Query 10. Christ as a Gift in the Gospel Offer
QUERY 10. — Can the revelation of the divine will in the word — affording a warrant to offer Christ to all, and a warrant to all to receive him —be said to be the Father’s making of a deed of gift and grant of Christ to all mankind? Is this grant to all mankind by sovereign grace? And is it absolute or conditional?
Ans. — Here we are directed to that part of our Representation where we complain that the following passage is condemned: “The Father has made a deed of gift or grant to all mankind, that whoever of them shall believe in his Son, shall not perish;” and where we say that, “This treatment of the passage seems to encroach on the warrants mentioned, and also on sovereign grace which has made this grant, not to devils, but to men, in terms which none can be imagined more extensive;” which is agreeable to what we have already said in our Representation. We answer to the first part of the question, that by the “deed of gift or grant to all mankind.” we understand no more than the revelation of the divine will in the word, affording warrant to offer Christ to all, and a warrant to all to receive him; for although we believe that the purchase and application of redemption is peculiar to the elect, who were given by the Father to Christ in the counsel of peace, yet the warrant to receive him is common to all. Ministers, by virtue of the commission they have received from their great Lord and Master, are authorized and instructed to go preach the gospel to every creature, i.e., to make a full, free, and unhampered offer of him, his grace, righteousness, and salvation, to every rational soul to whom they may in providence have access to speak. And if we had a voice like a trumpet, that could reach all the corners of the earth, we think we would be bound, by virtue of our commission, to lift it up, and say, “To you men we call, and our voice is to the sons of men. God has so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” This “deed of gift and grant, that whoever believes in Christ shall not perish,” etc., is not called a “deed of gift, and grant of Christ,” either in our Representation or in the passages of the book condemned on that topic. Yet being required to give our judgment in this point, we think that, agreeable to the Holy Scripture, it may be so called, as it particularly appears from the text last cited, John 3.16.
There, by giving Christ, we understand not only his eternal destination by the Father to be the Redeemer of an elect world, and giving him unto death for them, in the fulness of time, but more especially giving him in the word to all, to be received and believed in. ‘The giving here cannot be a giving in possession, which is peculiar only to those who actually believe; rather, it must be such a giving, granting, or offering, as warrants a man to believe or receive the gift; and it must therefore be anterior to actual believing. This is evident enough from the text itself: he gave him, “that whoever believes in him should not perish,” etc. The context also, to us, puts it beyond controversy: the brazen serpent was given, and lifted up as a common good to the whole camp of Israel, that being stung by the fiery serpents,whoever in all the camp looked to it, might not die, but live. So here Christ is given to a lost world, in the word, “that whoever believes in him should not perish,” etc. And in this respect, we think, Christ is a common Saviour, and his salvation is a common salvation; and it is “glad tidings of great joy to all people,” that unto us (not to angels that fell) this Son is given, and this Child is born, whose name is called Wonderful, etc., Isa. 9.6.
We have a Scripture that is also to this purpose, John 6.32, where Christ, speaking to a promiscuous multitude, makes a comparison between himself and the manna that fell about the tents of Israel in the wilderness, saying, “My Father gives you the true bread from heaven.” As the simple raining of the manna about their camp is called a giving (ver. 31), before it was tasted or fed upon, so the very revelation and offer of Christ is called (according to the judicious Calvin on the passage) a giving of him, before he is received and believed on.
We also read of this giving of Christ to lost mankind in 1John 5.11, “And this is the record, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.” This giving in the text is not, we conceive, a giving in possession, in greater or lesser measure, but a giving by way of grant and offer, whereupon one may warrantably take possession. And the party to whom the grant is made, is not only the elect, but lost mankind; for the record of God here must be such a thing as warrants all to believe on the Son of God, But it cannot be any such warrant to tell, “that God has given eternal life to the elect.” For making a gift to a certain select company of persons can never be a warrant for all men to receive or take possession of it. This will be further evident if we consider that the great sin of unbelief does not lie in believing this record of God, — “He that does not believe has made God a liar,” says the apostle, ver. 10, “because he does not believe the record that God gave of his Son;” and then it follows in ver. 11, “And this is the record, that God has given us eternal life,” etc. Now, are we to think that rejecting the record of God is a bare disbelieving of this proposition: “That God has given eternal life to the elect”? Surely not; for the most desperate unbelievers, such as Judas and others, believe this; and their belief of it adds to their anguish and torment. Or by believing this, do they set their seal to it, that God is true? No; notwithstanding all this, they continue to make him out to be a liar in “not believing this record of God,” that by way of grant, God has given eternal life to lost mankind, and to themselves in particular. So they, as well as others, are warranted and welcome to believe it; and everyone to whom it comes, at their peril, are required to receive or take possession of it by faith. By not receiving this gifted and offered remedy, with application and appropriation, they fly in the face of God’s record and testimony; and therefore they justly and deservedly perish, because the righteousness, salvation, and kingdom of God, was brought so near to them in the free offer of the gospel, and yet they would not take it. We think the great pinch and strait of an awakened conscience does not lie in believing that God has given eternal life to the elect; but in believing or receiving Christ, offered to us in the gospel, with particular application to the man himself. In Scripture this is called “eating the flesh, and drinking the blood of the Son of man.” Yet, till this difficulty is surmounted in greater or lesser measure, someone can never be said to believe in Christ, or to receive and rest upon him for salvation. The very taking or receiving must presuppose a giving of Christ; and this giving may occur (and it does for the most part) where there is no receiving. But there can be no receiving of Christ for salvation where there is no revelation of Christ in the word of the gospel, affording a sinner the warrant to receive him; and then, by the effectual operation of the Spirit, persuading and enabling the sinner to embrace him upon this warrant and offer. “A man,” says the Spirit of God in John 3.27, “can receive nothing, unless it is given him from heaven.” Hence Mr. Rutherford, in his “Christ Dying and Drawing,” etc., page 442, says that “reprobates have as fair a warrant to believe as the elect have.”
As to the second part of this question, i.e., “Is this grant made to all mankind by sovereign grace? And, Is it absolute or conditional?” we answer that this grant, made in common to lost mankind, is from sovereign grace only. And because it is the ministers’ warrant to offer Christ to all, and the people’s warrant to receive him, it cannot fail to be absolutely free. Yet this is such that none can be possessed of Christ and his benefits, until they receive him by faith.