Loveland Protestant
Reformed Church
709 East 57th
Street; Loveland, CO 80538
Services: 9:30
a.m. and 6:00 p.m. (7:00 p.m. June through August)
Vol. 5, No. 3 Pastor: Rev. G. Van Baren Phone: (970) 667-9481
Homepage on Internet: http://www.prca.org
Contents:
Calling
Remission of Sins on Earth and In Heaven (3)
Can General Revelation Save?
If
regeneration (spiritual rebirth) can be compared to the planting of the seed of
the new resurrection life of Jesus Christ in our hearts, then calling
can be compared to the rain and sunshine that fall on that seed and cause it to
grow and bear fruit.
The calling is sometimes referred to
as the "efficacious calling."
This only means that the calling is a powerful work of God that always
brings about the desired effect, i.e., salvation. Efficacious calling is really the same as
"irresistible grace."
When we speak of the calling in the
order of salvation, therefore, we are referring not to the preaching of the
gospel through which that call comes and which is heard without saving power by
many. Matthew 20:16 uses the word
"called" in that sense. But
we are referring to the work of Spirit in the hearts of those God has chosen by
which the preaching of the gospel brings them to and keeps them in salvation.
That needs emphasis. The efficacious calling does not just bring
a person to salvation. It also brings
about His whole salvation. It
calls him powerfully and irresistibly to repentance (Matt. 9:13), faith (Rom.
10:17), holiness (I Thess. 4:7), fellowship with Christ (I Cor. 1:9), liberty
(Gal. 5:13), assurance (Eph. 4:4), and finally also to glory with Christ (I
Pet. 5:10, Rev. 19:9). The call,
therefore, must come all our life and not just as call to holiness and
assurance, but also as a call to repentance and faith. As long as we sin and are weak in faith we
must be called to repentance and faith.
We say this to counter the notion
that is around today. Many seem to have
the idea that the efficacious call is only for the unsaved, so that often the minister
has no call - nothing to say - to those who have already been saved, though
they are as greatly in need of the calling as the rest.
But we wish especially to emphasize
that it is Christ who calls (Jn. 10:3, 16, 27) with the voice of Almighty God (Rom.
4:17). By the work of the Spirit that
call is applied to the hearts of some so that they hear Christ calling, know
His voice and come to Him as sheep to their Shepherd. Is not that wonderful?
And, as John 10:3 says, "He
calleth his sheep by name!"
The call is not general, but very specific. It implies that Christ already knows His sheep. And indeed He does, for they were given Him
by the Father before the foundations of the world (Jn. 10:29).
In calling His sheep by name,
however, they do not hear their natural names, Mary or William, or whatever
their given names might be. They hear
their spiritual names - the names they have received by the very first work of
God's grace in their hearts: names such as Willing one, Thirsty One (Rev.
22:17), Hungry One (Isa. 55:1), Labouring and Burdened One (Matt. 11:28).
Indeed it is the calling that makes
them hungry, thirsty, burdened by sin and guilt and finally willing also. That is why it is referred to as the efficacious
call. Christ's word in the calling is a
creative word that brings into existence the thing called for.
What a blessing and a joy, then, to
hear Christ's voice calling, and to know that He calls to Himself. Have you so heard Him? Rev.
Ronald Hanko
Remission
Of Sins On Earth and In Heaven (3)
Whose soever sins ye remit, they are
remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained. John 20:23
Towards the end of our last article
we came face to face with the real question of the text: Does this verse give
to the church the authority here on earth to forgive sins? If it does, is not the Romish Church correct
when it claims to itself this authority?
Is it not true that Christ alone can
forgive sins? How then, can we say, as
I did in the last article, that Christ gives the church the right to do
this? That is the question.
The answer to this question is that
indeed only Christ has the right to forgive sins. And that right to forgive sins is rooted in His own perfect
sacrifice for sin which He made when He suffered and died on Calvary. That right is His because He died for His
elect people and for them alone. He
knows them, knows who they are, and knows whether He died for them so that
their sins are taken away by His blood.
How does the pope know who God's
people are? How can he (or any of his
prelates) possibly know those for whom Christ died?
When the church remits sins or
retains sins (forgives or refuses to forgive), the church does so in the name
of Christ. The church is pronouncing
what Christ Himself in fact does. The
pronouncement of the church is declarative in Christ's name, not judiciary and
therefore, a judgment of the church itself.
Nevertheless, what the church says
concerning the sinner here on earth, Christ says in heaven. What is bound on earth is bound in
heaven. And what is loosed on earth is
loosed in heaven. That is Jesus' firm
statement. So these words in John 20
which Christ speaks and by which He gives His church (through the apostles) the
right to forgive sins means that Christ works through the church. Thus, when the church forgives sins, it is
Christ Who forgives sins.
That this is truly the meaning of
the text can be shown from a number of considerations. In the first place, the immediate context in
John 20:23 speaks of the reception of the Holy Spirit: "And when he had
said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy
Ghost."
This is extremely important. Christ gives His Holy Spirit to His church. And by His Holy Spirit He leads and guides His church into the truth (See Jesus' references to the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of truth in John 14, 15, 16; in these references He speaks of the fact that by the Holy Spirit He Himself will be with the church; He will come to them). So Christ Himself is speaking through the church of His work which He performs.
In the second place, this ought not
to strike us as strange because Christ also speaks through the church in the
preaching. The church has always
claimed that because Christ speaks through the church, the Word of the gospel
is an authoritative, "Thus saith the Lord . . . ." The gospel is not an "I think this is
true;" not a minister giving opinions and advice; not a plea or an offer
or a certain begging to men to do something or other. It is Christ Who speaks.
And the minister reflecting that says: Thus saith the Lord. It is not the minister who speaks, but the
Lord. So it is with discipline.
In the third place, the language of
the text suggests this strongly both in John 20:23 and in the two passages in
Matthew. If we would translate this
verse in John literally, it would read: "Whose soever sins ye remit, they
have been and are now remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they
have been and are now retained."
The perfect tense is used in both cases.
Matthew does the same, only Matthew
uses a future perfect tense: "Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth, will
have been bound in heaven . . . ."
What the church says on earth in the name of Christ has been done in
heaven and the church simply pronounces in Christ's name what Christ does.
You ask: How does the church know
whose sins to forgive? The answer is:
The church knows because Christ's people become manifest in confession of sin
and repentance. And those who refuse to
repent are those in whom Christ does not dwell with His Spirit.
Sin itself is determined by the Holy
Scriptures. The mark of Christ's people
is not that they never sin, but that they repent of sin. For them is forgiveness and pardon. The church, speaking its own "Thus
saith the Lord...," pardons in Christ's name and assures the sinner of
forgiveness.
I cannot help but close with an
important warning to the church today.
Discipline is absolutely crucial to
the life of the church. It is, in fact,
a mark of the true church. Where no
discipline is exercised, the church ceases to be church, and her place is taken
away from the midst of the candlestick.
Only that church where discipline is exercised is the church where
Christ is present.
Discipline is not an easy task. Yet it must be done. It is the Christ-ordained means to bring the
elect to repentance and confession when they sin; and it is the Christ-ordained
means to bar those who refuse to confess their sins from the church of Christ.
Let
the church then be faithful in this calling. Prof.
H. Hanko
One of our readers has asked about
"the growing tendency among professed evangelicals to accept that people
outside the orbit of the gospel call can be saved by a moral response to
general revelation of God's presence."
What about this?
We should begin by pointing out that
"general revelation" is the term often used to refer to God's making
Himself known in creation, conscience and history. The term is used in distinction from "special
revelation," i.e., God's saving revelation through Jesus Christ in the
Scriptures.
This "general revelation"
is referred to in a number of passages, but most clearly in Romans
1:18-32. That passage speaks especially
of God's making Himself known in the things of creation (vss. 20, 25) and
conscience (vs. 19 - notice the words, "in them").
This general revelation, however,
has no saving power. It is not even a
kind of grace (many speak of it as an example of so-called "common
grace"). Instead, as Romans 1
makes so very clear, this "general revelation" is a revelation of the
wrath of God, and only leaves the wicked without excuse (vss. 18, 20).
Certainly, then, general revelation
does not provide another way of salvation.
The idea that the wicked can be saved by a moral response to this
"general revelation" is wholly without ground in Scripture and is, as
the questioner suggests, just another form of salvation by works.
This idea that general revelation
has saving value is flatly contradicted by Romans 1 itself. The wicked do see the "invisible things
of God," particularly His eternal power and Godhead (vs. 20). There is even an internal aspect to
this manifestation of God. Verse 19
says that the things that may be known of God are manifest "in them."
And this has important
implications. For one thing it is the
reason no one will ever be able to plead in the judgment that he did not know
God. There is, as far as Romans 1 is
concerned, really no such thing as an atheist. It is also the reason why even the wicked who never heard the
gospel can and will be condemned in the judgment day.
Nevertheless, the only result of
this manifestation, as far as the wicked are concerned, is that they refuse to
glorify God, continue unthankful, and change the glory of God that is
manifested to and in them into images of corruptible things (vss 21-25).
Put simply, this means that their
idolatry is not a seeking after the God whom they do not know or an attempt,
however feeble, to find Him. It is
rather a turning away from the true God whom they do know.
They are not, according to Romans 1,
seeking truth, but suppressing it (vs. 25).
Their philosophies and religions do not represent a small beginning of
truth or a love of truth, but truth refused and turned into lies (vs. 25).
Confirming all of this, Scripture
also makes it clear that salvation is only through the preaching of Gospel
(Rom. 1:16, 10:14, 17, I Cor. 1:18, 21, 24).
There and there alone Christ is revealed as the very power and wisdom of
God unto salvation, so that without the preaching of the gospel there is
ordinarily no hope of salvation.
General revelation, therefore, only
serves to increase the guilt of those who do not hear or believe the
Gospel. To teach otherwise is to deny
the blood of Jesus Christ and His perfect obedience as the only way of
salvation and to slander Him and His cross. Ronald
Hanko
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