Iain Murray on the Love of God and Hyper-Calvinism

Hyper-Calvinism, on the other hand, denies, in the words of John Murray, ‘that there is a love of God that goes forth to lost men and is manifested in the manifold blessings which all men without distinction enjoy, a love in which non-elect persons are embraced, and a love that comes to its highest expression in the entreaties, overtures and demands of gospel proclamation.’³
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3. ‘The Atonement and the Free Offer of the Gospel’ in the Banner of Truth (London, 1968), July–August, p. 29.

Iain H. Murray, Spurgeon v. Hyper-Calvinism: The Battle for Gospel Preaching (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2000), 98. In the 2010 reset edition in larger form, the pages are 86–87, and the footnote number is 1, not 3.

Iain Murray on Spurgeon, Hyper-Calvinism, and God's Saving Will

These quotations lead us on to the fourth and perhaps the most serious difference of all between evangelical Calvinism and Hyper-Calvinism.

Hyper-Calvinism and the Love of God

Spurgeon saw that behind the distortion of predestination, and the unwillingness to believe that the gospel invitations are to be addressed freely to all men, lay a failure to understand what Scripture reveals about the character of God himself. If God has chosen an elect people, then, Hyper-Calvinism argued, he can have no desire for the salvation of any others and to speak as though he had, is to deny the particularity of grace. Of course, Hyper-Calvinists accepted that the gospel be preached to all, but they denied that such preaching was intended to demonstrate any love on the part of God for all, or any invitation to all to receive mercy. On the contrary, they taught that no man has any right to trust in a loving God until he has first some personal evidence that he is one of the chosen.

A sermon of 1858 which Spurgeon preached on 'Sovereign Grace and Man's Responsibility' identified this crucial difference with Hyper-Calvinism. He took for his text the words of God quoted by Paul in Romans 10:20-21, 'I was found of them that sought me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me. But to Israel he saith, all day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people.' In such words Spurgeon saw the proof that God can be said to desire the salvation even of those who persist in rejecting him:

'Lost sinners who sit under the sound of the gospel are not lost for the want of the most affectionate invitation. God says he stretches out his hands ... What did he wish them to come for? Why, to be saved. "No," says one, "it was for temporal mercies." Not so, my friend; the verse before is concerning spiritual mercies, and so is this one, for they refer to the same thing. Now, was God sincere in his offer? God forgive the man who dares to say he was not. God is undoubtedly sincere in every act he did. He sent his prophets, he entreated the people of Israel to lay hold on spiritual things, but they would not, and though he stretched out his hands all the day long, yet they were "a disobedient and gainsaying people" and would not have his love.'¹

Spurgeon regarded the denial of God's desire for the salvation of all men as no mere theoretical mistake. For it converged with one of the greatest obstacles to faith on the part of the unconverted, that is to say, a wrong view of the character of God. Men 'imagine that God is a severe being, angry and fierce, very easily moved to wrath, but not so easily to be induced to love.' The truth of divine love is the last to enter men's heads. Because Hyper-Calvinism is wrong here it fails to disabuse the minds of fallen men of this error. It does not give men the warning to be found in such evangelical Calvinists as John Owen who counseled, 'Let us not entangle our own spirits by limiting his grace … We are apt to think that we are very willing to have forgiveness, but that God is unwilling to bestow it.' Scripture, Owen continued, sets forth the contrary in order 'to root out all the secret reserves of unbelief concerning God's willingness to give mercy, grace, and pardon unto sinners … Therefore, the tendency of our former argument is, not merely to prove that there is forgiveness with God, which we may believe and not be mistaken, but which we ought to believe; it is our duty to do so. We are expressly commanded to believe, and that upon the highest promises and under the greatest penalties.'
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1. NPSP, vol. 4, p. 341. As John Murray and Ned B. Stonehouse observe, 'It would appear that the real point in dispute in connection with the free offer of the gospel is whether it can properly be said that God desires the salvation of all men.' See 'The Free Offer of the Gospel' in Collected Writings of John Murray (Banner of Truth, 1982), vol. 4, pp. 113–32.

Iain H. Murray, Spurgeon v. Hyper-Calvinism: The Battle for Gospel Preaching (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2000), 88–91. In the 2010 reset edition in larger form, the pages are 78–80, and the footnote number is 2.

Conference Chart

Here is a modified pdf copy of the chart I created in 2008 for Dr. David Allen to use at the John 3:16 Conference:

Download Conference Chart Here

It compares Arminianism, Classic/Moderate Calvinism, High Calvinism and Hyper-Calvinism on 8 different (but related) topics:

1) God’s Love

2) God’s Will

3) God’s Grace

4) Gospel Offers

5) Christ’s Death, or the Extent of Expiation and Redemption

6) Sufficiency

7) Human Ability

8) Responsibility

I believe he made enough copies for about 800 people, and I see that one person already has a low quality scan of it online. So, here is a much better copy to distribute.

Also, I did a radio interview (click) (or here) on this chart that may be helpful for further explanation.

Download Audio Recording Here

Update on 9-27-11: In retrospect, I think Andrew Fuller’s name should be qualified since he changed his position later in life. He was a High Calvinist on the atonement early on, then switched to the moderate camp later. Also, William Carey’s views are not yet known (insufficient documents), so he should not be listed, not even as a High Calvinist. When I made the original chart, I was not sure about Fuller’s switch, so I assumed he and Carey were both High Calvinists. I have updated the “Notable Representatives” section of the chart to reflect these facts and others.

Update on 4-17-23: Curt Daniel’s new edition of the History and Theology of Calvinism (Darlington, UK: Evangelical Press, 2019) has shown that he explicitly opts for a limited imputation of sin to Christ (see esp. pp. 509–521). On page 519, for example, he wrote: “The sins of the elect alone were imputed to Christ, and His righteousness is imputed to them. The two imputations match.… He bore the curse only of those who will not finally be cursed—that is, the elect.” He should not, therefore, at least at this point, be classified as a classic-moderate Calvinist. One could reasonably argue that he came across as moderate in both his doctoral dissertation and in other earlier writings and statements. His name has now been deleted from the moderate representatives because of the fact that he is among the stricter sort, just with a broad understanding of the common grace benefits that flow to all from Christ’s death (or what he vaguely likes to call a “universal aspect”).



Update on 4-20-2025:

I recently did a podcast with Oz of “The Protestant Perspective” on the varieties of Calvinism involved in this conference chart. Here is a link to that video:

Ezekiel Culverwell (c.1554–1631) on God’s Revealed Will in 2 Pet. 3:9; Ezek. 18:23, 32; Matt. 23:37 and 2 Cor. 5:20

Having in the former part of this Treatise sufficiently proved by many Scriptures this point, that Christ and his benefits be freely offered without exception to all mankind, as that one place Mark 16:15 expressly shows; I only now advise every one who is kept from believing by this, that he knows not whether he be contained under the pardon or no, not to look to God's secret will, but to attend to God's revealed will in his Word, wherein it is expressly said, That God would have no man to perish, but would have all men come to repentance; and so oft. That he desires not the death of a sinner, that hereby he may be moved to seek and hope for that mercy, which God is so willing to bestow upon him, if the fault be not in his own self, as it was in the unbelieving Jews in Jerusalem, of whom our Saviour complained, saying, How often would I have gathered thy Children, as the Hen gathereth her Chickens under her wings, & ye would not?

A further manifestation of this willingness in God to save sinners, may be seen in his gracious invitation of the unworthiest to come to the wedding of his Son: yea, more by his beseeching sinners to be reconciled to him: and by the many and weighty arguments he uses to persuade men to believe, by the great rewards, earthly and spiritual, temporal and eternal, which all believers shall enjoy; and by the fearful woes which shall fall on all unbelievers, both in this life, and that to come, as plentifully is to be seen throughout the Scriptures.

Ezekiel Culverwell, A Treatise of Faith (London: Printed by J.D. for H. Overton, and are to be sold by William Sheares, 1648), 184–86. I have updated the English.

Thomas Watson (c.1620–1686) on God’s Will to Bring Men to Repentance

1. Now is the season of repentance—and everything is best done in its season. "Now is the accepted time" (2 Cor. 6:2); now God has a mind to show mercy to the penitent. He is on the giving hand. Kings set apart days for healing. Now is the healing day for our souls. Now God hangs forth the white flag and is willing to parley with sinners. A prince at his coronation, as an act of royalty—gives money, proclaims pardons, fills the conduits with wine. Now God promises pardons to penitent sinners. Now the conduit of the gospel runs wine. Now is the accepted time. Therefore come in now and make your peace with God. Break off your iniquities now by repentance. It is wisdom to take the season. The farmer takes the season for sowing his seed. Now is the seedtime for our souls.

Thomas Watson, The Doctrine of Repentance (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1987), 87.

The Lord proceeds gradually in his judgments. First he sends a lesser trial—and if that will not do, then a greater one. He sends upon one a gentle illness to begin with—and afterwards a burning fever. He sends upon another a loss at sea—then the loss of a child—then a loss of a husband. Thus by degrees he tries to bring men to repentance.

Ibid., 116.

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Thomas Watson (c.1620–1686) on Considering the Mercies of God

2. The second serious consideration to work repentance, is to consider the mercies of God.

A stone is soonest broken upon a soft pillow, and a heart of stone is soonest broken upon the soft pillow of God's mercies. "The goodness of God leads you to repentance" (Romans 2:4). The clemency of a prince sooner causes relenting in a malefactor. While God has been storming others by his judgments—he has been wooing you by his mercies.

(1) What preventative mercies have we had? What troubles have been prevented, what fears blown over? When our foot has been slipping, God's mercy has held us up! (Psalm 94:18). His mercy has always been a screen between us and danger. When enemies like lions have risen up against us to devour us—free grace has snatched us out of the mouth of these lions! In the deepest waves the arm of mercy has upheld us—and has kept our head above water. And will not all of God's preventative mercies lead us to repentance?

(2) What positive mercies have we had! Firstly, in supplying mercy. God has been a bountiful benefactor, "the God who fed me all my life long unto this day" (Gen. 48:15). What man will spread a table for his enemy? We have been enemies—yet God has fed us! He has given us the horn of oil. He has made the honeycomb of mercy drop on us. God has been as kind to us—as if we had been his best servants. And will not this supplying mercy lead us to repentance? Secondly, in delivering mercy. When we have been at the gates of the grave, God has miraculously preserved our lives. He has turned the shadow of death into morning, and has put a song of deliverance into our mouth. And will not delivering mercy lead us to repentance? The Lord has labored to break our hearts with his mercies. In Judges, chapter 2, we read that when the angel had preached a sermon of mercy, "the people wept loudly." If anything will move tears, it should be the mercy of God. He is an obstinate sinner indeed—whom these great cable-ropes of God's mercy will not draw to repentance!

Thomas Watson, The Doctrine of Repentance (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1987), 114–115.

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Walter Travers (c.1548–1635) on the Solemn Commemoration of the Death of Christ

We do also administer it in both kinds, of bread and and wine. Further the minister doth take the bread and give thanks, break it and deliver it to the communicants. Likewise he taketh the cup and after thanksgiving, poureth out the wine in the cup to be delivered to all that are to be partakers of the communion. The people that do communicate receive the bread and eat it, and the wine likewise, and drink it.

Now the end and use of all this is added hereunto, which is in general the solemn commemoration of the death of Christ. In particular, and that first in regard of God, and of his Son Jesus Christ, to magnify the goodness of God, in not sparing to give his only begotten Son for the redemption of the world; and to give him most due thanks for such his unspeakable grace and mercy. It is likewise to glorify our Saviour Christ, and to give thanks for his exceeding love to mankind, in that for our redemption, he hath vouchsafed to humble himself to take upon him our nature and the form of a servant, and in that nature to humble himself for us even to the death, and that the accursed death of the cross.

Walter Travers, Vindiciæ Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ: Or A Iustification of the Religion Now Professed in England (Printed at London by T. C. & R. C. for Michael Sparke, 1630), 45. I have updated some of the English.

Travers, a Puritan divine, was educated at the University of Cambridge, and then travelled to Geneva to visit Theodore Beza (with whom he formed a friendship). He was ordained by Thomas Cartwright in Antwerp. He was unwilling "to subscribe to the Thirty-Nine Articles," and "declined to receive orders in the C. of E." "Throughout the 1580's, he was one of the leaders of Presbyterian activity in London. His principal works defended the Presbyterian form of Church government as of Dominical institution and proposed a scheme for practical implementation; they provided the most important English exposition of the Presbyterian case, and as such exercised great influence in that wing of the Puritan movement." See "Travers, Walter" in The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, ed. by F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone, 3rd edition (Oxford University Press, 1997), 1637–38.

Edward Polhill (1622–1694) on Christ’s Satisfaction and Unequal Love in God

Christ in his Coming and satisfactory Sufferings had a respect to all Men, so far as to procure for them Salvation on Gospel-terms, but he had not an equal respect to all; it being utterly unimaginable that he should have as great a respect to those in the Pagan World, who have no Christ, no atoning Sacrifice, no Promise of Life and Salvation revealed to them, as he hath to those in the Church, who have all these glorious Objects evidently set forth before them: Greater Donations argue greater degrees of Love; or else, which is very hard to believe, God loves all Creatures alike, notwithstanding that he measures out his Goodness to them in a very various and different manner, to some more, and to others less.

Edward Polhill, An Answer to the Discourse of Mr. William Sherlock Touching the Knowledge of Christ and our Union and Communion with Him (London: Printed for Ben. Foster, 1675), 104–105.

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