Richard Muller on Luther and the Will of God

Luther thus juxtaposes almost paradoxically the assumptions that all things come to pass necessarily by the decree of God’s eternal will, that all human beings are foreordained to salvation or damnation, that God nonetheless genuinely wills (as Scripture states) the salvation of all people, and that those who are rejected by God are rejected for their unbelief.

Richard A. Muller, “Predestination,” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation, 4 vols., ed. Hans J. Hillerbrand (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 3:333. Also in Richard A. Muller, Predestination in Early Modern Reformed Theology (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2024), 11.

Richard Muller’s Clarification on the Question of Limited Atonement in History and its Background

It is often erroneously said that the issue of “limited atonement” (or the questions, as Muller clarifies it) wasn’t debated or discussed prior to Dort, or until the time of Amyraut. To the contrary, look at what Muller says at the end of this quote:

The question of the “L” in TULIP, of “limited” versus “universal atonement,” also looms large in the debate over whether or not Calvin was a Calvinist. This question, too, arises out of a series of modern confusions, rooted, it seems to me, in the application of a highly vague and anachronistic language to a sixteenth- and seventeenth-century issue. Simply stated, neither Calvin, nor Beza, nor the Canons of Dort, nor any of the orthodox Reformed thinkers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries mention limited atonement—and insofar as they did not mention it, they hardly could have taught the doctrine. (Atonement, after all is an English term, and nearly all of this older theology was written in Latin.) To make the point a bit less bluntly and with more attention to the historical materials, the question debated in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, concerned the meaning of those biblical passages in which Christ is said to have paid a ransom for all or God is said to will the salvation of all or of the whole world, given the large number of biblical passages that indicate a limitation of salvation to some, namely to the elect or believers. This is an old question, belonging to the patristic and medieval church as well as to the early modern Reformed and, since the time of Peter Lombard, had been discussed in terms of the sufficiency and efficiency of Christ's satisfaction in relation to the universality of the preaching of redemption.

Richard A. Muller, Was Calvin a Calvinist? Or, Did Calvin (or Anyone Else in the Early Modern Era) Plant the “TULIP”? (A Lecture Sponsored by the H. Henry Meeter Center: Oct. 15, 2009), 9. Also in Richard A. Muller, Calvin and the Reformed Tradition: On the Work of Christ and the Order of Salvation (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2012), 60.

Even Beeke makes the following small concession:

Robert Peterson argues that the issue of the extent of the atonement belonged more to the subsequent period of Reformed orthodoxy and was therefore largely anachronistic for Calvin.²¹ Pieter Rouwendal shows, however, that the question of the atonement’s extent was dealt with in Calvin’s day, but the way that it was handled by later Reformers was foreign and anachronistic to Calvin.
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21. Robert A. Peterson, Calvin’s Doctrine of the Atonement (Phillipsburg, N.J..: P & R, 1983), 90–91; Rouwendal, “Calvin's Forgotten Classical Position,” forthcoming. [Pieter L. Rouwendal, “Calvin’s Forgotten Classical Position On The Extent Of The Atonement: About Sufficiency, Efficiency, And Anachronism” WTJ 70.2 (Fall 2008): 317–335]

Joel R. Beeke, “The Extent of the Atonement,” in The Banner of Sovereign Grace Truth 17.6 (July–August 2009): 162.

Beeke probably has in mind pages 319–323 in Rouwendal’s article. David has posted some of this article here as well.

Curt Daniel said:

Moreover, it cannot be ignored that the controversy was not a new one. Some writers feel that the matter did not arise until the generation immediately following Calvin. While granting that the controversy reached fever pitch at the time of the Synod of Dort, we cannot for a minute ignore what church history plainly teaches. In the present section we have shown that the controversy did not even begin with Luther and the Reformation. It was hotly debated by the Schoolmen and even earlier by Augustine and Prosper, not to mention Gottschalk. Our opinion, rather, is that instead of it becoming a new issue when certain heterodox Calvinists such as Davenant began to teach Universalism or Dualism, the exact opposite is the case. That is to say, there was discussion from the earliest times in the Reformation about the extent of the atonement and that, barring Luther's early comments in the Romans Commentary, virtually all of the Reformers were of the Universal or Dualist persuasion. What made for the controversy was not the rejection but the introduction of Particularism.

Curt Daniel, Hyper-Calvinism and John Gill (PhD diss., University of Edinburgh, 1983), 514.

It should also be obvious from what we sketched out in Section A of Chapter IX that the debate preceded the Synod of Dort. Indeed, it was an issue with the Church Fathers, notably Augustine and Prosper, not to mention the heated debates of the medieval Schoolmen. Even if Calvin or the other Reformers did not comment on the subject, this must be immediately recognized. In fact, though, Calvin and the others did mention the Schoolmen. Far from there being a silent, implicit consensus among the Reformers in favour of Particularism, the opposite was the case. From Luther onwards, we can find numerous discussions in the writings of the leading Reformers. The pattern was that the earlier ones tended to take the Universalist position, the later ones gradually shifting to the Particularist line.

Ibid., 779.

William Perkins (1558–1602) on Matthew 23:37

The first is touching the will of Christ, I would. According to the two natures of Christ: so be there two wills in him, the will of his godhead and the will of his manhood. Some [such as Beza and Turretin] think that these words are meant of the will of his manhood. For they suppose him here to speak as the minister of circumcision, and consequently as a man. This I think is a truth, but not all the truth. Because the thing which he willeth, namely the gathering of the Jews by the ministry of the Prophets, was begun and practiced long before his incarnation. Wherefore (as I take it) here his divine will is meant or the will of his godhead, which is also the will of the Father, and the Holy Ghost.

William Perkins, A Treatise of God's Free Grace, and Man's Free Will (Cambridge: Printed by John Legat And are to be sold at the signe of the Crowne in Pauls Churchyard by Simon Waterson, 1601), 23. Calvin said, "I admit that here [in Matt. 23:37] Christ speaks not only in the character of man, but upbraids them with having, in every age, rejected his grace." See Institutes, 3.24.17. See also Deut. 18:18; John 12:49; 8:26; 14:10; and 17:8 for places that show Jesus spoke the words that the Father gave Him to speak. Also, as Jonathan Edwards said in Miscellany #180, “…the love the human nature [of Christ] had to mankind, and by which he was prompted to undergo so much, it had only by virtue of its union with the Logos; ’twas all derived from the love of the Logos, or else they would not be one person.”

If we compare this text with Isa. 6:10 they seem to be contrary. For here Christ saith, I would have gathered you: there he saith, Harden them that they be not gathered and converted. God therefore seems to will and not to will one and the same thing. Answ. There is but one will in God: yet doth it not equally will all things, but in divers respects it doth will and nill the same thing. He wills the conversion of Jerusalem, in that he approves it as a good thing in itself: in that he commands it, and exhorts men to it: in that he gives them all outward means of their conversion. He wills it not, in that he did not decree effectually to work their conversion. For God doth approve, and he may require many things, which nevertheless for just causes known to himself, he will not do. The confirmation of the Angels that fell, God approved as a thing good in itself, yet did not he will to confirm them. A judge in compassion approves and will the life of a malefactour: and yet withall he wills the execution of justice in his death. Even so God sometimes wills that in his signifying will, which he wills not in the will of his good pleasure.

By this which hath been said, we learn, that where God erects the ministry of his word, he signifies thereby that his pleasure is to gather men to salvation. In this regard the prophet Isaiah saith, that the preaching of the gospel is a banner displayed that all nations may come unto it. All this is verified in this our English nation. For more then forty years hath God displayed this banner unto us, and more then forty years hath he signified in the ministry of his word, that his will is to give mercy and salvation unto us. First therefore we owe unto God all thankfulness & praise for this endless mercy. Secondly we are to reverence the ministry of the word, in as much as God signifies his good will unto us thereby, & we are in all obedience to subject ourselves to it: and for this cause we must suffer our selves to it: and for this cause we must suffer our selves to be converted and gathered by it. Subjects use to reverence the letter of their Prince, how much more then must we reverence the letter of the living God sent unto us, that is, the ministry of the word, & conform ourselves to it. Thirdly, here we may learn to foresee our miserable condition in this lad. For though God for his part have long signified his will unto us touching our everlasting good, yet there is nothing to be found in the most of us, but a neglect or contempt of the gospel: and in most places men are weary of it as the Israelites were of manna. What, weary of the goodness of God, that offers and proclaims mercy unto us? Yea, verily. And the more weary are we of our own happiness, and consequently hasten to our own perdition.

Ibid., 44–47.

In Edward Leigh’s annotations on this text, he mentions Perkins.

Christ speaketh not of the will of his good pleasure, for that cannot be resisted, but of his signified will in the Ministry of the Prophets, and of himself as he was a Prophet and Minister of the Circumcision unto the Jews, for so he might will their conversion and yet they will it not. Perkins.

Edward Leigh, Annotations Upon All the New Testament Philologicall and Theologicall (London: Printed by W. W. and EG. for William Lee, and are to be sold at his Shop at the Turks-Head in Fleetstreet next to the Miter and Phoenix. Anno Dom. 1650), 63.

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Russell Moore on God Begging

Dr. Russell Moore spoke in chapel at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary on the subject of "God Is Not a Beggar? Why Your Ministry Must Become More Pathetic Before It Can Be Less Pathetic." His text was 2 Cor. 5:16-6:13.

You can either watch the sermon here, or download the mp3 here, or here. He also posted it on his blog back in August of 2009.

John Murray (1898–1975) on Faith as the Act of Man

Regeneration is the act of God and of God alone. But faith is not the act of God; it is not God who believes in Christ for salvation, it is the sinner. It is by God's grace that a person is able to believe but faith is an activity on the part of the person and of him alone. In faith we receive and rest upon Christ alone for salvation. It might be said: this is a strange mixture. God alone regenerates. We alone believe. And we believe in Christ alone for salvation. But this is precisely the way it is. It is well for us to appreciate all that is implied in the combination, for it is God's way of salvation and it expresses his supreme wisdom and grace. In salvation God does not deal with us as machines; he deals with us as persons and therefore salvation brings the whole range of our activity within its scope. By grace we are saved through faith (cf. Eph. 2:8).

John Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955), 106.

3. Trust. Faith is knowledge passing into conviction, and it is conviction passing into confidence. Faith cannot stop short of self-commitment to Christ, a transference of reliance upon ourselves and all human resources to reliance upon Christ alone for salvation. It is a receiving and resting upon him. It is here that the most important characteristic act of faith appears; it is engagement of person to person, the engagement of the sinner as lost to the person of the Saviour able and willing to save. Faith, after all, is not belief of propositions of truth respecting the Saviour, however essential an ingredient of faith such belief is. Faith is trust in a person, the person of Christ, the Son of God and Saviour of the lost. It is entrustment of ourselves to him. It is simply believing him; it is believing in him and on him.

Ibid., 111–112.

James Swan on Martin Luther (1483–1546) and the Extent of the Atonement

I don't agree with several things said during this part of the interview on Iron Sharpens Iron, but I do agree with Swan that Luther believed that Christ suffered for the sins of all men.

Download Audio Clip Here

Update on 6-14-11: Swan has also recently written about Luther's views here (click). See also here and here. Swan wrote:

In Luther’s early commentary on Romans he comments on “God will have all men saved” (1 Tim 2:4).  He says that saying like this “must be understood only with respect to the elect” and that “Christ did not die for absolutely all.” From such comments it appears easy to conclude Luther taught limited atonement.  Other than this pre-reformation comment, there is no other evidence that Luther maintained such a view throughout his life on the extent of the atonement. Luther would instead go on to say things like, “[Christ] helps not against one sin only, but against all my sin; and not against my sin only, but against the whole world's sin. He comes to take away not sickness only, but death; and not my death only, but the whole world's death.” For Luther, the revealed God did indeed die for the sins of every human being.  Quotes similar to this are peppered throughout his later writings. For Luther, the Scriptures state that Christ died for all men and not all are saved. Nevertheless, Christ died for all men, and wants all men saved.

John Pawson (c. 1620-1654) on God's Love and Hate for the Elect

"'Tis true, the scripture says, God hates all workers of iniquity; and such are all elect persons before conversion: but yet, though he hate them as workers of iniquity, i.e. takes no pleasure in them; yet he loves them as elect persons: i.e. bears a good will to them. Nor is it any contradiction in this sense for the same person to love and hate the same man, at the same time, upon a several accompt, as a father may hate a son, as he is unruly and undutifull, and yet at the same time bear a good will to him, as he is his own flesh and blood, and one who he hopes may be reclaimed hereafter: even so may God hate an elect person, as he is a worker of iniquity before conversion, and yet at the same time bear a love of good-will to him, as he is a chosen vessel, and one who he knows will be converted and come in hereafter. In Ezek. 36:18. God is said to have poured out his fury upon the Israelites; this was an argument of hatred: and yet while he was doing so, he is said to have pittyed them, ver. 21. and this was an argument that he bare love and good will to them; as they shed blood in the land, and polluted it with Idols, so he hated them, and poured out his fury upon them, ver. 18. but yet Israel was his own peculiar people; and upon that account he bare such good will to them, as that he promises, ver. 25, 26. to cleanse them from their filthiness, and from their Idols, and to give them new hearts, and new Spirits. Which argues, that though at present he took no liking nor pleasure in them, yet even then he bare good-will and intended good to them. God may bear love and intend good to those whom at present he hates as workers of iniquity; and thus it is in the case of every elect person before conversion."

John Pawson, A Brief Vindication of Free Grace (London: Printed by Peter Cole, and are to be sold at his Shop at the signe of the Printing Press in Cornhill, 1652), 4-5. Pawson was a fellow of St John's College, Cambridge. He also wrote a preface to John Hall's (1627-1656) Horæ vacivæ, Or, Essays (London: 1646).

Gardiner Spring (1785–1873) on the Accessability of the Cross to All

The cross respects men as sinners; it addresses them as sinners. In its boundless all-sufficiency, it has no concern with them in a numerical view; but regards them as those whose relations to the law of God are so changed by this effective propitiation, that all external obstacles to their salvation are graciously removed. No matter who he is, or where he dwells; no matter what his ignorance, or how many or how aggravated his sins; if he belongs to the lost family of man, the Cross is the remedy fitted to reach him in all his woes. There is no locality, or condition, and no variety of the human species, to which the narrative of the Cross, and its great and glorious truths, and its ineffable love and mercy, are not alike applicable. They furnish the great remedy which consults the guild and misery of all classes of society, all periods of time, all climes, all nations, all languages, all men. They are equally fitted to the lost condition of one man, as another. They are sufficient for the race, and, so far as their unembarrassed sufficiency goes, were designed for the race. There is no man whose forgiveness the Cross of Christ does not render just and righteous, on his repenting and believing the Gospel. In this view, the Cross is a deliberate, designed and honest provision for all men; a privilege of which many may be ignorant, and many fail to improve, but one which, wherever the Gospel is known, is as truly in the hands of those who misimprove it and perish, as of those who improve it and are saved.

The proof of these remarks from the Scriptures is abundant, and familiar to every reader of the Bible. "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature." "Whosoever will let him take the waters of life freely." "Ho! every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters." These, and a multitude of passages of similar import, are expressly addressed to all men, and from design. If it be said, that in commissioned messages like these, God requires the ministers of the Gospel to make this indiscriminate offer of salvation, because they do not know who will accept them, and because it is not their province to distinguish between those who are and those who are not his chosen people; it must be born in mind that the offer is God's own offer, and that his ministers make it only in his name. He endorses it, and speaks through them. He knows who his chosen people are; and the gracious overture is made by his authority and on his behalf. "Warn them from me." "Speak to them my words." "As though God did beseech you by us, we pray you, in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God." We wish to vindicate the unfeigned sincerity of the Gospel offer, and we do not perceive how it can be vindicated, unless he is willing his offer should be accepted; and unless the offer be made on reasonable terms. He offers to all men salvation, through faith in the blood of his Son. This he is able and has a right to do, because there is infinite sufficiency in the death of Christ. This he is willing to do, or he would not offer it, nor so solemnly have sworn, "As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that he turn and live." And the terms on which the offer is made are as reasonable and as low as they can be; for nothing excludes any man from the richest blessings of the Gospel, but his own cherished rejection of them to the last. I cannot see that it is necessary to the sincerity of the offer, that God should make men themselves willing to accept it. There may be, there are, good reasons for his not doing this, in relation to all those who are finally lost, which do not at all conflict with the sincerity of the offer. The offer he makes is in every view expressive of his own mind and heart, of the infinite merit of his Son, and of the munificence of his condescending grace. Upon this same ground, the obligation rests on all who come within the range of these published invitations to accept them. The obligation is of the highest authority, and right in itself. It is the "commandment of the Everlasting God," to all men, everywhere. It is an obligation, the neglect of which is not only rebuked and punished, but the sin of sins, and one which, while it cuts off the incorrigible from hope, seals him up to that "sorer punishment" of which those are thought worthy who tread under their feet the blood of the Son of God. The foundation which is laid in Zion is, therefore, strong and broad enough to sustain the confidence which is required with so much authority, and enforced with such solemn and affecting sanctions.

There are not a few passages of Scripture which seem to me to give strong proof of this conclusion. "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son;"—He is the "propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world;"—"Who gave himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time;"—"The Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world;"—"Christ the Saviour of the world;"—"The bread of God is he that giveth life unto the world;"—"My flesh which I gave for the life of the world;"—"If one died for all, then were all dead;"—"That he, by the grace of God, should taste death for every man." Passages like these must teach either that it was the design of God, by the death of his Son, to save all men, which none but the rashest Universalist believes; or that his Son was set forth to be such a propitiation as is amply sufficient for the salvation of all mankind, if all should repent and believe the Gospel.

If the question be asked, what good ends the death of Christ secures by this redundancy of merit, since it is not designed to secure the salvation of the race; the inquiry is substantially answered by the general scope and design of the preceding remarks. Is it nothing that it unfolds the love of God to a lost world; that it throws upon men themselves the responsibility of plunging into the pit from this world of mercy, and in defiance of all the Cross has done; that it leaves the despisers of his grace without excuse and speechless; and that for the honor of the just God and Saviour, it plants in their bosoms the soul-withering conviction, that because they would not come unto Christ that they might have life, they are the authors of their own destruction? Who shall tell the influence which the scenes of Calvary have exerted, and will yet exert, even where they fail to be the "wisdom of God and the power of God to salvation?" Is there not a vastly less amount of wickedness in this lower world, even among those who will finally perish, from the very fact that it is a world of hope and mercy, and under the government of the great Mediatorial Prince? Is there no development of character, that is of importance to the interests of his kingdom, which would otherwise never have been made? I do not know where to limit the effects of this mighty movement in the divine empire. The appeal is one to human ignorance; but it is not a solitary one, in the government of God. Why does the light shine upon the eyes of the blind, or melodious sounds play around the ears of the deaf? There is no more reason to believe that the privilege of a preached Gospel, of an instructive and inviting sanctuary, of a Christian education, of private or social prayer, of advancement in any department of human science, or any other privilege, spiritual or temporal, were in vain given to those who never improve them, than that Christ died in vain in respect to those who reject his salvation. All these things answer important ends even where they are most perverted and abused. For the same reasons that "a price is put into the hands of a fool to get wisdom when he hath no heart to it," so the provisions of the Cross possess a sufficiency, an amplitude as large as the sins and woes of men, through not accepted by all.

Gardiner Spring, The Attraction of the Cross; Designed to Illustrate the Leading Truths, Obligations and Hopes of Christianity, 9th ed. (New York: Published by M. W. Dodd, 1854), 93–98.

See also David's post on Gardiner (click).

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