Chapter VII: The Universality of the Calling
CHAPTER VII: ON THE UNIVERSALITY OF THE CALLING
§ 124. We have thus established the third pillar which we set against a decree of absolute reprobation, namely, the universality of the merit offered by Christ. The fourth follows, namely, the universality of the calling. You see, because the benefits obtained through the obedience and satisfaction of Christ apply to all, therefore they are offered to all through the Word. This calling of God is earnest yet is made ineffective by the fault of men, but not because of any absolute decree.
Mark 16[:15]: “Preach the Gospel to the whole creation.”
§ 125. In Mark 16:15 the Savior commands the apostles to “go into all the world and proclaim the Gospel to the whole creation.” There lies a subtle emphasis in the word “creation” [κτίσις], as if Christ were saying that whatever created thing has the ability to hear the Gospel, to it you should offer the preaching thereof. For this is how that emphasis is explained: Matt. [28]:19: “Go teach all nations.” Luke 24:46–47: “Thus it was necessary that Christ suffer and rise again from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in His name to all nations.” Therefore, as Gregory teaches (Homily in evangel.): “Man by virtue of his excellence is called a creature.” One may conclude from this mandate of our Savior that He wants the apostles to preach and to offer the Gospel to all human beings, that the benefits of His suffering and death are in the Gospel, that the grace of God is in the benefits of His suffering and death, and that eternal life is in the grace of God. After all, all of these things are connected most intimately, and whoever receives them in faith will be saved (Mark 16:16).
“Come unto Me, all you…” [Matthew 11:28]
§ 126. The Savior cries out and invites all, Matt. 11:28: “Come unto Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden.” Observe that in the preceding words Christ praises His heavenly Father because of the salutary knowledge of Himself which He has revealed to men [v. 25]. He says, “No one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wants to reveal Him” [Matt. 11:27]. So that no one would go off in his own thoughts, thinking as though that revelation of the Son had been prepared for some people who have been elected absolutely, Christ exclaims: “Come unto Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden.” But now, all people are altogether oppressed and burdened by the weight of their sins. Therefore Christ wants them to acknowledge this wretchedness of theirs and to seek rest for their soul with Him. There is no reason for them to object that Christ wants only those to come to Him who do come to Him; for, besides the fact that this begs the question, it also contradicts the words of Christ in Matt. 23:[37], where Christ bears witness that He wants to gather even those who do not want to come. Lest anyone argue that this is merely His will of the sign and not His will of good-pleasure,1 Christ bemoans this stubbornness of the Jews with genuine and earnest tears, as Chrysostom notes well (commentary on Matthew 11).
God wants all people everywhere to repent, Acts 17[:30].
§ 127. Paul exclaims that “God announces His Word through the apostles that all people everywhere may repent” (Acts 17:30). Here you see that the indefinite limitation is extended by means of two universal words: “all” and “everywhere.” Add v. 31, which contains the explanation of the cause [αἰτιολογία] of this statement, and one can deduce the following conclusion: God declared His Word to those whom He would judge on the Last Day that they might repent. But now, not merely the elect but all people will be judged on the Last Day, according to Scripture. Therefore Paul is saying the same thing here as 2 Pet. 3:9: “The Lord does not delay His promise” (that is, regarding His coming for the last judgment, v. 2) “but is patient toward you, not willing that any should perish but that all should turn to repentance.” Add also [Acts 17:32]—from which it is clear that, when some of the Athenians had heard the sermon of Paul, they laughed at him in derision—and one may conclude that God announces His Word even to those who despise and deride it, for the purpose that they repent and be saved.
“Teaching everyone,” Colossians 1[:28].
§ 128. The apostle bears witness in clear language about the universality of the calling in Col. 1:28: “Christ we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone perfect in Christ.” Add the passage Ps. 19:4: “Their voice has gone out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world.” In Rom. 10:18, this is applied to the apostolic preaching. If you add the passage Rom. 15:18, where the apostle says, “I do not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience by word and deed,” one can construct the following argument from these words: Whatever the apostles did in their ministry, they did by the will of God. Yet they wanted to equip all people for salvation, to make all perfect. Therefore this was the will of God too.
The practice of Christ, the prophets, and the apostles.
§ 129. Finally, it is clear from the sermons of the prophets, of Christ, and of the apostles that the word of calling is offered even to those who are unwilling to come. Isa. 65:2–3: “I spread out My hands all the day to an unbelieving people who walk in a way that is not good, following their own thoughts, a people who provoke Me to wrath before My face always.” Prov. 1:24: “I called, and you refused.” The Word was being preached to the Jews who nevertheless kept blaspheming it (Acts 13:46) and resisting the Holy Spirit (Acts 7:51). Many who hear God’s voice harden their hearts (Heb. 4:7, etc.).
The objections of our adversaries.
§ 130. They object: “God sets forth His Word to some people for this end: that they become more hardened but not that they be converted.” Piscator (De praedest., thesis 85): “The righteousness obtained by the death of Christ is offered only to the elect with the intention of communicating it.”
We respond. (1) By the just judgment of God, which punishes obstinacy and the stubborn contempt of the Word, it happens that the Word, which of itself is the Word of life, by way of accident becomes for some “a fragrance from death to death” (2 Cor. 2:15[–16]). However, one must not say that they have been predestined by an absolute decree to this obstinacy and damnation.
(2) For in this way hypocrisy would be attributed to God, namely: He would be calling those whom He did not want to come.
(3) Nor can these two ideas be reconciled: that God testifies in His Word that even the wicked and impenitent can become heirs of eternal life if they repent and are converted, and that some are assigned to eternal damnation by an absolute decree.
(4) If those promises do not at all pertain to the reprobate, despising them will not harm those who neglect them. Yet God does punish them because of such contempt, and indeed justly. Therefore surely the promises pertained to them, and they ought to have applied them to themselves by faith.
(5) Lest any doubt remain, we shall show from Scripture the purpose for which God offers His Word even to those who are impenitent and perishing. Isa. 65:2: “I spread out My hands to an unbelieving people.” Therefore the Lord wanted even that rebellious people to come to Him, and He invited them with various benefits, for that is how some explain the spreading out of His hands. The spreading out of His hands can also be compared with the statement of Christ in Matt. 23:37: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not.” Isa. 65:12: “When I called, you did not answer; when I spoke, you did not listen, but you did what was evil in My eyes and chose what I did not want.” Draw the conclusion: By despising their calling, unbelievers do that which God does not want. Therefore God is earnest in calling them. Rom. 2:4[–5]: The “long-suffering” of God invites to repentance even those who lay up His wrath for themselves.
(6) Finally, if it is taught that God sets His promises before only a few so that some of them, having taken hold of faith, might be saved, but that He is unwilling for the rest to be converted and saved, then all comfort is uncertain. For then I am always forced to wonder whether I myself may be in the number of those sinners. I very much would like this to be pondered.
Statements of the fathers regarding the universality of the calling.
§ 131. Ambrose has an excellent treatment of this universal calling of all people in his two books De vocatione omnium gentium (which some attribute to Prosper of Aquitaine). He writes (De vocat. gent., bk. 1, ch. 2):
Although Scripture asserts that God chose the people of Israel as His own possession, nevertheless we believe according to that and confess devoutly that the care of the providence of God has never neglected the whole of mankind. Although He used special instructions to direct to godliness the people that He chose for Himself, He did not remove the gifts of His goodness from any nation of people. This was so that they would be convicted, in their obedience to the elements and testimonies, that [the Israelites] had received the prophetic utterances and commandments of the Law. Hence they also became without excuse, because they made God’s gifts gods for themselves, and what had been created for their use they venerated for their worship.
Book 2, ch. 1:
Was ever a distinction among any nations or any people made by this command?
(Matt. 28[:19]: “Go teach all nations.” Mark 16[:15]: “Preach the Gospel to the whole creation.”)
It excluded no one on the basis of merit; it separated no one by genus; it distinguished no one by condition. The Gospel of the cross of Christ has been sent indeed to all men, etc.
And later:
This same grace which was spread everywhere after the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ was not even missing in past centuries. After all, though the people of Israel were clearly chosen by the special concern and favor of God, and though all other nations were allowed to follow their own ways—that is, to live according to their own desire—nevertheless the eternal goodness of the Creator did not turn away from those people without admonishing them by some signs to know and fear Him. For heaven and earth, the sea and every creature which can be seen and perceived are chiefly arranged to this benefit for the human race: that the rational nature may be instructed from its contemplation of so many species, from its experience of so many good things, from its reception of so many gifts to love and worship its Creator; for the Holy Spirit, in whom we live and move and have our being [Acts 17:28], fills all things. For though salvation is far from sinners [Ps. 119:155; Prov. 15:29], nevertheless nothing is devoid of the presence and power of His salvation, etc. Just as the abundance of that grace which has in latter days flowed to all nations does not make void [the grace] which showered upon Israel alone under the Law; just as present riches do not relegate the faith of the past to poverty; so also, concerning the care of God which chiefly cared for the descendants of the patriarchs, one must not suppose that the direction of divine mercy was taken away from the rest of mankind, who nevertheless seemed to have been rejected by comparison with the elect. However, they were never cut off from both manifest and hidden benefits, etc. What is this testimony which has always served the Lord (Acts 14[:17]) and which has never kept silent about His goodness and power except that ineffable beauty of the entire world and the richness and ordered abundance of His ineffable benefits through which the tables of the eternal Law were shown to human hearts, so that the public and common doctrine of divine instruction might be read on the pages of the elements and in the tablets of the seasons?
Chapter 2:
Although the grace of God was less plentiful and more hidden formerly, it did not deny itself to anyone in terms of its singular virtue, diverse quantity, unchangeable plan, multifaceted work, etc.
Therefore those nations who were alienated from the conversion of Israel and who had no hope and perished in this world without God and in the darkness of ignorance are not with excuse just because this abundance of grace, which now drenches the entire world, did not flow formerly with like abundance. For some measure of heavenly doctrine has always been given to all people which, even though it was of lesser and more hidden grace, nevertheless was sufficient for some as a remedy and for others as a witness, just as the Lord judged.
Chapter 6:
The redemption of Christ entered the entire world and became known to all men without distinction, inasmuch as on the fiftieth day after that Passover on which the true Lamb offered Himself as a sacrifice to God, when the apostles and those who were with them were filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke in the languages of all nations, a multitude of people of diverse nations came together, aroused by a miracle, so that the whole world heard the Gospel of Christ in those who were present. For Parthians and Medes, etc. [cf. Acts 2:8–11], had come together, and their witness spread far and wide even to those nations who are quite far away. We believe that the breadth of the Roman Empire was prepared by the providence of God for the accomplishing of this miracle, that the nations who formerly were united by a law of one wickedness might be called into the unity of the Body of Christ; however, the grace of Christianity was not content with having the same boundaries as Rome, etc.
Chapter 10:
No part of the world is void of the Gospel of Christ; and though that general calling has not become silent, nevertheless even that specific calling now is and has become common to all.
All these are the words of Ambrose.
The antithesis of our adversaries concerning the particularity of the calling.
§ 132. From what they teach about absolute election and reprobation, one can gather easily what the teaching of our opponents is regarding the calling. You see, they say that those who have been rejected by an absolute decree (as they claim) either are not called at all or are not called effectually by God. This is the teaching of Beza (Resp. ad colloq., part 2, pp. 96, 149, 222), of Martyr (on Romans 9), and of Zanchi (Miscell.). Bucanus (De praedest., p. 403) lists among the means of the execution of God’s decree regarding the reprobation of men “abandonment or no calling or an ineffectual calling through the Word of God, or [no] response to the internal calling.”
Their arguments: First, [that] the Gospel is not actually preached to all.
§ 133. They employ many thorny arguments, a more careful explanation of which is required, lest they overthrow the truth or upset the unwary. They especially press the argument that the Gospel has been preached “neither to every person nor in every age,” that even now it is not preached throughout the world. In proving this Jetzler has used up four whole books!
§ 134. We respond briefly. The calling is universal with regard to God’s command that the Gospel be preached to all creation and His will that it be heard by all and that the benefits offered therein be received by faith. However, [the calling] becomes particular by the fault of men: First, to the extent that some despise it with Epicurean contempt. Some even persecute it and drive it away violently. Second, to the extent that by the fault of their ancestors the Word is lost and is not actually preached among all nations everywhere and in all places. However, this brevity requires a richer explanation.
§ 135. Therefore I say that God has indeed revealed His Word to all people three times, namely, in Adam, after the flood, and at the time of the apostles.
(1) Adam had been created after the image of God, part of which was light, full of the knowledge of God, shining in his mind. Moreover, he had received these gifts for himself and for his descendants. Then, after he had turned away from God by his own free will, he likewise lost those gifts for himself and his posterity. Even if God had not given knowledge of Himself to any man afterward, that would not have to be ascribed to an absolute decree, but rather would have been a very just punishment for Adam’s fall.
(2) However, out of His boundless mercy God came forth from the hidden throne of His majesty after the fall and published to Adam the preaching of the Gospel about the Seed of the woman which was going to crush the serpent’s head [Gen. 3:15]. Thus He again kindled the light of the knowledge of Himself for Adam; all the descendants of Adam, warned as they had been by the grievous fall of their father, ought to have guarded this light of the Word and the purity of the doctrine which had been revealed. Yet straightaway Cain murdered his brother out of envy, pride, and hatred and, filled with desperation, “went away from the face of the Lord” (Gen. 4:16), that is, from the fellowship of the church, which is the only place the friendly face of God can be seen. The idolatrous wickedness of Cain was followed not only by his descendants but also by many children of the patriarchs, though entry to the church nevertheless had not been simply and absolutely closed to either of the two. Consider the tragic complaint of Gen. 6:2: “The sons of God saw that the daughters of men were attractive. And they took as their wives any they wanted.” That is, having no consideration for godliness or religion and led by the blind impulse of lust, the sons of the patriarchs took for themselves any wives they wanted. They did not allow their parents to give them wives, etc., as Hugh notes (on vv. 5–6): “And Jehovah saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And Jehovah was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him to His heart.”
(3) Therefore, because of this enormous wickedness of men, God decided to destroy man and beast from the face of the earth with a universal catastrophe. Nevertheless He was mindful of His mercy, and out of His limitless love for mankind preserved Noah, his wife, his sons, and their wives. As they disembarked from the ark, He kindled in them again the light of His Word and established with them His covenant (Gen. 9:9). Therefore the descendants of Noah, from whom all nations were born (Gen. 10:32), ought to have preserved the purity of the heavenly Word unstained and inviolate and spread it to all their descendants. According to Genesis 11, however, they busied themselves in building the tower of Babel out of their vain lust for glory, their Epicurean security, their self-admiration, and, as the Jerusalem Targum claims, their eagerness to establish idolatry. Therefore by the just judgment of God “their languages were confused, and they were scattered over the surface of the whole earth” ([Gen. 11:]7–8).
(4) After that dispersion and after the apostasy of Nimrod, who defiled the true worship of God, Abraham was called immediately by God to teach the Word of God among the Canaanites and to publish far and wide the teaching of the church, for he was a prophet (Gen. 20:7). God established His pact with him and his seed by an eternal covenant (Gen. 17:7), so that the seat of the true church afterward was among the descendants of Abraham. Ps. 147:19–20: “God declared His Word to Jacob, His statutes and ordinances to Israel. He has not dealt thus with any other nation; He has not revealed His judgments to them.”
(5) Nevertheless one must not take this as if all other nations were absolutely cut off from all knowledge of God. Rather, the psalmist is speaking comparatively, namely, that God has not revealed His judgments in the same way to the nations which had lost the Word because of their fault and that of their forefathers. In fact, God rather called many Gentiles into the fellowship of the church by the various wanderings of the patriarchs, by the Babylonian captivity of the Jews, and by other means.
(6) He established the people of Israel in a conspicuous place and with many signs and miracles made the church gathered from it famous and renowned in the sight of the Gentiles, so that it was well-known among all peoples that there was a certain people in Palestine whose worship was divinely confirmed with amazing signs and miracles. For God Himself showed this purpose for His portents to Pharaoh in Exod. 9:16: “For this I have raised you up, to show My power, so that My name may be proclaimed in all the earth.”
(7) One should also consider from this passage that the children of Israel were set almost in the very middle of the inhabited world so that the fragrance of their teaching could easily be spread from there into all the parts of the world. Rabbi Aben Ezra (on Ecclesiasticus 1) says that Jerusalem was located “in the middle of the world.”
(8) And thus there are so many outstanding confessions of those who were converted from heathenism to the God of the Hebrews, such as those of Jethro [Exod. 18:10–12], Rahab [Josh. 2:8–11], the Gibeonites [Joshua 9], Job and his friends [the Book of Job], Ruth [the Book of Ruth], King Hiram of Tyre [1 Kings 5:7], the queen of the south [1 Kings 10:1–9], Naaman of Syria [2 Kings 5:1–15], the Ninevites [the Book of Jonah], Nebuchadnezzar [Daniel 3–4], Darius [Daniel 6], Cyrus [2 Chron. 36:23; the Book of Ezra], Ahasuerus [the Book of Esther], the Persians converted by Mordecai [the Book of Esther], etc., and of others, some of whom Scripture names and some about whom Scripture is silent. I want you to note especially the passage Acts 2:5, where we read that “there were living in Jerusalem devout [εὐλαβεῖς] men from every nation under heaven.”
(9) Even the book of nature ought to have been a teacher of the knowledge of God for the Gentiles. The apostle says, Acts 14:16: “In past generations God allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways,” but he immediately adds, v. 17: “Yet He did not leave Himself without witness” because “what is known of God is manifest among them. For His invisible things have been understood and perceived from the creation of the world through those things that have been made, also His eternal power and divinity, so that they are without excuse” (Rom. 1:19–20). To be sure, those nations outside the church ought to have been incited to seek out the true worship of God practiced by the Israelites. This they ought to have done partly because of the constant fame about the God of the Israelites, partly because of the renown of His signs, partly because of the example of those who had converted from heathenism to the church of the Israelites, partly because of the goading of their own conscience, and partly because of some sort of knowledge of God provided in the visible things of the world. From observing creation they could have risen to the point of claiming that God exists, and therefore they ought to have advanced still farther and have sought out the Word of this true God revealed to the church, which was set in a conspicuous place. In fact, that very natural knowledge bears witness to its own imperfection. Hence the apostle says, Acts 17:26–27: “God has determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their habitation, that they should seek God in the hope that they might feel after Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us.” However, the heathen did not do this. In fact, “they have rather exchanged the truth about God,” that is, the true knowledge of Him to be drawn from observing creation, “for a lie” (Rom. 1:25). Therefore they are “without excuse” [ἀναπολόγητοι] (v. 20). Now if they could not by any means have aspired to the true and full knowledge of God, then they would still have an excuse to offer. You will perceive this more correctly if you consider the words of Christ, John 15:22: “If I had not come and spoken to them” (the Jews), “they would not have sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.”
(10) I want you to observe this, too, that the books of the Old Testament had been translated into Greek even before the time of Christ. That language was quite familiar to all nations according to Cicero (Pro Arch.): “Greek is read among almost all nations.” Also, the church had a seat in the four most powerful, most well-known monarchies in all the world. (11) Although God overlooked those times of ignorance, He finally announced to all peoples through the apostles that they should repent (Acts 17:30), and through the diversity of languages He gathered all nations into the unity of the faith,2 so that, according to the infallible testimony of Paul, Col. 1:[5–]6: “The word of Gospel truth exists in all the world and has produced fruit.” Therefore if their descendants, to whom the Gospel was preached at the time of the apostles, in the passing of time lost the truth of the Word, they should blame their own negligence and that of their forefathers. They should not rail against the mercy of God who calls. You see, the holy deposit of the Word is an invaluable treasure. If any people reject and lose it, they also deprive their descendants of it, for which reason they eventually will render a more grievous account to God, and the blood of all their posterity will be demanded from their hands, which should deservedly terrify those who carelessly despise the Word.
(12) On the other hand, if examples of infants born into heathenism are cited, we respond to these and similar [examples] as follows: The judgments of God can be hidden, but they can never be unjust. In this chief part of doctrine there are many things beyond our investigative powers in the light of nature and grace; someday we shall understand them more fully in the light of glory. Those infants not only carry with them the original taint3 from their parents but also are born from ancestors to whom God had commended the precious trust of His Word, that they might propagate it to their descendants, and the Sacraments, through which their children also could be taken into the grace of God. Therefore they should blame the sins of their parents and not the justice and mercy of God. It is also not wrong for us to demand that such disputers make us sure that those infants would have accepted the offered benefits of God and would not instead have imitated their parents’ sins, provided that they reached adulthood. The Lord says to Ezekiel and, in general, to all ministers of the church, Ezek. 3:17–18: “I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from My mouth, you will give them a warning from Me. If I say to the wicked: ‘You will surely die,’ and you give him no warning nor speak to the wicked to warn him from his wicked way in order to save his life, that wicked man will die in his iniquity, but his blood shall I require at your hand.” You see, some do perish because of the negligence of their pastors, from whose hands the Lord will require the blood of those who perish, and yet in this case no one accuses the justice of God nor flees to some absolute decree. So, too, if the Word is taken away from some people because of the negligence of their forefathers, from whose hand God will require the blood of those who perish, likewise in this case no one should accuse the justice of God nor flee to some absolute decree. In turn, just as God takes some people away, “lest evil or guile change their understanding”—that is, lest hypocritical religion “beguile their soul” (Wisdom 4:11)—so also God takes some people away in infancy, lest they sink into the lowest pit of sins and heap upon themselves the punishments of hell, because “the servant who knew his master’s will, but did not make ready nor act according to his will, will receive a severe beating. But the one who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, will receive a light beating” (Luke 12:47–48).
§ 136. However, let us grant that in these and similar specific examples we are not able to fully ascertain and set forth precisely the causes of the counsels of God. Yet we must not flee to some absolute decree of reprobation, but should cling firmly to those universal declarations: “God wants all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” [1 Tim. 2:4]; “As I live, declares the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked” [Ezek. 33:11]; etc. Bishop Fulbert says it well: “Because the human mind is not always capable of perceiving the causes of God’s governance, it should reverently close the eyes of mistaken debate to that which it cannot comprehend.”
§ 137. It seems good to explain the proposed argument with the words of Ambrose. He distinguished between the universal grace of God who calls and the miraculous and consequently inscrutable dispensation of the call, for he writes (De vocat. gent., bk. 1, ch. 1):
The reason for the grace of God, varied as it as among so many peoples and times, is asked in a great variety of questions: Why were so many nations in previous centuries sent away to walk in their own ways [cf. Acts 14:16], but only one, Israel, which was divinely instructed, was excepted and chosen for the knowledge of the truth, but whose faithlessness finally gave a place for Gentiles to be saved—as if, had that one people persisted in the faith of its own kind, then could the mercy of God not be revealed to the other nations? And why would not those whose abasement was the salvation of the Gentiles be freed from their blindness before all the nations entered, as if they could not be illumined along with everyone else who was going to be saved after the adoption of all nations had occurred? Or how is all Israel to be saved after their blindness has been cured, since a countless number of them, falling short by their own faithlessness, did not reach the times promised to those who are to be saved? Or how could the fullness of the Gentiles (whose calling had not happened before) be said now to enter in when so many thousands of people of different ages and conditions among all the nations under heaven are dying without the justification of Christ? However, the pious and learned4 instructor
(the apostle Paul)
preferred to defer the causes of these mysteries and judgments to the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God [Rom. 11:33] rather than to destroy by reckless curiosity the mystery of the most just truth and most merciful goodness which is beyond human understanding, etc.
And later:
The nature of this distinction is hidden, but the distinction itself is not hidden. We do not understand Him judging, but we do see Him working. Why do we blame His hidden justice when we ought to give thanks for His manifest mercy? Let us praise and revere what He does, for it is safe not to know what is concealed.
De vocat. gent., bk. 2, ch. 1:
Although the Gospel was directed to the calling of all people, and though the Lord wanted all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth [1 Tim. 2:4], this did not remove from Him the power of His dispensations to make the arrangement of His plan go otherwise than He had decided in His secret and just judgment, etc.
And later:
We are taught by the example of history that among His general promises, works, or commandments God knew how to arrange some exceptions from the usual causes in His secret reasoning.
Chapter 3:
The depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, whose judgments are inscrutable and His ways past finding out [Rom. 11:33], has always tempered His mercy and justice so that by the secret will of His eternal counsel He was unwilling for the measures of His gifts to be equal in all things over all generations and all people. In fact, He helped those who were fit to know Him through the testimonies of heaven and earth differently than those whom He aided not only with the service of the elements but also with the teaching of the Law, the prophecies of the prophets, the signs of miracles, and the cooperation of the angels. All the more differently did He declare His mercy to all people when the Son of God became the Son of Man, to be found by those who were not looking for Him, etc. Now there was as little grace among the Jewish people as there had been in past centuries among the other nations, though with the entrance of the fullness of the Gentiles a flooding of these waters is promised even to the dryness of [the Jews]. Who, then, will tell what reasons or logic there is for these differences in the same grace when the Holy Scriptures do not speak? And since the knowledge of the apostle Paul in these matters passes from disputing to amazement, who will be so presumptuous as to believe that these matters should be uncovered by discourse rather than be marveled at in silence?
§ 138. Regarding infants born into heathendom, he speaks thus (De vocat. gent., bk. 2, ch. 8):
When we consider among the heathen, Jews, heretics, and among catholic Christians themselves what a great number of infants die, who, as far as their own wills are concerned, have clearly done nothing either good or evil, we learn that upon them remains that sentence which the human race received because of the transgression of our first parent. The severity of this sentence shows how great that sin was, since it is not lifted even among [infants]. However, no one would be thought to be born guilty unless it were harmful for even such as them not to be reborn, etc.
And later:
I do not think one is irreligious in believing or out of line in thinking that those having few days belong to that part of grace which has always hung over all nations; for surely, were their parents to use it well, they themselves would be helped through the same. After all, the beginnings of all infants and all their starts lie under the judgment of another person’s will while they are of rational infancy, nor can they be taken care of except through others. The consequence of this is that they belong to the fellowship of those by whose either honorable or corrupt inclination they are controlled, etc. Moreover, just as the specific calling arises among their forefathers with a more excellent work, a greater gift, and a more powerful strength in addition to that more general grace which knocks more infrequently and secretly at the hearts of all men, so also the same election is revealed among countless infants. Indeed, this election was not absent from those who were not reborn in their parents, but was present to those who were reborn more than to their parents, such as many [infants] who were deserted by the wickedness of their parents were helped by the care of strangers and through outsiders came to regeneration, a regeneration that had not been provided by their neighbors. In this work of grace, who but the most arrogant and fickle shall complain about the justice of God, complaining that a similar providence does not have regard for all infants or that it could not remove with its power or prevent with its compassion all perils which could stand in the way of the rebirth of the dead? Or that this ought to happen in the case of them all, if it is to happen at all?
So much said Ambrose. Statements similar to these are in Augustine (Letter 147 ad Optatum).
Second, [that] the Word does not bear fruit among all people.
§ 139. Until now we have discussed the first argument opposed to the universality of calling. The second argument is added with no less difficulty. (I) They say: “Although the Word may be offered to many, nevertheless it bears fruit among few. We cannot seek out the reason among men, since man has no power in spiritual matters. Therefore the ultimate refuge lies in the absolute decree.”
We respond. Christian simplicity clings to the parables of Christ told in Matthew [13:1–15] and Luke 8[:4–8], for there we see that the reason the seed of the Word does not bear fruit among all men lies in men themselves, some of whom hear the Word, but because they do not understand, the devil in turn plucks it out of their hearts. Some hear the Word of God, but because they are transient and have no root, it happens that when tribulation and persecution occur because of the Word they are quickly offended. Some hear the Word, but the cares of this life and the deceit of wealth suffocate it in their hearts. Some finally hear and keep the Word in a good and sincere heart and bear fruit patiently. Stones, thistles, and birds hinder the fruit of the Word. These are the reasons Christ gives; these are the reasons the Christian embraces in truth. Thus in Luke 14:18 we see in the parable of the master of a house who prepares a great feast that the reason not all enjoy the benefits offered in the Word lies in those who were invited, not in the inviting master.
(II) You say: “Yet by nature the human heart is not good and sincere so that it would be able to accept the seed of the Word and produce fruit, nor can man through the natural powers of his free will be obedient to God when He calls. Therefore the difficulty returns, namely, that one should have recourse to the absolute decree of God.”
We respond. God wants to convert people through the Word, because “faith comes by hearing and hearing through the Word” (Rom. 10:17). This preaching of the Word has the working of the Holy Spirit connected to it. But now, some totally refuse to hear, blaspheme, and “thrust the Word away from themselves” (Acts 13:45–46). Some hear it, but only in passing and without the desire to learn, while their minds wander elsewhere (Acts 20:9). Some hear it with an interest in its novelty (Luke 23:8). Some hear it with prejudice, preoccupied as they are with their own errors (Acts 17:21). Some hear it with the intent of slandering (Ps. 41:[6]). Some do not want to accept the word of truth because of ambition, lest they appear to have made a mistake (John 5:44); or because of a desire for the glory of this world (John 12:43); or for the favor of their family, friends, or important people (Luke 9:61); or lest they be deprived of temporal conveniences (John 6:26); or out of fear of persecutions (John 9:22). Some hear with aversion due to a hatred for the person of the minister (Ezek. 33:32). Some are involved with and cling to the thorns of pleasures (Luke 8:14). Some have hearts attached to riches (Matt. 19:22). Some harden themselves with a constant habit of sinning (Rom. 2:4). Some are offended by the humble and unimportant appearance of those who teach, and they despise their words (Matt. 13:54–55). Some are angered when they hear their vices rebuked and become alienated from the very Word (Isa. 30:10). Some seek worldly wisdom and eloquence from preachers; when they do not find it, they backslide (1 Cor. 1:22[–23]). Some, after learning the truth, fall away from it again (2 Pet. 2:21). The fruit-bearing of the Word is hindered in these many ways and in still other unknown ways. The Holy Spirit also, intent on His work of conversion, is resisted (Acts 7:51). Holy Scripture always attributes the reasons for this to human beings and never to an absolute decree.
(III) You say: “Yet all people without exception remain stuck in equal corruption. Therefore the reason that the powers for conversion are given to some rests solely in the mercy of God. Therefore, in turn, there cannot be a reason that powers for conversion are denied to some other than a decree of God, who refuses to grant such powers.”
We respond. A distinction must be made between the external hearing of the Word and the internal or inner assent of the heart, for the latter does not exist in the powers of an unregenerate man, but the former does. A distinction must be made between original badness and blindness and actual stubbornness and blinding. The former is the same in all the unregenerate, but the same is not true of the latter. Scripture witnesses in many passages that even a person not yet reborn can hear, learn, and meditate on the Word of God, while some stubbornly neglect it and resist God. Mark 6:20: “Herod gladly listened to John.” Acts 13:7: “The proconsul Sergius sought to hear the Word of God.” In Acts 17:20 the Athenians desire to hear Paul. Acts 8:6: “The crowds paid attention to what was being said by Philip.” In Acts 24:24–25, Felix, the governor of Judea, summons Paul and, when Paul “reasoned about righteousness and self-control and the coming judgment,” we read that Felix “was alarmed” because of that. In Luke 13:24 the desire for salvation is ascribed to those who are perishing: “Many will seek to enter and will not be able.” In Amos 8:11 “a hunger and thirst for hearing the Word” is ascribed to the wicked Israelites.
(IV) You say: “But not even all of them are converted, and in Rom. 9:16 Paul removes the powers of conversion from human running and will.”
We respond. Herod, held prisoner by his love affair with an incestuous spouse, refused to make room for the warnings of John. When the Athenians heard about the resurrection of the dead, some laughed at it, while others said, “We shall listen to you about this subject again.” Governor Felix quickly suppressed that goading which came from the apostle’s preaching and listened only out of his mad lust for money. Those who seek to enter the gate of salvation and cannot, and those who are held by a hunger and thirst for the Word and are not converted, are those who were unwilling to enter when they could; and then, when they see that they must perish, they cry out to the Lord, that they may at least escape the punishments prepared for them, but not because they truly repent. Prov. 1:24, 26, 28: “Because I have called and you refused, I have stretched out My hand and there was no one who heeded, I also will laugh at your contrition. Then they will call upon Me, and I will not listen,” etc. In Rom. 9:16 the apostle argues against the self-righteous who seek righteousness in the exercise and merits of their own works and thus “have zeal but not according to knowledge” (Rom. 10:2). Nonetheless it remains firmly fixed that the hearing of the Word is the salutary means of conversion. John 6:45: “Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father” is led by the Holy Spirit “to come to Christ.” Rom. 10:14: “How will they believe in Him of whom they have not heard?” It is for this reason that Christ says in reference to the scribe who had answered sensibly, Mark 12:34: “He is not far from the kingdom of God.” He was closer to the kingdom of God than were the Pharisees, who were taking glory from each other and were unable to believe because of this (John 5:44); their wicked hypocrisy is described throughout Matthew 23. From this we also understand the reason why it is difficult for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven, and, in fact, is more difficult for them than for the poor, namely, because among them the care for this world and the deceit of riches suffocate the Word and make them barren. It turns out that in giving the reason why more are not converted and saved, Scripture always points us to contempt for the means, so that in this way the fault lies in man and not in God, and so that these statements hold true: Hosea 13:[9]: “O Israel, your ruin comes from yourself, but from Me comes only your salvation.” John 3:19: “This is the judgment: that the light has come into the world, and the world loved darkness rather than light.” Matt. 23:37: “How often I wanted to gather you, but you were unwilling.” Matt. 22:3: “They would not come.”
(V) You say: “But there is not one bit of free will left in man’s powers in order for an unregenerate person to be able to accept the grace offered him or to apply himself to it.”
We respond. This is very true. The grace of the Holy Spirit is required in the conversion of an unregenerate person in order for him to recognize and accept the grace which has been offered. But there are what might be called degrees of God’s grace and mercy. God precedes all who are to be converted with His mercy and offers them His Word. Through that Word He wants to be effectual in their hearts in conversion. This, too, belongs to God’s grace. After all, if God had not been pleased to convert people through the preaching of the Gospel and the hearing of His Word, no one would be converted even if someone were to listen for a thousand years. The working of the Holy Spirit is connected with that preaching of the Word, and that, too, belongs to God’s grace. He wants to work new impulses [motus] in hearts; only let us not resist Him (Acts 7:51). He wants to open their eyes that they may be converted from darkness to light; only let us not close our eyes with affected blindness (Matt. 13:15), and let us also not “love the darkness more than the light” (John 3:19). “He stands at the door and knocks” (Rev. 3:20). He wants to open the closed ears of our heart; only let us no longer deafen our ears (Acts 7:57). He wants to work in us all salutary things and to make our body His temple (1 Cor. 6:19); only let us not violate that temple of God (1 Cor. 3:17) or destroy His handiwork (Rom. 14:20). God thinks thoughts of peace about us (Jer. 29:11) and wants to take care of those things which have to do with our peace (Luke 19:42); only let us not despise the counsel of God concerning us (Luke 7:30). He wants “to take away our hearts of stone and to give us hearts of flesh” (Ezek. 36:26); only let us not harden our hearts (Heb. 4:7). You see, it is not we who do the initiating nor does the origin of a good will emerge from our effort, but rather holy thinking, good intent, and the desire for good are the gracious gift and working of the Holy Spirit. Augustine argues very well about this in many places in his disputations against the Pelagians.
The entire work of conversion does not occur instantaneously in a single moment, nor does the Holy Spirit act through violent forcefulness. Rather, as Dr. Chemnitz says (Loci, part 1, p. 490), conversion has its beginnings and its progressive steps, and one cannot show in some mathematical point where the freed will begins to act. When prevenient, preparing, and operating grace—that is, the first beginnings of faith and conversion—is given to someone, the wrestling between flesh and Spirit begins immediately, and it is manifest that such wrestling does not occur without the impulse of our will. You see, the Holy Spirit was wrestling in Moses against his flesh while he was living in a different way than “Michael wrestled with the devil over Moses’ dead body” (Jude 9). Likewise, in the beginning the desire is more hidden, the assent more lazy, the obedience less firm, and those gifts should increase.
They increase in us not as a trunk is expanded by a violent wrench or as lilies grow without effort or concern, but by striving, wrestling, asking, seeking, knocking [cf. Matt. 7:7–8]—and this not of ourselves; it is a gift of God [cf. Eph. 2:8]. When the master hands out the talents to his servants, he says, “Engage in business until I come” ([Luke 19:13; cf.] Matt. 25:26). He does not say, “Hide them in the ground.” Paul uses a very illustrative word in 2 Tim. 1:6: “I urge you to rekindle [ἀναζωπυρεῖν] the gift of God which is in you.” In Mark 9:24, the father of the demoniac cries out: “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.” All of this is beautifully illustrated with the example of Augustine, who describes the order of his conversion (in Confess., bk. 5, chs. 13–14; bk. 7, ch. 21; bk. 8, ch. 2). And all of this can be more rightly learned from the exercises of faith and invocation than from idle speculations.
Next, after the captive will has been freed through the Holy Spirit, the cooperating grace of the Holy Spirit is still required, Phil. 2:13: “God gives not only the willing but also the doing.” It is also said correctly from Augustine: “This is cooperating grace by which the regenerate man works simultaneously through the powers endowed by the Holy Spirit: the regenerate are acted upon by the Holy Spirit so that they themselves also act” (Augustine, De corrept. et grat., ch. 2). And because we receive only “the firstfruits of the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 8:23) and “the wrestling of flesh and Spirit continues” (Gal. 5:17), one must beware, “lest he be without the grace of God” (Heb. 12:15); “lest we reject the grace of God” [Gal. 2]:21); “that we not receive the grace of God in vain” (2 Cor. 6:1); “that we not grieve the Holy Spirit” (Eph. 4:30) “or provoke Him” (Isa. 63:10); “but that renewal increase every day” (2 Cor. 4:16), “that we press on until we obtain” (1 Cor. 9:24), “that we remain in the goodness of God” (Rom. 11:22), “that we hold the beginning of the substance firm unto the end” (Heb. 3:14). Those who fall out of the grace of conversion fall out by their own fault. God is faithful, and His gifts are “irrevocable” [Rom. 11:29]. Accordingly, it stands that conversion and perseverance come from the grace of the Holy Spirit alone; nonetheless the cause that some either are not converted or in turn fall from the grace of conversion lies in the stubbornness of men by which they hinder and disturb the work of the Holy Spirit.
§ 140. Ambrose discusses this matter again (De vocat. gent., bk. 2, ch. 3): As it is written,
the will is prepared by the Lord, but there is not always one result of this preparation nor always one degree, because the works and gifts of grace vary in many ways and have countless differences. In each individual kind of gift there are different levels and unequal amounts. You see, in the sprouts of plants and trees which the earth produces there is neither one species nor one genus in them all, but each individual one is produced in the form of its own seed and in the quality of its own rootstock. They receive their full beauty not as soon as they are produced, but they advance with definite and ordered increases until they reach the full extent of their kind through their succeeding increases. In the same way, the seeds of charisms and the plants of virtues are not produced equally in every field of the human heart because they are future, they are beginning; nor will their maturity be discovered in their beginning nor perfection in their start. In fact, God the powerful and merciful sows the miraculous effects of His work constantly and in some minds places, with an unexpected delay of progress, the whole of what He is going to grant, etc. Nevertheless much greater and much more numerous is that portion of men for whom what His supernal goodness grants increases bit by bit, so that the causes for granting the gifts are produced from those things which have been granted.
Chapter 9:
The grace of God is preeminent principally in all justifications by persuading with exhortations, by warning with examples, by terrifying with perils, by arousing with miracles, by giving understanding, by inspiring counsel, by enlightening the heart itself, by imbuing with the characteristics of faith. Also, the will of man is joined to and connected with [this grace] and by the aforementioned aids is aroused for this: that it works together with that divine work in it and begins to exercise itself toward the merit which it conceived by the supernal seed for zeal. If it fails, it does so of its own changeability; if it advances, it does so with the help of grace. This help is applied to all people in countless ways, either secret or manifest. That many refuse this is a matter of their own wickedness; that many accept it is a matter of the grace of God and of the human will.
(An explanation follows a little later.)
Therefore, whether we consider the beginnings or the progress of the faithful who persevere to the very end, there is no genus, no species, of any virtue that occurs which is considered either without the gift of divine grace or without the consent of our will. For grace itself works in every kind of healing and helping so that it prepares the will in the person whom it calls to be its first receiver and the handmaid of its gifts. After all, the virtue of those who refuse is nothing, nor can one assert that faith or hope or love is in those whose good consent is a stranger to these things, etc.
Third, Matthew 10[:5]: “Go not into the way of the Gentiles.”
§ 141. I hope that we have thus explained the two strongest arguments of our opponents. Let us add also the others. Their third argument is: “In Matt. 10:5, Christ commands the apostles: ‘Go not into the way of the Gentiles and enter no city of the Samaritans.’ Therefore it seems that the means of salvation were denied to them by an absolute decree.”
We respond. (1) The argument proceeds from a particular, for though the apostolic preaching did not reach the Gentiles at that time, nevertheless the report of the church did reach them. They also could have used the guidance of natural knowledge, etc. (2) They were not denied the Word by any absolute decree but because of the contempt of their fathers, who rejected it. We read thus in Amos 8:11 that, because of the contempt of the hearers, “God sends a famine of the Word.” 2 Thess. 2:10–11: “Because they refused to love the truth and so be saved, God sends upon them a strong delusion.” (3) Although the Gentiles did not have that solemn general calling under the Old Testament, constant examples of proselytes show that they were not excluded absolutely from the fellowship of the church. (4) In fact, even Christ Himself delivered sermons to the common crowd without making any distinction between Jews and Samaritans. We have a fine example of this in John 4. (5) Additionally, Christ Himself went off “into the region of Tyre and Sidon” (Mark 7:24), and from there “went through the region of Decapolis” (v. 31). (6) God wanted the Jewish political state to be separate from the other nations, that there might be a certain location where the Messiah was born, but not as if all the other nations had been rejected from the church and from participation in salvation by an absolute decree. In His coming, Christ finally “broke down the dividing wall” (Eph. 2:14) so that “there is neither Jew nor Greek” (Gal. 3:28). (7) Therefore this command was only for a certain time, as is shown by Christ’s precept, Matt. 28:19 and Mark 16:15: “Go into all the world” and “Proclaim the Gospel to the whole creation.” (8) However, the apostle gives the reason why “God had to speak His Word first to the Jews” (Acts 13:46) in Rom. 15:8, where he says that “Christ became a servant to the circumcision to fulfill the promises made to the patriarchs.” It was fitting for His coming to be announced first to the Jews, to whom He first had been promised. Calvin (commentary on this passage): “He limited the speech of the apostles within the boundaries of Judea, but He later orders it to sound out everywhere to the farthest corners of the world. The reason is that the Father had sent Him to be the servant of circumcision to fulfill the promises which formerly had been made to the fathers and because God had made a special covenant with the people of Abraham,” etc. Those are Calvin’s words.
Fourth, Matthew 11[:21]: “If such things had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented.”
§ 142. Their fourth argument is: “Matt. 11:21: ‘If such mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented in sackcloth and ashes.’ Therefore the means of repentance were denied them by an absolute decree.”
We respond. (1) The argumentation does not succeed: “The people of Tyre and Sidon had been denied that special and extraordinary manner of converting people through miracles; therefore they were excluded from salvation by an absolute decree.” (2) In fact, they did have the benefits common to the other nations (regarding which see above [§ 135]). (3) Therefore they could have inquired into the true worship of the true God as easily as Hiram, the king of Tyre and friend of David and Solomon, did earlier. The people of Tyre and Sidon brought wood in great supply for David (1 Chron. 22:14), and also for the building of the second temple (Ezra 3:7). Therefore they could have brought back with them the true knowledge of God. (4) It is well-known that they had common borders with the people of Israel; therefore the report of their teaching and miracles could have reached them quite easily. (5) Christ Himself departed into the region of Tyre and Sidon, and there He freed the daughter of the Canaanite woman from a demon, because a great multitude of those about Tyre and Sidon came to Him (Mark 3:7). Mark 7:31: “Christ returned from the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the sea.” (6) Paul came to Tyre and stayed there for seven days (Acts 21:3–4). He also came to Sidon (Acts 27:3). How, then, were they totally denied the means of salvation, and indeed by absolute decree?
Fifth, Luke 8[:10]: “To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom.”
§ 143. Their fifth argument is: “In Luke 8:10, Christ says to the disciples: ‘To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in parables, so that seeing they may not see and hearing they may not understand.’ Therefore, though some may hear the Word, nevertheless they are denied the salutary knowledge of its secrets, and this is because of an absolute decree.”
We respond. (1) In Matthew 13 and Mark 4 we have a fuller explanation of these words, which we shall search out from the circumstances of this text. The first circumstance is time. Up to this point Christ had skillfully taught repentance, openly preached the kingdom of God, clearly pointed out the true way to obtain blessedness, explained without ambiguity the real meaning of the Law and duties of the Christian life, forcefully announced the punishments for the stubborn and thankless, strongly and clearly refuted the false charges of His adversaries, and kindly invited to Himself all who were laboring. Now at length, in the second year of His ministry, He begins to speak in parables. This is the first thing.
(2) Second, it is also proper to observe this: as we find from Matthew, Christ told these parables on the same day that He had had a sharp argument with the scribes and Pharisees over the miracle of casting out a demon and also on the same day that He was unable even to eat because of the crowds coming together to ask for His teaching and for healing. Therefore, because He set forth the mysteries of His Word openly to all not only on the mount (Matthew 5–7) but also through the disciples whom He had sent out as His legates (Matthew 10), and in fact because He Himself had preached very clearly about the kingdom of God on the same day, we conclude from this that through those parables Christ did not simply want to exclude His hearers from understanding the Word. However, because some until that time refused to accept the grace offered in the Word when it was preached clearly, but rejected it with the greatest ingratitude, and because some persecuted it with insults and blasphemies, He wanted to arouse their attentiveness by preaching in parables. But when they continued stubbornly and consistently to hold the Word in contempt and to reject it, He showed that that very Word would be the cause of an even more serious condemnation. Mark 4:2: “He taught them many things in parables.” Jerome (on Matthew 13): “Observe: He did not speak all things to them in parables but many things, for if He had spoken all things in parables, the people would have gone away without advantage. Therefore He mixes the clear with the obscure in order to call them forth to the knowledge of what they do not understand through what they do understand.” Those are Jerome’s words. He adds (on v. 34): “He was telling them nothing without parables; but separately He disclosed all things to His disciples.” This is to be understood as referring especially to the sermons of Christ delivered at that time, for earlier He had been explaining very clearly the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, and what He first explained to His disciples alone was later set forth to all with the same clarity through His apostles. But at this time He wanted to use parables, lest He cast pearls to half-asleep listeners and to those who despised the Word of God, and lest He uselessly set forth the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven to people who were held by no zeal for learning the truth.
(3) Mark 4:33 says that Christ spoke to the multitudes through parables “as they were able to hear it.” From this it is clear that the goal of His preaching in parables was not that the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven would be hidden from the people but that they might be explained more clearly and simply according to their comprehension. Only by way of accident—namely, because of the contempt which preceded His preaching in parables—it followed that “hearing, they did not hear, and seeing, they did not see,” etc. [Luke 8:10]. Thus Varinus: “A parable is a comparison which resembles the clear truth of the things which lie hidden.” Marlorat (commentary on this passage, from Erasmus): “With these and many other parables of this type, our Lord Jesus was setting before a crude and dull people an image of the future success of the Gospel, and was tempering His language to their comprehension.”
(4) After telling the parable, Christ says: “He who has ears to hear let him hear” (Luke 8:8) and “Take heed how you listen” (Mark 4:24). With these words He wanted to invite, rouse, and encourage His listeners to ask Him for an explanation of the parable. But His disciples and a few others do this while the rest go away, despising the words of Christ. “For when He was alone” (according to Mark 4:10), “those who were about Him along with the twelve asked Him about those parables.” (The Vulgate version translates it less accurately: “Those twelve who were with Him asked Him.” This is why they wanted to conclude from this passage, ignorantly, that the laity should be prevented from reading Scripture, because Christ said to the apostles alone: “To you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven,” etc. [Mark 4:11].)
(5) When the disciples and some of the other listeners who were with them approached Christ and asked that the true meaning of the parable be explained, Christ responded to them, Luke 8:10: “To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.” But in what order had that been given? They had received the gifts of nature and of grace. It was the gift of nature that they could hear and see. It was the gift of grace that they could hear the Word of God and see the miracles of Christ. Because they received these gifts of God with reverence and were concerned about the true meaning of the words they had heard, it was also given them out of grace to be able to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. Matt. 13:12: “To him who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance.” “Those who have” are those who reverently accept the gifts of God, acknowledge them with grateful minds, use them correctly, and neglect no opportunities to be able to profit from them in their zeal for godliness. To them God will give more. In them God will increase His gifts that they may be even more strengthened, that they may also win others for the Lord, and that finally and at last the gifts of glory may come to them. This is the meaning of these words, as is clear from the parable of the talents (Matt. 25:14ff.), to which the same words are added (v. 29). Thus the statement of Christ in John 6:45 is confirmed by the example of these inquirers and askers: “Everyone who hears and learns from My Father comes to Me.”
(6) About the others He says, “To them it is not given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven” (Luke 8:10). “From him who has not, even that which he has will be taken away” (Matt. 13:12), that is, “that which he appears to have” (Luke 8:18). “That is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing, they do not see, and hearing, they do not hear nor understand” (Matt. 13:13). Thus the prophecy of Isaiah [6:9] is fulfilled in them: “You will hear and you will not understand,” etc. ([Matt. 13:]14). You see why that was not given to the others: surely it was not out of any absolute decree or hatred on the part of God, because the gifts of nature and of grace had been given to them just as much. From the gift of nature they had been given ears with which they could have heard no less than the rest. From the gift of nature they had been given eyes with which they could have seen no less than the rest. Additionally, from the gift of grace they had been given [the opportunity] to hear the same Word of the Gospel and to see the same miracles of Christ. But seeing, they did not see, and hearing, they did not hear. That is, according to the interpretation of Chrysostom: “Knowing and willing, they obstinately closed their eyes and deafened their ears.” This is clear from the example of the Pharisees whom both John and Christ had told to repent. Christ had performed great miracles before them. Although they knew that “He was a teacher come from God” (John 3:2), “nevertheless they despised the plan of God for them” (Luke 7:30). They kept saying that Christ was doing His miracles through Beelzebub, the prince of demons (Matt. 12:[24]), and they were saying this contrary to the testimony of their own conscience. That is why Christ preaches to them about the sin against the Holy Spirit ([Matt. 12]:30–31). John 5:44: “They loved the glory of men more than the glory of God.” Therefore Christ declares that, by the just judgment of God, if they will not be converted through His preaching of the Word, what they have will be taken from them, namely, the very ability to hear as well as the other gifts God had thus far granted them; instead, He will allow them to increase their pile of sins. We have already explained in what respect one should attribute to God what is said in Isaiah about their blindness and hardness [On Providence (Commonplace IX), § 119].
For good reason we prefer this explanation, which is drawn from the very circumstances of the text and which agrees with the analogy of faith, to Calvin’s commentary on this passage: “Christ says that He is speaking obscurely to the multitude because they are not partakers of the true light. Nevertheless, when He says that a veil is placed over the blind that they may remain in their darkness, He does not lay the blame for this at their feet.” (Note: [Calvin] denies even that the blame for their blindness lies in the wicked themselves. Therefore will it be in God alone? What sacrilege!) “Rather, He commends the grace given to the apostles more because it is not equally common to all. Therefore He does not assign the cause for this outside of the secret counsel of God. Although the reason for this counsel is hidden from us, nevertheless it is plain to Him,” etc. Those are Calvin’s words.
Sixth, the apostles were forbidden to speak in Asia and Bithynia (Acts 16[:6]).
§ 144. Their sixth argument is this: “In Acts 16:6, Paul and Silas are forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the Word in Asia and Bithynia. Therefore God was absolutely unwilling for the peoples of those provinces to be converted and saved.”
We respond. (1) From Acts 2:9 it is clear that the peoples of Asia had heard the apostles preaching the mighty works of God in their own tongues before that time. Therefore the Gospel could not have been completely unknown to them. Acts 6:9: “Some from Asia disputed with Stephen.” In Acts 19:[9–11] Paul stayed in Ephesus for two years, arguing daily in the hall of Tyrannus, “so that all the residents of Asia heard the Word of the Lord, both Jews and Gentiles. And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul,” so that Paul converted almost all of Asia (v. 26). In 1 Cor. 16:19 he greets the Corinthians “in the name of the churches in Asia.” In his First Epistle, Peter writes “to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Asia and Bithynia” (1 Pet. 1:1). In Rev. 1:4 and 11, John writes “to the seven churches which are in Asia.” Therefore Ambrose (De vocat. gent., bk. 2, ch. 1) is correct in saying, “The grace of God was not denied to those peoples but, as it appeared, was delayed.”
(2) Therefore one must not imagine an absolute decree here, but should acknowledge the supremely wise disposition of the divine ordinance, according to which God (for the sake of5 producing more fruit, no doubt), wanted His Word to be preached first in Macedonia (Glossa ordinaria). The provinces from which the apostles were banned were listed so that others might preach in them. So John and Philip evangelized in Asia Minor and Luke in Bithynia. The door of faith had not yet been opened in Asia and Bithynia, nor were those peoples going to receive salvation at that time (Glossa interlin.).
(3) It is not right to infer from that specific, solemn, and temporary denial of the preaching of the Word that every and all means of conversion were simply denied them.
(4) Neither is it correct to conclude “they were denied the preaching of the Word; therefore they were denied it by an absolute decree of reprobation.” We showed the contrary in its own place [§ 15].
Seventh, Psalm 147[:20]: “He has not dealt thus with every nation.”
§ 145. Finally, quite frequently in this matter something that was said comparatively and in a certain respect is taken as an absolute and universal declaration. Thus what is said in Ps. 147:19, that “God declared His word to Jacob,” that is, to the descendants of Jacob, and in v. 20, that “He has not dealt thus with every nation,” should be understood comparatively. You see, though God did not call the Gentiles in the same way as He called the Israelites, and though the same measure of grace of the calling of God was not offered them, they were not absolutely and simply rejected, as the many examples of proselytes show. (See Ambrose, De vocat. gent., bk. 1, ch. 2.)
Christ says to His heavenly Father in John 17:6: “I have manifested Your name to the people whom You gave Me out of the world.” This must not be taken to mean the preaching of the Gospel, which was done for all by the command of Christ Himself (Matt. 28:19; Mark 16:15). Rather, it is to be taken to mean the true and living knowledge, saving faith, which befits only the regenerate, and persevering faith, which befits only the elect. Through the Holy Spirit, God earnestly desires to kindle this faith in the hearts of those to whom the Word is preached outwardly. However, many resist the Holy Spirit, despise the counsel of God, and judge themselves as unworthy of eternal life. Thus the apostle says, 1 Cor. 1:26–27: “Consider your call, brethren. Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth, but God chose what is foolish in the world.” Likewise, this should not be taken as a reference to that general calling where, so far as God is concerned, all people are invited to repentance and salvation by the voice of the heavenly Word. Rather, it is to be taken as a reference to that specific calling where, so far as man is concerned, His call is not rejected but due obedience is given to it inwardly through the efficacy of the Holy Spirit. This is the sense of the word “calling” used in Rom. 8:29.
§ 146. Those are the four pillars upon which we rely in our opposition to the absolute decree of reprobation. We necessarily strengthened them on the basis of Scripture and defended them from the assaults of our opponents. As long as these pillars stand, the absolute decree falls; but if the absolute decree stands, these pillars fall. [1] God earnestly desires all to be saved. [2] In Adam, God made all men after His own image, part of which is immortality. [3] With His obedience and satisfaction, Christ earned salvation for all. [4] In the Word the Holy Spirit offers the means of salvation to all. Therefore no one has been excluded from salvation by an absolute decree.
1 On the will of the sign and the will of good-pleasure, see above, On Providence (Commonplace IX), § 113.
2 An allusion to the antiphon “Veni Sancte Spiritus, reple tuorum corda fidelium” (Benedictines of Solesmes, ed., The Liber Usualis [New York: Desclee, 1962], 1837–38; cf. Lutheran Service Book: Agenda [St. Louis: Concordia, 2006], 161).
3 Read originalem labem with Cotta.
4 Read doctus with Cotta instead of ductus.
5 Read causa instead of Ergo, based on conjectured typesetter’s mistake of E. for C.