, prayer, and jealousy of himself. But it should not be concealed that there is also a subtle danger in the opposite direction. The sentiments of righteous resentment and moral reprobation are the great supports intended by God for the rectitude, nobleness, and independence of the soul. But when injuries are enormous, and often repeated, there is a terrible danger lest the very frequency and violence of the impressions made upon this moral susceptibility shall blunt it. Familiarity with wickedness, even when it is wickedness aimed against ourselves, ever tends to stain the purity of the soul. When the capacity of virtuous indignation is thus depraved by violent and frequent frictions, aggression comes gradually to excite the mere emotion of abject fear, instead of the nobler moral emotions; and the wretched victim gradually grows as base and servile and unprincipled as he is miserable. Both domestic and public history teem with fearful examples of this degradation by submission to wrong; and there can be no more supreme and sacred duty which is owed to God and to himself by the good man than that of protecting his own moral sentiments from this corruption. To resist wrong within the lawful limits, or to evade the power of the oppressor when resistance is no longer feasible, may be the first obligation which man owes to his own virtue.

Robert L. Dabney, “The Christian’s Duty Towards His Enemies,” in Discussions by Robert Lewis Dabney, ed. C. R. Vaughan, 4 vols. (Richmond, VA: Presbyterian Committee of Publication, 1890), 1:706–721.

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John Stott on Ephesians 4:26–27 and Christian Anger

‘Be angry, but sin not’ is an echo of Psalm 4:4. It seems clear that this form of words is a Hebrew idiom which permits and then restricts anger, rather than actually commanding it. The equivalent English idiom would be ‘in your anger do not sin’ (NIV). Nevertheless, the verse recognizes that there is such a thing as Christian anger, and too few Christians either feel or express it. Indeed, when we fail to do so, we deny God, damage ourselves and encourage the spread of evil.

Scripture plainly teaches that there are two kinds of anger, righteous and unrighteous. In verse 31 ‘anger’ is one of a number of unpleasant things which we are to ‘put away’ from us. Evidently unrighteous anger is meant. But in 5:6 we are told of the anger of God which will fall on the disobedient, and we know that God’s anger is righteous. So was the anger of Jesus [Mark 3:5]. There must therefore be a good and true anger which God’s people can learn from him and from their Lord Jesus. I go further and say that there is a great need in the contemporary world for more Christian anger. We human beings compromise with sin in a way in which God never does. In the face of blatant evil, we should be indignant, not tolerant; angry, not apathetic. If God hates sin, His people should hate sin, too. If evil arouses His anger, it should arouse ours, too. ‘Hot indignation seizes me because of the wicked, who forsake thy law [Ps. 119:53].’ What other reaction can wickedness be expected to provoke in those who love God?

It is partiicularly noteworthy that the apostle introduces this reference to anger in a letter devoted to God’s new society of love, and in a paragraph concerned with harmonious relationships. He does so because true peace is not identical with appeasement. ‘In such a world as this,’ comments E. K. Simpson, ‘the truest peace-maker may have to assume the role of a peace-breaker as a sacred obligation’ [Commentary on the Epistles to the Ephesians and the Colossians. NICNT (Eerdmans, 1957), 108].

John R.W. Stott, The Message of Ephesians (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1979), 185–186.

Substitute the word “hate” for “anger” in the above quote and the same can be said about it.

Theophilus Polwheile (d.1689) on Christ’s Common Love and the Rich Young Ruler

Men may be honorable in respect of some good thing which they have, though contemptible in respect of some better thing which they want. Though men have nothing but gifts, yet they are amiable and honorable for their gift's sake. Christ loved the young man [the rich young ruler] for the excellency of his moral parts, Mar. 10:21. Now if Christ loves such, why should not we? Next unto those that have grace, come they that have gifts, though the men be bad, their gifts are good, and there is an honor due unto them. The Spirit of God will be acknowledged in gifts, as well as in grace, seeing He is the Author of both.

Theophilus Polwheile, Α᾿ΥΘΕ΄ΝΤΗΣ [Authentēs], Or A Treatise of Self-Denial (London: Printed for Thomas Johnson, 1658), 78–79. See John Collinges’s similar comments on the rich young ruler in the second quote here, which I recently added to the blog. See also Polwheile’s comments on Luke 14:26 on pages 222–223 where he says, “We are not to hate them [father, mother, wife, children, brother, or sister] absolutely, so as in no respect to bear any love to them, for we are commanded to love them, and to do good unto them, even the worst of them, as I have showed above.” This work, which cites many Reformed theologians and other Puritans, has a forward to the reader by Ralph Venning.

Christ doth not find his Works perfect before God, Revelation 3:2, therefore he is not well-pleased with him; therefore though he love him, as he did that young man [Polwheile means the "young man" in Matthew 19:21], it is but with a common love, not that love that he bears to a Saint, in whom is the beauty of self-denial, who follows him fully, as Caleb, Numbers 14:24, and fulfills all his will, as David did, Acts 13:22.

Ibid., 274.

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Thomas Wilson (1563–1622) on General and Special Love

Tim. What could God see in us then to move him to love us?

Sil. First, he saw in us his own creation, which he loved with a general love, as he doth all the works of his hands. Secondly, he saw in us much misery through sin, and this made him love us with a pitiful love. Thirdly, he loved his elect being yet sinners, in that he purposed in himself to call and justify them in due time. And now lastly, having grafted his elect in his Son by faith, and justified them, he loveth them actually, having set his own image in them.

Tim. You hold then that there are several degrees of God’s love, even towards his elect?

Sil. There be so, for he cannot love his elect with that degree and kind of love when they are sinners, as he doth after they are in his Son justified and sanctified: for now sin which bred hatred and enmity, is defaced and cast out by remission; and holiness which God loveth, imprinted in them, and brought in by renovation.

Thomas Wilson, A Commentary on the Most Divine Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans (London: Printed by E. Cotes in Aldersgate-street, 1653), 144.

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Paul N. Archbald’s Summary of Theodore Beza (1519–1605) on the Grace and Love of God

Beza also occasionally speaks in terms of what could be called common grace. He suggests that, in a sense, Christ died for the wicked, because all things were created by the Father in the Son (1 Corinthians 15:22). The wicked therefore receive life and blessing, but all this turns to a curse for them. Only those grafted into Christ are made partakers of His resurrection-life.⁶⁶ Beza rejects the idea that the incarnation made all without exception members of Christ. Union with Christ applies to the church alone. It is by covenant, not by nature.⁶⁷

It is still possible, however, to speak of a universal love of God. At Montbéliard, Andreae asked if God has ever loved those who are now damned, or will be. Beza replied with Augustine’s distinction that God both hates and loves at the same time. He loves what He has created, and He loves His ordaining of human beings as vessels for some use or other. He hates the sinful works of men, the ungodliness which He Himself did not make. God, “in that He makes vessels of perdition of the mass of the lost, does not hate what He does.”⁶⁸
_______________
66. Questions, 21a–22.
67. Ibid., 36–36a.
68. Coll. Mont., 212–213. [“...Deum odisse simul & amare homines: amare videlicet homines quatenus sunt opus suum, odisse vero in hominibus opera hominis, id est peccata...]

Paul N. Archbald, A Comparative Study of John Calvin and Theodore Beza on the Doctrine of the Extent of the Atonement (PhD diss., Westminster Theological Seminary, 1998), 294–295. See also pp. 222–223. William Strong (d.1654), the Westminster divine, also said Beza taught God’s “common love” for all creatures as such, along with Calvin.

Beza wrote:

But lest thou exclaim that I do wrangle, I confess that the Lord doth do[?] an incredible favor and leniency, even towards the vessels of wrath, ordained to destruction. When is it that he should not destroy Cain by and by? Whence is it that he should protract the flood so many years? Whence is it that he should bless Esau with the plentifulness of the earth? That Ishmael should grow to a great kindred? That he should suffer the Caananites and the Amalachites so long? That he should not take away Saul by and by, but suffer him so long to enjoy the benefit of this life, and also the renown and benefits of the Kingdom of Israel? Finally, that we prosecute antiquities, whence is it that he so nourisheth, and so favorably suffereth so many wicked Turkes, such tyranny of Antichrist, and finally thyself with so many false Prophets, who cease not to seduce whomsoever they may from God's truth. Great, yea great and incomprehensible is this goodness of God towards his enemies, which would God they could once acknowledge, whosoever are elect among them, and be not known, that they might at the last return to him, who truly showeth himself favorable, and slow to wrath even to his adversaries.

Theodore Beza, An Evident Display of Popish Practices, or Patched Pelagianism, trans. William Hopkinson (London: Imprinted by Ralph Newberie, and Henry Bynnyman, 1578), 62–63. In the “benefits” that God gives the vessels of wrath who are “ordained to destruction,” He is being “good” to them, “blessing” them, and showing Himself “favorable” to them. This backs up Archbald’s claim above that “Beza also occasionally speaks in terms of what could be called common grace.”

A Second Critique of R. C. Sproul on the Love of God

It seems that the older Sproul gets, the more inclined he is to make injudicious statements, as if he is being bold in saying these things. His mentor, John Gestner, certainly had that problem. Mark Jones, in his friendly review of the recent Ligonier statement on Christology (and other posts here, here, and here), has seen some poor judgement in that area, but my focus here is on a recent, unwise statement by Sproul on God’s unconditional love.

At the 2016 National Ligonier Conference, Sproul addressed the topic of “The Transforming Power of the Gospel.” He talked briefly about what the gospel is not, in order to present what he thinks the gospel is. He first mentioned that the gospel is not “your personal testimony,” and then elaborated. He then stated the following (see minute 34:33–34:42):

And to say that God loves all people unconditionally is not the gospel; it’s not even true.

This is the statement I want to critique. It is not the only time Sproul has made such uncareful statements in my view (see my recently updated first criticism here). Not only does Sproul seem to be somewhat confused on the free offer of the gospel (see here), but he also seems to be confused on God’s so-called unconditional love. He even went so far as to say, “Every time I hear a preacher on television or live who says to his people, ‘God loves you unconditionally,’ I want to ask that this man be defrocked for such a violation of the word of God!” 

Consider his statement above. It has two claims in it:

1) “God loves all people unconditionally is not the gospel.”

2) “God loves all people unconditionally” is “not even true.”

The second claim is the main assertion that I want to critique, but let’s consider the first one as well in passing.

1) First, he said, “God loves all people unconditionally is not the gospel.” 

Has anyone, at any time, ever claimed that “God loves all people unconditionally is the gospel”? No. Of course not. No one has ever made that manifestly absurd claim. It’s a straw man and overreaction to what is actually being said or done by certain people. What we see in popular evangelistic meetings are preachers telling everyone present that God loves them unconditionally, in the context of also presenting the facts about Christ’s life, death, and resurrection (i.e. the gospel), with little or no mention that the unbelievers are abiding under God’s wrath (or hatred of abomination). The listeners, therefore, do not adequately feel that they are in any danger of perishing. It is usually not so much what is said that is the problem, but what is not said. There is an overemphasis on the love of God to the extent that other vitally important gospel-truths are omitted, such as the holiness of God, which Sproul has been so rightly zealous to underline in his teaching.

It is not that these people are claiming that “God loves you unconditionally is the gospel;” rather, the problem is that they are saying that while neglecting to also mention other important biblical truths about God’s nature, which shine forth in the cross of Christ. The cross of Christ not only lets everyone know that God loves them personally as His creatures (which we will explain later), it simultaneously lets them know how much God is passionately disgusted with them as sinners, or as His enemies. Unbelievers are presently recipients of benevolent love, but they are also under a curse. In effect, the Father, through Christ on the cross, says, “Yes, I love you benevolently, and therefore desire your eternal salvation according to my revealed will through your repentance and faith in my crucified Son; but I am also so disgusted with sin and sinners that this sort of violent sacrifice is necessary in order that you might escape my coming wrath. Unless you repent, and receive my Son as He is graciously offered in the gospel, you shall yourself suffer the excruciating and eternal punishment necessary for your sin.”

It is this latter teaching about God’s holy hatred for sin and sinners that is regularly omitted in evangelistic encounters. That’s the problem. No one is actually saying that “God loves all people unconditionally is the gospel.” The reason that theological balance is lacking today is because so few actually know about the complexity involved in the biblical teaching regarding the love of God (hence the need for D. A Carson’s book on “The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God”), and so they therefore don’t have a good understanding about the complex teaching of the hatred of God either. The two doctrines (i.e. God’s holy love and holy hatred) are interrelated. Faithful expositions on the meaning of the cross of Christ in evangelistic encounters must therefore present both doctrines, though the emphasis may vary in certain contexts (as I mention in the bottom portion of my first critique). I think this is Sproul’s underlying concern as well, but he is not articulating it carefully. That’s his problem, as evidenced in the first claim.

2) Let’s consider his second claim: “God loves all people unconditionally...is not even true.”

There are different senses of the love of God according to the bible and historic Christian teaching. The early church fathers, the medieval schoolmen, the early Reformers, and especially the post-Reformation Reformed theologians all distinguished between God’s love of complacency and His love of benevolence, for example.

A) God’s Love of Complacency (from the Latin complacere, ‘to please’)

Typically, God’s love of complacency is presented as God’s love for all good things and beings (i.e. the righteous or saints). It is that pleasure or delight that God has for all that is good or virtuous. Inter-Trinitarian love is that highest delight and pleasure that each of the persons has for the others as perfect and holy. As Richard Muller says, “The amor Dei...is directed inwardly and intrinsically toward God himself as the summum bonum, or highest good, and, among the persons of the Trinity, toward one another.”

God also takes pleasure in His creatures insofar as they reflect the divine image, or participate in holiness. We might therefore call this sense of love God’s “love of moral complacency,” in the sense that God is pleased with all that is good and holy. Jesus is talking about this sense of love when He said, “he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him” (John 14:21). Whoever loves Jesus and keeps his word “will be loved” by the Father (John 14:23). This is that sort of love that Jesus commands us to “abide in” (John 15:9). “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love” (John 15:10). If you pursue godliness and righteousness, then the Lord loves you  in this sense (Prov. 15:9).

One can see that this sense of God’s love is “conditional,” in the sense that virtue in the creature is required in order for God to be pleased with you, or to take delight in you. Reformed theologians typically reserve this “conditional” sense of God’s love for His saints, or for believers only (which is how Mark Jones, of Ref21, is currently using the category). Does God love all people with a “love of moral complacency,” or with that special, exclusive love He has for the righteous? Of course not. God’s love of moral complacency is obviously conditional.

This is the sense of God’s love that is so neglected or not understood well today, and so theologians such as Mark Jones (on Reformation21, in his book on Antinomianism, and in the book A Puritan Theology) are seeking to remind the church about God’s conditional love of moral complacency. Whether or not God has a love of complacency for unsaved people insofar as they have virtue in them through God’s restraining grace is a debatable point. Some Puritans, such as William Gearing, seem to affirm a kind of general love of moral complacency, since even “profane men” still have “some reliques of God’s [moral] image in them,” such as the rich young ruler. Nevertheless, it is true that, classically speaking, God’s love of moral complacency is typically reserved for believers (or the “righteous” in this sense) alone, at least in terms of traditional Christian teaching.

Another subtle distinction arises among the schoolmen and later Reformed theologians. As Richard Muller notes, “The amor Dei universalis is frequently called by the scholastics complacentia, or general good-pleasure...” We might call this God’s “love of natural complacency,” or His love of all of His creation as such. It is what Jonathan Edwards seems to have in mind when he expounded on God’s “love of being” in The Nature of True Virtue and elsewhere. Very frequently cited among the theologians of the past is Wisdom 11:24 (RSV):

For thou lovest all things that exist, and hast loathing for none of the things which thou hast made, for thou wouldst not have made anything if thou hadst hated it. 

If God’s love of moral complacency is not well-understood today, then how much less is this rather technical sense of God’s love of natural complacency for all that He has made? Even Mark Jones does not seem to have this category in his thinking, even though he is becoming more and more refined in his understanding of God’s love of moral complacency. Jones seems to have been influenced by Samuel Rutherford’s categories (along with Thomas Goodwin and others) in his anti-antinomian writings. Rutherford does, however, seem to have this category of complacency in mind when he elaborated on “three sorts of love.” He includes the idea that God “loves all that he has made; so far as to give them a being, to conserve them in being so long as he pleaseth: he had a desire to have Sun, Moon, Stars, Earth, Heaven, Sea, Cloud, Air; he created them out of the womb of love, and out of goodness, and keeps them in being…” One can see that he, like so many others in his day, is alluding to Wisdom 11:24 (not as a canonical or authoritative book in that sense, but as making a true statement) in the context. Insofar as all of creation is something God has made, he loves it, and calls it “good” (Gen. 1:31), in the sense of it’s essence or being.

This specialized and mostly unheard of sense of God’s love of natural complacency (as I call it) in modern times is “unconditional.” The Puritan Thomas Larkham (in The Attributes of God Unfolded, and Applied. Second Part. [London, 1656], 158–159), and also John Gill (see his Body of Divinity, Book 1, chap. 12: “...yea, even the devils, as they are the creatures of God, are not hated by him, but as they are apostate spirits from him...”) went so far as to say that God even loves the fallen angels in the sense that they are His creatures. Modern Christians (including R. C. Sproul) seem to know nothing about this so-called “piece of [seeming] blasphemy,” as Larkham calls it, but it is still true. Does God love all people unconditionally with a complacent love? In a sense one could say so (i.e. in the sense that Larkham maintains), if one has a love of natural complacency in mind, but not unconditionally with a moral complacency, or in the sense of love God has for the righteous. But there is no need to make this argument to point out the problem with Sproul’s statement. The frequently used sense of God’s “unconditional love for all people” is almost always taught under the category of God’s love of benevolence, which we shall consider next.

B) God’s Love of Benevolence

One might say God’s love of benevolence is twofold: common and special.

God’s common love of benevolence is that gracious good-will that He has for all of fallen humanity (not fallen angels), which is seen in His beneficent or good acts of providential care wherein He seeks to bring men to repentance (Rom. 2:4). Richard Muller rightly notes that, “the amor Dei communis is understood to be benevolentia in the strict sense of goodwill toward human beings...” (underlining mine). Jesus has this sense of God’s universal love in mind in Matt. 5:43–45. The Father, as He says, shows himself to “love His enemies” insofar as He grants all living people the common bounties of providence (though not equally, as Van Til carefully qualifies it), even on the “unrighteous.” Clearly this sense of God’s love is unconditional. R. C. Sproul himself, in his book “Loved by God,” acknowledges that God has a love for all people in this sense. He, like all of the Reformed theologians in the past, associates God’s “common grace” with God’s universal, benevolent love.

Muller rightly noted that “the scholastics” subsumed “the grace (gratia), mercy (misericordia), long-suffering (long-animitas), patience (patientia), and clemency or mildness (clementia) of God under the amor Dei,” but one should add that these things are properly subsumed under the amor Dei communis, or amor Dei benevolentia. If common grace is a manifestation of God’s common or general love, then how can one not see that it is unconditional? On the very basis of this sense of God’s common love, Jesus commands us to love our enemies, even if they are hurling insults and abuse on us. Jesus in effect is saying, “despite their moral condition as your (i.e. the saints) enemies, wish them well. Pray for them. Bless them. Have goodwill toward them, even as the Father, despite their hostility to Him, so graciously bears goodwill to them while they live in this world.” God’s common love of benevolence is clearly unconditional, even though His love of moral complacency (as I have called it) in the usual sense is conditional. 

Moreover, one cannot use texts affirming God’s conditional love of moral complacency to negate God’s universal and unconditional love of benevolence, just as one cannot use God’s conditional hatred of abomination (odium abominationis) for the wicked to cancel out the biblical teaching regarding God’s love of goodwill. As the Puritan Thomas Manton so well observed, “...the hatred of abomination is opposite to the love of complacency, odium inimicitiæ [i.e. a hatred of enmity or malice] to amor benevolentiæ.” It is a mistake among the hyper-Calvinists to use “hatred of abomination” texts (such as Psa. 5:5) to negate God’s common “amor benevolentiæ” (which is a false antithesis, since the opposite of benevolence is malevolence, or malice). The proper inference one can make from Psa. 5:5 is that, since God has a hatred of displacency or disgust for workers of iniquity, he therefore has no love of moral complacency for these people as sinners, not that He has no love of benevolence for them. They use also texts referring to God’s hatred of preterition (Rom. 9:13) along the same lines, or to negate amor Dei universalis or amor Dei communis. The only legitimate inference one can make from Rom. 9:13 is that God has no love of election (or a special sense of benevolent love) for Esau in contrast to those special blessings appointed to Jacob; one cannot conclude that God has no benevolent love at all for Esau, since the proper antithesis to a love of election is a hatred of preterition.

What the hyper-Calvinists don’t realize is that God simultaneously has an unconditional love of benevolence for all human beings in one sense, even though He abominates the human beings (including the unbelieving elect) who remain in their sins and under the sway of the wicked one (1 John 5:19). God hated Esau (both in terms of a pre-temporal preterition and a temporal abomination after he’s imputed with original sin, and especially when he’s in actual sin), yes, but He still blessed Esau, even as He also blessed Ishmael (Gen. 17:20), with great lands, many descendants, etc. As the Puritan Thomas Watson said regarding Pharoah, “Even the worst taste of God’s mercy; such as fight against God’s mercy taste of it; the wicked have some crumbs from mercy’s table. ‘The Lord is good to all.’ Sweet dewdrops are on the thistle as well as on the rose. The diocese where mercy visits is very large. Pharaoh’s head was crowned though his heart was hardened.”

We cannot use any texts referring to God’s hatred of abomination (i.e. the disgust God has for living, actual sinners) or His hatred of preterition (mere non-election before anyone has done acts of good or evil) to cancel out God’s unconditional, merciful love of benevolence for the whole human race. The people who make this mistake have no category for the biblical statement that God shall love some people “no more” (Hos. 9:15), just as they also have no category for an increasing or decreasing divine love of moral complacency. They have no category for the misery of the damned (i.e. the non-elect) being “aggravated by the remembrance, that God once loved us so as to give his Son to bring us to the happiness of his love, and tried all manner of means to persuade us to accept of his favor, which was obstinately refused,” as Jonathan Edwards excellently taught. This was unconditional mercy and a gracious or free sense of love that they (the non-elect) received in this world, but is eventually taken away.

Another sense of God’s love of benevolence is special, or for the elect alone. As Muller again notes, “the amor Dei proprius, or specialis, is directed toward the elect or believers only and is manifest in the gift of salvation.” We might call this a “love of election,” and it is a subset or special sense of God’s love of benevolence. It is also unconditional, in the sense that God has graciously elected some human beings (the elect) to be effectually granted a new heart unto repentance and faith, while others are unconditionally passed over (preterition) with respect to this free gift. Sometimes, as Muller notes, the “amor Dei specialis, is termed amicitia, i.e. friendship or sympathy toward believers,” but that is the idea of God’s conditional love of moral complacency, or that love he has for those in a condition of “friendship” since they are obedient “believers” of the gospel.

The picture of God’s love (at least as implicitly taught or implicitly categorized in the Reformed tradition) as we have presented it appears as follows:

THE LOVE OF GOD

Love of Complacency	Love of Benevolence
Natural (unconditional, or for all creation as such)	Common or General (unconditional, and for all humanity)
Moral (conditional, i.e. for the virtuous or for saints)	Special (unconditional, but limited to the elect)

Even though Sproul is emphatically not himself a hyper-Calvinist, his denial that God loves all people unconditionally logically entails a denial of God’s universal love of benevolence, which denial then constitutes a form of hyper-Calvinism (i.e. the modern kind seen mainly among the Protestant Reformed Church variety). The denial of God's unconditional love for all people is not in accord with the teaching of the original Reformers, or the later Reformed scholastic theologians. There are at least two senses in which we could say “God loves all people unconditionally” from the standpoint of biblical and historic Reformed theology: 1) in the sense of His love of natural complacency, and 2) in the sense of His common love of benevolence. Even if one rejects the first idea, it is abundantly clear from the bible, as well as from the historic Reformed tradition, that God’s common love of benevolence for all people is unconditional, and is therefore a true teaching.

The church needs to know about these things, and she needs to be more discerning, particularly when we have prominent leaders, such as Sproul, making nonsensical and injudicious statements. Not only is the recent Ligonier statement on Christology lacking in carefulness, but so are several statements that R. C. Sproul has said regarding the love of God. It disturbs me that no one at the conferences, so far as I can tell, seems to be correcting him in this matter. We hope that Sproul does not turn out to be as imbalanced as John Gerstner (one of Sproul’s mentors) was in his latter days. May God keep him from making further mistakes, and from the PRC form of hyper-Calvinism that Gerstner eventually came to embrace later in his life.

John Robinson (c.1575–1625) on God’s Hate and General Love

For first, it is true, that God hateth nothing that he hath made [Wis. 11:24], so far as it is his work: but as sin, coming in, hath destroyed the work of God, though not in respect of the nature, or being, yet of the integrity, and holy being of the creature; so God, through his unchangeable holiness, hating sin, doth, also, most fervently hate and abhor from the sinful creature, in whom it reigneth, in respect of it, as the Scriptures do expressly and plentifully teach, Mal. ii. 3; Psa. v. 5, 6; Prov. xvi. 5; Tit. i. 16. And God loving himself and his own holiness in the first place and most, and the creature and his good, but in the second place, the love of the creature must give way to the love of himself, and so he, necessarily, hate the obstinate sinner. And this it is most needful for all men firmly to believe, and continually to bear in mind, that they may always bewail their sins, and nourish in themselves the hatred of that which God so hateth, and for it, the creature; and for which he punisheth it with most horrible curses, and punishments for ever.

And yet, even in the very execution of his most fearful vengeance upon the reprobate, men and angels, he retaineth the general love of a Creator; and out of it, preserveth the being of the creature, which in itself, and in respect of the universal is better than not to be, though not so in the sense of the person: and also moderateth the extremity of that torment, which he both could, and might in justice, inflict.

John Robinson, “On Religious Communion, Private and Public,” in The Works of John Robinson, 3 vols. (London: John Snow, 35, Paternoster Row, 1851), 3:253–254. Also in John Robinson, Of Religious Communion, Private, & Publique (Printed Anno, 1614), 112.

But the Scriptures teach us a further thing, than these ungrateful persons will acknowledge; which is, that besides, and above the offer common to both, God gives the increase, 1 Cor. iii. 7, to some, without which, all preaching is nothing: even by opening of the heart to attend unto it, as he did the heart of Lydia. Acts. xvi. 14. And as persons receive the Word of God into their hearts by his opening them first, so in that his gracious work in them, he makes them which were before alike, in spiritual consideration, to become unlike, and better than others; and so more beloved than others for the godly qualities, as they call them, which he hath wrought in them. Neither doth the Lord hate only the works of wicked men, as they say; but also the workers of iniquity, Psa. v. 5, 6: not with a passion of the mind, as hatred is in man, but with a holy will to punish the violation of his righteous law. And though with a general love of the Creator to the creature, he always, after a sort, loves the persons of men, as being his generation, yet he loves, as is meet, the honour of his holiness, more than the happiness of his creature, having violated and profained it without repentance.

John Robinson, “Defense of the Doctrine Propounded by the Synod of Dort,” in The Works of John Robinson (London: John Snow, 35, Paternoster Row, 1851), 1:388–389.

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James Rawson (d.1673) on God's Love and Hate in Romans 9

Sir, for the resolving of your question, and satisfying of the scruple, I must tell you, first, that God is said to have hated Esau before he was born, or that he had done either good or evil; that is called hatred, comparatively, in respect of that love he showed unto Jacob; he may be said to hate him because he loved him less than he did Jacob: Thus Leah was said to be hated by Jacob, comparatively with the love showed to Rachel, because she was less beloved than Rachel: so he that serves two masters, will hate the one, and love the other, (i.e.) will love him less than the other: And thus God loves the reprobates less than he does the elect; but it cannot be concluded, that the Lord doth absolutely hate any creature of his own making, for they were all good, yea very good: and Wisd. 11.24. thou lovest all things that are, and abhorrest nothing that thou hast made. Tis true God hates sin, because he made it not, and this hatred hath an influx upon the sinner, as he is a sinner, because God made him not so: But God hates not a non-elected person, or a reprobate, as he is a reprobate, neither does he condemn him, or decree to condemn him, for his negative reprobation, which is God's act, but for his sin, which is man's act.

James Rawson, Gerizim, Election, and Ebal, Reprobation. Or, the Absolute Good Pleasure of Gods Most Holy Will to All the Sons of Adam Specificated, viz. to Vessels of Mercy in their Eternal Election, and to Vessels of Wrath in their Eternal Reprobation (London: Printed by John Owsley, for Henry Shephard, and are to be sold at his shop under St. Swithins Church in Canning street near London-Stone, 1658), 170.

Note: I only post this to show that Rawson, a high Calvinist, believed God, in a sense, loves the reprobate, not that I entirely agree with his interpretation of the love/hate contrast in Romans 9. I prefer to see the contrast in terms of a love of election vs. a hatred of preterition, which may or may not be compatible with Rawson's view. Also, I think he should have said, "God hates not a non-elected person, or reprobate, as he is God's creature," instead of saying, "...as he is a reprobate." That seems to be Rawson's point anyway, as he references the Book of Wisdom, and distinguishes between God's love for a person as His creature and God's hate for that same person as he is a sinner. I think he was using the term "reprobate" in this context in the sense of one merely passed over (and therefore "loved-less") in God's decree, or for the non-elect as such, not in the sense of a person existing in a state of sinful rebellion.

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James Rawson was a high predestinarian and eventually a nonconformist. He may have also been a presbyterian.