Whether Salvation May Be Attained Without The Knowledge Of, Or Faith In, Christ Jesus
Chapter 11
WHETHER SALVATION MAY
BE ATTAINED WITHOUT THE
KNOWLEDGE OF, OR FAITH
IN, CHRIST JESUS
I shall close this entire discourse concerning the meritorious cause of salvation, with the Arminians' exclusion of Christ from being the only one and absolutely necessary means to bring us to heaven, to make us happy. This is the last pile they erect upon their Babylonish foundation, which makes the idol of human self-sufficiency in every way perfect and fit to be sacrificed to. Until these proud builders, to get materials for their own temple, laid the axe to the root of Christianity, we took it for granted that "there is no salvation in any other," because
"there is no other name under heaven given to men whereby we must be saved," Acts 4:12. Nor will their nefarious attempts frighten us from our creed, or make us lacking in the defense of our Savior's honor. But I will be very brief in the consideration of this heterodoxy, not doubting that merely repeating it is to have confuted it fully, in the judgment of all pious Christians.
First, then. They grant salvation to the ancient patriarchs and Jews, before the coming of Christ, without any knowledge of or faith in him at all; no, they deny that any such faith in Christ was ever prescribed to them or required of them. They say jointly in their Apology, "It is
certain that there is no place in the Old Testament from which it may appear that faith in Christ as a Redeemer was ever enjoined or found in any of them."295 We will see shortly the truth of this assertion. They grant only a general faith, involved under types and shadows, and looking at the promise as it lay hidden in the goodness and providence of God; this indirectly might be called a faith in Christ. I see no reason why thousands of heathen infidels should be excluded from this kind of faith. The dictates of their patriarch Arminius are agreeable to these assertions, affirming, "that the whole description of the faith of Abraham, Rom 4, makes no mention of Jesus Christ, either expressly or so implicitly as to be easily understood by anyone."As to the contrary testimony of Christ himself in John 8:56, "Your father
Abraham rejoiced to see my day; he saw it, and was glad," Arminius answers with a hefty gloss, corrupting the text: "He rejoiced to see the birth of Isaac, who was a type of me."296
Secondly. What they teach about the Jews, they also grant concerning the Gentiles living before the incarnation of Christ; that they also might attain salvation and be justified without any knowledge of Christ. "For although," says Corvinus, "the covenant was not revealed to them by the same means that it was to the Jews, yet they are not to be assumed to be excluded from the covenant" (of grace), "nor to be excluded from salvation; for some way or other they were called."297
Thirdly. They have come at length to that perfection in setting out this stain of Christianity, that Bertius,298 upon good consideration, denied this proposition: "That no man can be saved that is not ingrafted into Christ by a true faith." 299 To this question, "Whether the only means of salvation is the life, passion, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ?" Venator answers, "No." 300 Thus they lay men in Abraham's bosom who never believed in the Son of Abraham; they make them out to overcome the serpent who never heard of the Seed of the woman; they bring goats into heaven, who were never of the flock of Christ and who never entered by the door, who is Christ;
they make men out to please God without faith, and obtain remission of sins without sprinkling the blood of the Lamb – they make them saved without a Savior, redeemed without a Redeemer – to become the sons of God, never knowing their elder Brother! This prodigious error might still be pardoned, and ascribed to human imbecility, had it casually slipped from their pens, as it did from some others.301 But seeing it has its foundation in all the grounds of their new doctrine, and that it is maintained by them after mature deliberation,302 it must be looked at by all Christians as a heresy to be detested and accursed.
For, first, they deny the contagion and demerit of original sin; then they make the covenant of grace universal, comprehending all and every one of the posterity of Adam; thirdly, they grant a power in ourselves to come to God by any means he appoints, and they affirm that he assigns some means to all. It will naturally follow that knowledge of Christ is not absolutely necessary to salvation, and so down falls the preeminence of Christianity; its heaven-reaching crown must be laid level with the services of dunghill gods.303
It is true, indeed, that some of the ancient fathers, before the rising of the Pelagian heresy, had so put on Christ, as Lipsius304 put it, that they had not fully put off Plato. They unadvisedly released some speeches seeming to grant that various men before the incarnation, who were living meta< lo>gou, "according to the dictates of right reason," might be saved without faith in Christ. This is well-shown by the learned Casaubon305 in his first Exercitation on Baronius.306 But let this be accounted part of that stubble which shall burn at the last day, with which the writings of all men who are not divinely inspired may be stained. It has also since (and what has not?) been drawn into dispute among the wrangling schoolmen. And yet (which is rarely seen) their verdict in this particular almost unanimously affirms the truth of it. Aquinas 307 tells us a story of the corpse of a heathen that was to be taken up in the time of the Empress Irene and her son
Constantine;308 he had a golden plate on his breast, in which was this inscription: "Christ is born of a virgin, and I believe in him. O sun, you
shall see me again in the days of Irene and Constantine." But the question is not whether a Gentile believing in Christ may be saved, or whether God revealed himself and his Son extraordinarily to some of them. For shall we straiten the breast and shorten the arm of the Almighty, as though he might not do what he will with his own? The question is whether a man may come to heaven by the conduct of nature, without the knowledge of Christ,? This is the assertion which we condemn as a wicked, Pelagian, Socinian heresy. We think it was well said by Bernard, "That many laboring to make Plato a Christian, prove themselves to be heathens." 309 If we look at the several branches of this novel Arminian doctrine, extenuating the precious worth and necessity of faith in Christ, we find them hewed off by the two-edged sword of God's word:
FIRST. For their denying that the patriarchs and Jews had faith "in Christum exhibendum et moriturum," as we in him "exhibitum et mortuum."310 It is disproved – First. By all the evangelical promises made from the beginning of the world to the birth of our Savior; such as Gen 3:15, "The seed of the woman shall break the serpent's head;" and Gen 12:3, 49:10; Psa 2:7,
Psa 8, Psa 110; with innumerable other passages concerning his life, office, and the redeeming of his people. For surely [those who lived before Christ] were obliged to believe the promises of God [concerning his coming].
Secondly. By those many clear expressions of his death, passion, and suffering for us, such as Gen 3:15; Isaiah 53:6-10, etc., 63:1-3; Daniel
9:26. But why do we need to reckon any more? Our Savior taught his disciples that all the prophets from Moses forward spoke concerning him,311 and the sole reason why they did not so readily embrace the faith of his passion and resurrection was because they did not believe the prophets, Luke 24:25-26;312 this shows plainly that the prophets required faith in his death and passion.
Thirdly. By the explicit faith of many Jews, such as the faith of old Simeon, Luke 2:34; of the Samaritan woman who looked for a
Messiah, not as an earthly king, but as one that would "tell them all things," redeem them from sin, and tell them all those things which Christ was then discoursing about concerning the worship of God,
John 4:25.
Fourthly. By the express testimony of Christ himself. "Abraham," he says, "rejoiced to see my day; and he saw it, and was glad," John 8:56.
His day, his hour, in the Scripture, principally denotes his passion. And what he saw he surely believed, or else the father of the faithful was more diffident than Thomas, the most incredulous of his children.
Fifthly. By these following passages, and similar places in Scripture:
Christ is a "Lamb slain from the foundation of the world," Rev 13:8; slain in promises, slain in God's estimation, and slain in the faith of believers. He is "the same yesterday, today, and forever," Heb 13:8, under the law and the gospel. "There is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved," Acts 4:12. Therefore, no one ever came to the sight of God without the knowledge of a Redeemer, participation in his passion, and communication of his merits; no man ever came to the Father but by him. Hence St. Paul tells the Ephesians that they were "without Christ," because they were
"aliens from the commonwealth of Israel," Eph 2:12. He was intimating that God's covenant with the Jews included Christ Jesus and his righteousness, no less than it does now with us. On these grounds, holy Ignatius called Abel "A martyr of Christ;"313 he died for his faith in the promised Seed. And in another place, "All the saints were saved by Christ; hoping in him, and waiting on him, they obtained salvation by him."314 Also Prosper, "We must believe that no man was ever justified by any other faith, either before the law or under the law, than by faith in Christ coming to save what was lost." 315 For this reason, Eusebius contends that all the old patriarchs might properly be called Christians; they all ate of the same spiritual meat, and all drank of the same spiritual drink, even of the rock that followed them, which rock was Christ.316
SECONDLY. If the ancient people of God did not obtain salvation without faith in Christ, notwithstanding various other special revelations of his will and heavenly instructions, then much less may we grant this happiness without him, to those who were also deprived of those other helps. So that, although we confess that the poor natural endeavors of the heathen did not lack their reward,317 yet we absolutely deny that there is any saving mercy of God towards them that is revealed in the Scripture, which would give us the least intimation that they attained everlasting happiness.
For we we must consider the corruption and universal disability of nature to do anything that is good ("without Christ we can do nothing," John 15:5); and also the sinfulness of their best works and actions, so that the "sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD," Prov 15:8 ("Evil trees cannot bring forth good fruit; men do not gather grapes from thorns, nor figs from thistles," Mat 7:16-17).
The word of God is plain, "without faith it is impossible to please God, Heb 11:6; "he that does not believe is condemned," Mark 16:16; no nation or person can be blessed except in the Seed of Abraham, Gen
12:3. The "blessing of Abraham" comes upon the Gentiles only "through Jesus Christ," Gal 3:14. He is "the way, the truth, and the life, No one comes to the Father but by him." John 14:6. He is the "door," by which those that do not enter are "outside," with "dogs and idolaters," Rev 22:15. "No one can lay a foundation" of blessedness
"other than what is laid, which is Jesus Christ," 1 Cor 3:11.
In brief, just compare these two places of St. Paul: in Rom 8:30, he shows that none are glorified except those who are called; and in Rom
10:14-15, he declares that all calling is done instrumentally, by the preaching of the word and the gospel. It clearly appears that no salvation can be granted to those on whom the Lord has so far poured out his indignation, as to deprive them of the knowledge of the sole means of salvation, which is Christ Jesus. And to those that are otherwise-minded, I give only this necessary caution: let them take
heed, lest by inventing new ways to heaven for others, they lose the true way themselves.
S.S.
Lib. Arbit.
"O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: ought not Christ to have suffered these things?" Luke 24:25-26.
"There is no place in the Old Testament from which it may appear that faith in Christ as a Redeemer was either enjoined or found in any then," Rem. Apol.
"Abraham rejoiced to see my day; and he saw it, and was glad," John 8:56. "By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities," Isaiah 53:11. See the places cited before.
"Abraham's faith had no reference to Christ," Annin.
"At that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world," Eph
2:12.
"The Gentiles living under the Old Testament, though it was not revealed to them as to the Jews, yet they were not excluded from the covenant of grace, and from salvation," Corv.
"There is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved," but only by Christ, Acts 4:12.
"I deny this proposition, That none can be saved that is not ingrafted into Christ by a true faith," Bert.
"The blessing of Abraham comes on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ," Gal 3:14. "He that does not believe is condemned," Mark
16:16. "Without faith it is impossible to please God," Heb 11:6. "No one can lay a foundation other than what is laid, which is Jesus Christ," 1
Cor 3:11.
"To this question, Whether the only way of salvation be the life, passion, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ? I answer, No," Venat.