Introduction
This
text from God’s holy Word has caused problems of interpretation in the past and
seems to continue to cause such problems … [Appeal] is constantly being made to
this passage as proof of common grace … an innovation and heresy which is
contrary to Scripture and to the Reformed creeds, including the Belgic
Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Canons of Dort, and
the Westminster Confessions. It
is not an exaggeration to say that this passage (along with its parallel
passage in Luke 6:27-28) has been quoted more than any other passage of God’s
Word in support of God’s love and favor to all men, which is the central
doctrine of common grace—as the very name “common grace” indicates …
[In
discussing this passage, we] will refer to just one work in proof of the
contention that this passage is used as proof for common grace.
John
Murray, native of the British Isles, well-known theologian and former professor
in Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, U.S.A., writes in connection
with this passage:
There is a love in God that goes forth to lost
men and is manifest in the manifold blessings which all men without distinction
enjoy, a love in which non-elect persons are embraced … (Collected Writings,
vol. I, pp. 67-68).
Interestingly,
Murray insists that the love of God for all men is rooted in the cross of Jesus
Christ and His redemptive work on the cross: “Many benefits accrue to the
non-elect from the redemptive work of Christ” (Idem., p. 63).
Mr.
Murray represents a number of theologians who have taken the same position.
Their
argument seems to go something like this.
(1) We must love our enemies.
(2) In loving our enemies, we will, as God’s
children, reflect God’s love.
(3) If we reflect God’s love in loving our
enemies, it must be that God also loves His enemies.
(4) God’s enemies are all men.
(5) The proof that God loves all men, so it
is said, lies in the fact that God makes His rain to fall and His sun to shine
on all men, not only the good and just, but also the evil and unjust.
Before
we go into an explanation of this passage, it might be well to point out a few
problems with the interpretation that has been offered by Murray and
others. One problem which immediately
stares us in the face is the fact that nowhere does the text say either that
God loves all men, or that rain and sunshine are in themselves indications of
God’s love and grace to all men.
However
we may finally interpret the passage, everyone will have to admit that these
are conclusions which the passage itself does not say.
Common grace and particular atonement
Not
all have been as bold as John Murray [to assert that “many benefits accrue to
the non-elect from the redemptive work of Christ”]. Some supporters of common
race have been reluctant to say that common grace is earned by Christ in His cross.
They have recognized the fact that this
idea leads to a certain universalizing of the atoning death of Christ, and
have, as any Reformed man would, shied away from such a view.
But
such a reluctance solves no problems. If
God is gracious to all men, and if common grace is not rooted in the cross, the
question comes with sharp force: “Where does that grace come from?”
Grace is unmerited favor. The wicked do not merit it. Who does merit it if
Christ does not? That question, asked so often, has forced most defenders of common
grace to say, after all, that this grace comes from the cross.
But
then one is forced into a position which is a flat denial of all that Reformed
and Presbyterian churches have ever stood for: the particular and limited
character of the work of Christ on the cross.
Many
today deny the truth of limited atonement or, as some prefer to call it,
particular redemption. But by denying this truth, they set themselves against
all the creeds of the Reformation and, indeed, against the Reformers
themselves.
Christ
died for a limited number of people. That limited number is the elect given to
Christ from all eternity. This is the teaching of Scripture and the Reformed
creeds. This is genuinely Reformed doctrine.
But
Murray denies this—as do all those who teach that common grace is merited by
Christ on the cross.
It
is argued, of course, that “common grace is not saving grace.” But what good does it do to argue that way? Did
Christ die to earn saving grace for His elect people? but also to die to earn
common grace for all men? Did Christ, when He cried out “it is finished!” mean:
“I have done all that must be done to pay for the sins of my people and to earn
for them eternal life, and I have done all that needs to be done to earn a
certain grace for all men which will not save them?” Any one can see that this gets to be nonsense.
Besides,
Murray himself, recognizing the nonsense of this, emphatically says, “Many
benefits accrue to the non-elect from the redemptive work of Christ” (Ibid.). All the grace which the reprobate receive is
earned through Christ’s redemptive work!
But
how can that be?
Christ
performs a redemptive work which does not redeem.
Christ
earns a grace which does not save.
Christ
dies for those redemptively who go to hell.
Such
a position is simply intolerable and contrary to all that the Reformed faith
has stood for these 450 years.
Just
because this position is so intolerable, churches who have advocated such a
position have been unable to maintain it, but have gone in the direction of
open universalism—every man shall someday be saved.
And
this is understandable. Just as soon as
one has sacrificed the limited character of the atoning death of Christ, one
has also made that cross of Christ of none effect. As has been well said, “A Christ for all is a
Christ for none!” If the redemptive work
of Christ does not redeem, our faith is vain and we are yet in our sins.
The
alternative is universalism—Christ died to save all, and all are saved. But then, taking that position, one has
abandoned the Scriptures altogether.
God “hates”
the wicked
Another
objection, equally as serious, must be raised.
That question is: If God loves all men (something which Scripture
nowhere says) why do these same Scriptures teach that God hates the
wicked? …
Scripture
never teaches anywhere that God “blesses” those who are not His own people whom
He has chosen in Christ and for whom Christ died. Let the defenders of common
grace show just one passage that clearly and unambiguously states this.
Scripture
does teach that God curses the wicked.
One such example of this is Proverbs 3:33: “The curse of the Lord is in
the house of the wicked: but he blesseth the habitation of the just.”
How
can anyone get around this clear statement?
It
not only says that God curses the wicked, but emphatically tells us that God’s
curse is in their house. That
Scripture uses this expression, “in their house,” means that God curses them in
all their activities. He curses them when they plant their crops and
reap the fruit. He curses them when they eat the produce of their fields and
store their bounties in granaries. He curses them when they rise up and lie
down; when they are awake and when they are asleep; when they bring forth their
children and raise them; and when they welcome their grandchildren into their
homes. The curse of the Lord is in their house—always, fiercely, destructively,
continuously.
So
Scripture teaches that God hates the wicked.
“The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of
iniquity” (Ps. 5:5). While we quote only this one passage, the reader may
consult Psalm 11:5, Hosea 9:15, Malachi 1:2-3 and Romans 9:13, etc.
The
defenders of common grace say that God loves the wicked; Scripture says
that God hates the wicked.
Notice,
too, that the word Scripture uses is the word “hate.” That
God is angry with the wicked is also true; but God is also angry with us. Anger
is not incompatible with love. A father
who loves his child may very well be angry with it. But God not only is angry with the wicked; He
hates them.
Nor
does the text say, as some are wont to say, God hates the sin, but loves the
sinner. The text says: “thou hatest all workers of
iniquity.” Those are people, not deeds.
Some
have even said that the word “hate” means, “love less.” We ought to have no time for such word
games. If “hate” does not mean “hate,”
we can no longer know anything in the English language.
Others
have said that Scripture teaches both: God loves, and
God hates. But does God love and hate the same person? Does God love and hate
the wicked? Does God, then, perhaps, love and hate me? If words have any
meaning, such nonsense ought to be repudiated out of hand.
There
is a kind of spiritual adultery in this language. The relation between God and
His people is a marriage relation. It is reflected in the marriage of two
saints here below. I know that I do not have to try to tell my wife that I love
other women besides her, even if I carefully explain that my love is
qualitatively different from my love for her.
In marriage, there is room for love for my wife alone. Love for another woman is adultery.
So
it is with God. He loves His people with an everlasting love. He loves them alone. Anything else (I speak
as a man) is a kind of adultery on God’s part.
What about
the “bad” things in life?
Those
who wish to defend common grace and who appeal to this passage in support of
common grace face another problem.
Supposing
for the moment that it is true that rain and sunshine are evidences of God’s
love and favour upon all men, how is it to be explained that floods and
hurricanes also come upon all men?
I
do not know how often I have asked the defenders of common grace to supply an
acceptable answer to this question. I have never received one.
We
must understand the problem. God sends His rain and sunshine (as well as health,
prosperity, fruitful seasons, and all good thing) to His people not only, but
also to the wicked; to the elect not only, but also to the reprobate.
Some
say that these good things are evidences of God’s love and favor towards all
men.
But
these are not the only works of God in creation.
God
sends terrible things as well. God sends floods and hurricanes, tornados and cyclones,
war and destruction, famine and drought, pestilence and sickness. It seems sometimes as if the latter, in fact,
outweigh the former.
But
all these catastrophes and resultant sufferings also come upon all men. They do
not come only on the wicked; they come also upon the people of God. Tornados do not snake their way through towns
avoiding the houses of the righteous.
Floods do not leave the farms and homes of saints untouched. Cancer is not limited to wicked people.
But
if the good things in life are evidences of God’s love and favor, the bad things
in life have to be evidences of His hatred and curse.
But
then we are driven to the conclusion that God hates His people and curses
them when He sends His judgments upon the earth.
How
are the defenders of common grace going to solve that problem?
There
is, in fact, only one way to solve that problem—if one insists on making rain
and sunshine evidences of God’s love for all.
And that is by maintaining that God changes, from moment to moment, in
His attitude towards men.
He
loves the wicked one moment, but a moment later He hates them. He blesses them for one year, but the next
year He curses them. One moment they
bask in the sunshine of His benevolence; the next moment they are crushed
beneath the load of His fury.
But
that is not so bad yet. What about God’s people?
One
moment they are blessed; another moment they are cursed. One moment God loves
them; the next moment God hates them.
That
is dreadful!
How
can we live that way? never knowing how God looks upon us?
And
how can we endure the storms of life and the trials of our pilgrimage if we are
led to believe that a heart attack is God’s hatred and the loss of a loved one
is God’s curse?
If
we had to live that way in the world, only two courses of action commend
themselves: Either eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die; or, commit
suicide and get out of it all, for it is all hopeless.
But
this is not the hope of the child of God. He knows that all things work
together for His good, for he is called according to God’s purpose.
What
a comfort in the sorrows of life!
Good gifts
to all men
It
is now time to look at the text itself.
A good place to start in our analysis of the text is with the second
part of verse 45: “… for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the
good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”
What does that
mean?
We
have no quarrel with those who interpret the words “the evil” and “the
good,” “the just” and “the unjust” as referring to all men,
wicked and righteous alike.
Calvin
himself agrees with this, although he seems to find the first reference, at
least, to God’s people. He writes: “He
[Jesus] quotes two instances of the divine kindness toward us, which are not
only well known to us, but common to all …”
You will note how Calvin speaks first of all of “us,” i.e., God’s people,
of whom we are a part; and then adds that this kindness is also towards all.
Nor
do we have any problem with making rain and sunshine good gifts. How could
anyone possibly deny that? And they are but two examples of God’s good gifts
which He bestows on men.
So
certainly the text teaches that God bestows good gifts on men in general. I really do not know anyone in the history of
the Reformed churches who has ever denied that.
Nor ought the defenders of common grace accuse us of denying that God gives
good gifts to men. How could He do anything else? Does God give bad
gifts? “Every good gift and every perfect
gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no
variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17).
But
that is not the point in the controversy, and men do unjustly when they attempt
to make that the point. The point is: Do
good gifts to the ungodly indicate that God loves them and is gracious to
them? That the gifts are good, no
one denies; that they indicate God’s love to the wicked is simply impossible.
I
do not know why this is so hard to understand. Parents do the same thing with
their children. They may, e.g., be so busy in their jobs, in their
pleasure-seeking, in their pursuit of wealth, that they have no time for their children. They then decide to make up for this lack by
heaping all kinds of expensive toys on their children. Are those expensive toys (good gifts in
themselves) indicative of love? Of
course not. A child may very well complain to his father, “I would rather have
your love!”
The
simple fact is that good things are not in themselves “blessings”—not even when
they come from the hand of God; and no one ought to say that they are.
Why
does God give good gifts to men? We may
look at this from two points of view.
If
we look at it from man’s point of view, the answer is that God gives
good gifts so that it may become evident that man is thoroughly wicked in all
he does. The more good gifts man
receives, the more he fails to recognize God as the Giver, and the more he
reveals his wicked and ungrateful heart.
If
we look at the matter from God’s point of view, God gives good gifts so
that when He punishes the wicked for their sins it may be evident that He does
so in full justice—He gave nothing but good to man, but man uses these good
gifts to sin. His judgment is just and
righteous.
Indeed,
from the viewpoint of God’s eternal purpose, God sends these gifts to
accomplish His own sovereign decree in the everlasting punishment of the wicked
in the way of their sin.
It
would be well if you would read Psalm 73 tonight for your devotions. God, in sending prosperity to the wicked,
puts them on slippery places, where they coast rapidly into hell.
This,
Asaph understood when he went into the house of the Lord.
Blessings to the elect, curses to the reprobate
Before
we go on in our discussion of this passage, we ought to emphasize once more the
fundamental point that rain and sunshine are not in themselves indications of
God’s love or grace—any more than floods and hurricanes are, in themselves,
indications of God’s hatred.
Things,
mere things, are neither blessing nor curse.
God
always accomplishes His own sovereign purpose in all that He does.
God
sends the good things in life to bring destruction upon the wicked in
the way of their sin. But God sends
these same good things in life to His people to bless them and bring them
salvation.
God
also sends the evil things in life to bring destruction upon the wicked
in the way of their sin. Drought and
pestilence, cancer and heart disease, are judgments of God against the sinner.
But drought and pestilence, cancer and heart disease, are blessings to
God’s people, for they are means in God’s hand to work salvation to His elect.
“All
things work together for good,” Paul writes, “to them who love God, to them who
are the called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28).
Paul
is filled with awe at this truth and expresses it in what is almost a doxology,
when he says to the Corinthians, “Therefore let no man glory in men. For all
things are your’s, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life,
or death, or things present, or things to come; all are your’s; and ye are
Christ’s; and Christ is God’s” (I Cor. 3:21-23).
The
Psalmist speaks even of the blessings of affliction when he writes: “Before I
was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word” (Ps. 119:67). And, lest there be any mistake, he adds: “It
is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes” (v.
71). In versifying this thought, the church has correctly sung: “Affliction
hath been for my profit, That I to Thy statutes might hold.”
It
is striking that the Psalmist speaks of his afflictions and the profit of them
in contrast to the prosperity of the wicked: “The proud have forged a lie
against me: but I will keep thy precepts with my whole heart. Their heart is as
fat as grease; but I delight in thy law” (vv. 69-70).
All
things are curses to the wicked, for “the curse of the Lord is in the house of
the wicked;” but all things are blessings for His people, for “He blesseth the
habitation of the just” (Prov. 3:33).
The
problem is that we always think of blessings and curses in the light of what we
happen to want, or what we happen to dislike. But we often want the wrong things, things
that are not good for us, things that will harm our spiritual life. If God sends them, we think we are blessed—when,
in fact, we may very well be cursed. How
true it is, e.g., that sometimes we think that riches are blessings in our own
lives, when they really destroy us spiritually.
And
also the opposite is true: We are quick to complain in affliction that God does
not bless us and that His heavy hand upon us must be evidence of His curse. But
it may very well be that these very afflictions are the means God uses to fit
and form us for our place in glory. He is, after all, the Master Builder and He
shapes and forms His people for their place in His temple.
We
have to get rid of the notion, once and for all, that blessings are in things
and that curses are in troubles.
Scripture contradicts it on every page.
If we could once get rid of that notion, we would have no trouble with
common grace either. And we would open up treasures of comfort.
There
is no comfort in the notion that blessings are in things—for when I have
nothing, I can then only conclude that I am being cursed. And this is unbearable
for the saint, for the lovingkindness of his God is more than life to him.
But
when all things are for his good, then he can be “patient in adversity;
thankful in prosperity; and that in all things which may hereafter befall us,
we place our firm trust in our faithful God and Father …” (Heidelberg
Catechism, LD 10).
Love for enemies
We
ought at this point to return again to the text.
And
then it is good to pay special attention to the content and the passage as a
whole.
These
words appear in the Sermon on the Mount, which some have correctly
called, “The Constitution of the Kingdom of Heaven.” It is important to
remember that. We have here instruction as to the conduct of those who are
made, by a wonder of grace, citizens of the kingdom of heaven.
From
verse 21 on, the Lord contrasts the principles governing the life of citizens
of the kingdom with the precepts of the Jews—who claimed to be citizens of the
kingdom, but were not. Each section begins with, “Ye have heard that it hath
been said …”
Here
we have the same thing.
The Jews, in a miserable perversion of the
law, defined their neighbor (whom God commanded them to love) as anyone who did
good to them. But their enemy was not
their neighbor.
Jesus
says: In the kingdom of heaven, the love we are commanded to have for our
neighbor comes to fullest manifestation. We are to love our enemies, bless them
that curse us, do good to them that hate us, and pray for them who persecute
us.
As
citizens of the kingdom of heaven, we are also sons of God. God, who brings us by sovereign grace into
His kingdom, also makes us His sons.
We are His dear children.
We
are, by nature, enemies of the kingdom and enemies of God. We hate Him and hate our neighbor. But He
saves us, and so we become citizens of the kingdom and sons and daughters in
His family.
As
sons and daughters, we are to imitate our Father, just as any son who loves his
father imitates him. (see also Eph. 5:1-2, where the word in the KJV, “followers,”
is actually, “imitators.”)
And
here is the rub.
The
defenders of common grace want to make verse 45b refer to God’s love for all
men.
It
is true that we are called to love our neighbors, i.e., all with whom we come
into contact. And it is true that in
this we are called to imitate our Father in heaven.
But
it does not follow from this, as the supporters of common grace maintain, that
God loves all men. That argument is
fallacious.
There
is one crucial point which we must not forget.
It is surely true that God loves His enemies, blesses them that curse
Him, and does good to them that hate Him.
But these enemies are His own children as they are by nature. God loved us when we were enemies
(Rom. 5:8). That is the wonder of
salvation.
We
must never forget the doctrine of predestination. He has redeemed them in the blood of His own
Son. His love for them is eternal and unchangeable, in Jesus Christ. It is a love which they do not deserve. He loved them though they were His enemies.
And
that is precisely what we must imitate!
This
is not only an objective fact; this is a subjective and pressing truth! If we know
that love of God, that love for us who are worthless and undeserving sinners,
and if we experience it in our hearts, then we are confronted with the urgent
and pressing obligation to love those who are our enemies.
It
is only a little thing that we love our enemies. It is an enormous thing
that God loves us.
In
the kingdom, we experience God’s great love. We, as citizens of the kingdom,
are called to love—even those who hate us and persecute us. Then we show that
we are children of our Father in heaven.
What
a beautiful truth. And what an urgent
calling!
What is love?
One
more aspect of this truth must be discussed: What does it mean to love? What
does it mean for us that we are to love God? What is God’s love that we are
called to imitate?
It
is not so easy to get a hold of a proper conception of love in the middle of
all the sloppy sentimentality of our day.
It is not romantic attraction. It
is not sentimental affection or feeling. It is not sloppy romanticism—not in
the kingdom of heaven, of which Jesus is speaking. We have to put all these notions aside.
We
must let Scripture itself tell us what love is; and, surprisingly enough,
Scripture offers what is a formal definition of love. We can find it in Colossians 3:14: “And above
all these things, put on charity (love), [and now the definition] which is the
bond of perfectness.”
So,
according to God’s own Word, love is a bond. That is, it is fellowship, friendship,
communion between two or more people.
But
it is a bond of perfectness—it can exist only between holy people who
rejoice in each other’s holiness and moral perfection.
Now
we must apply that definition to God, first of all.
God
loves Himself! We must start there.
God
has fellowship with Himself in the bonds of the trinity as the three holy
persons of the sacred trinity dwell together in perfect fellowship.
This
is possible because God is perfect.
He is the altogether holy One in whom is not the least taint of
imperfection.
God
loves us; He establishes a bond of fellowship with His people; but because this
bond is characterized by perfectness, God cannot love His people as
they are in themselves; He loves them in Christ, in whom all the elect
are perfectly righteous and holy.
God’s
love is sovereign. It is, itself, a love that saves. It is powerful and
efficacious. It is irresistible. It sweeps the elect in Christ out of sin into
perfect fellowship with the thrice-holy God.
God
knows His own and loves them, while He hates the wicked with a perfect
hatred. Because love is always saving
love, the objects can be only the elect.
In love, God seeks (and actually accomplishes) their salvation.
That
love must be reflected in us who have the love of God shed abroad within our
hearts.
Two
things about God’s love are true which can never be true of our love.
One
is that God knows who are His elect; we do not know this. And the second is
that our love for others can never be sovereignly efficacious—we cannot have a
love which saves; if we could, every covenant parent would save his/her wayward
child.
But
for the rest, we must imitate God’s love.
First
of all, that means that when we love our neighbor, we must seek his
salvation. We must do good in the sense of helping him in his need—of
course—but that is never enough. We must seek that ultimate and final good: his
salvation. We must testify and witness
to him of the gospel, tell him of the need to repent of sin, show him the blessedness
of salvation in the cross of Christ, and speak of the great mercy of God shown
to us. That is love.
Secondly,
we must do this to all, for we know not, among all our neighbors, who
are God’s elect.
Thirdly,
we may not, in our love, have a full bond of fellowship. Our love is a one-way street. We may not attend his parties, socialize in
his home, and have friendship with him—for by doing so we become a partaker of his
sin (James 4:4).
And
finally, that kind of love will always have its effect.
If
that person is one of God’s elect, God will use our witness to bring that
person to repentance, so that the full bond of the fellowship of love can now
enrich both our lives.
If
that person is not one of God’s elect, the witness which we make will harden him
in his sin as he becomes angry with us for testifying against his sin and
witnessing to the truth. And the result will be that he will not even permit us
to witness any longer.
But
in all this we are the children of our Father in heaven. He does good to us—far
beyond our imagination! How can we do
anything else but do good to others? And through it all, God will accomplish His
own sovereign purpose. “Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love
thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies,
bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them
which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of
your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and
on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love
them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?
And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even
the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in
heaven is perfect.”
---------------------------------------------------
(II)
[Source:
Common Grace Considered [2019
edition], pp. 145-153]
In
general, there is no question about it that this is a key passage in the
defense of God’s attitude of grace and love towards all men. Every defender of
common grace that I have read or listened to has quoted this text as decisive
in the debate. And all defenders of common grace assure us that this passage
ought to mark the end of all debate.
The
text itself reads:
But I say unto you, Love your enemies,
bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them
which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of
your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on
the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
The argument, as I understand it, goes like this: God sends rain on the just and on the unjust. The common rain that God sends is proof of His favor, love, kindness, etc., towards the unregenerate. Rain is God’s common grace.
Sometimes
the argument is turned around, in the interests of showing that all who receive
rain actually do receive favor. The argument goes like this: We are called to
do good to the just and to the unjust. For us, that “doing good” to the just
and unjust includes all men without any distinction, or, at least, includes
elect and reprobate alike, for we are unable to distinguish between them.
Because we are imitating God as His
children, in doing good to all, God also “does good” to all.
We
may not, however, argue from our calling
to love our neighbor as ourselves to God’s
attitude of favor towards all men. We are creatures, living here in the
world—in the world though not of the world. God is God, sovereign over all who does all His good pleasure. Known unto
God are all His works from the beginning. We do not know who are God’s elect
and who are reprobate. But God does
know, for He determines it all. We ought to keep this in mind.
An
important question that arises from the text is: Whom does Jesus mean by “the just and unjust” upon whom God sends
rain? Does Jesus mean good men in
this world and bad men in this world?
That is, men who deserve rain and
sunshine and men who do not? The
answer, very obviously, is this: The text cannot mean that, for there are no just people in the world,
for “there is none righteous, no, not
one” (Rom 3:10).
Does
it, then, mean to distinguish between those
who are righteous because the perfect satisfaction for sin earned on the
cross has been imputed to them, and those
who are still in their sins and not righteous in Christ? That is, is the
distinction between “just and unjust” a distinction between elect and
reprobate? It would seem that the latter would have to be the meaning. But then
the text means only, as we have repeatedly observed, that God manifests that He
is a good God by giving good things to men (something no one
denies). The question still remains, however: What is God’s attitude and purpose behind these good gifts? And
then Psalm 73 and Proverbs 3:33 give us the answer.
But
the whole idea that God “loves the reprobate” is an imposition on the text of
man’s own devising.
* * * * * *
A
positive explanation of the text would, I think, be helpful …
Before
I take our journey through this text, it is necessary to put the text into its context.
In
the broader context, Scripture gives us Jesus’ words in His “Sermon on the
Mount.” This sermon is spoken to the disciples and, more broadly, to all
citizens of the kingdom of heaven. The “Sermon on the Mount” has frequently and
rightly been called, “The Constitution of the Kingdom of Heaven.” After
describing the characteristics of the citizens of the kingdom in the
“Beatitudes,” the Lord lays down fundamental principles that govern the lives
of these citizens while they are still in this world. Note this: Jesus is
laying down principles of conduct to be observed by those who are citizens of
the kingdom.
In
the section of which verses 44-45 are a part, beginning with verse 21, Jesus is
explaining how He “did not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it.” And in
connection with His calling and work to fulfill the law, He condemns the
keeping of the law as it was explained by the scribes and Pharisees. They saw
the law only as an external code of conduct and paid no attention to the spiritual demands of the law: Love God,
and love thy neighbor. Even to the command, “Love thy neighbor,” the Pharisees
had added the command, “and hate thy enemy” (v. 43). This interpretation was
indeed what the Pharisees taught, for in verses 46 and 47 the Lord adds, “For
if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans
the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? Do
not even the publicans the same?”
The
evil interpretation of the law by the Pharisees was basically a self-centered conceit: I will be nice only to those who are nice to me …
In
other words, the command of God to love our neighbors as ourselves had been
corrupted and abused by the self-righteous Pharisees and scribes. They had
interpreted “neighbor” as referring to their brethren, and, even more narrowly, to those who loved them. The Lord warns the citizens of the kingdom not to do as the Pharisees, for that is
not the law of God.
But
the Pharisees forgot that the command to love our neighbor is rooted in and
flows from the command to love God.
We cannot love our neighbor without loving God. And, indeed, our love for our
neighbor is a manifestation of our love for God. Furthermore, the love that the
citizens of the kingdom (who love God) must show to others is a manifestation
of the fact that they are loved by God
(I John 4:19). The Pharisees, when they interpreted the command, “Love thy
neighbor as thyself,” and interpreted it to mean that we are to love those who love us, immediately had to
face the question: Does God love those
who love Him? What a foolish question to ask. The answer obviously is, He does not! Jesus’ answer demonstrates that God loves those who hate Him, though they be
elect.
The
term “neighbor,” in the law of God, is broader by far than our brethren and
those who love us. That it has a broader
connotation is evident from the parable of “The Good Samaritan” (Luke
10:25-37). In this parable, Jesus explains that we are neighbors to anyone whom we meet or walk with on our
life’s pathway, who is in need of our help. That means that our neighbors
are not only those who unexpectedly cross our pathway and need our help, but
also those with whom we walk on life’s pathway every moment of our lives, but who need our help: our wives, our
husbands, our children, our fellow saints, etc.
Quite frankly, I have a great deal of difficulty accepting the
hypocritically pious prating of the ministers who are continuously telling us
to love our neighbor, but who divorce
their own wives and marry others. Let them first love their neighbor nearest to them: their wives and their
children.
For
all that, we are also called to love the neighbor who is quite obviously an unbeliever—that is, we are called to
love our neighbor without discriminating
between those who love us and those who persecute us. We are not to love
those only who love us. God does not love those who love Him. God does not love
those who make themselves worthy of
His love. He loves us—the worst of sinners. If we are children of our Father, therefore,
we must love those who do not love us.
But those whom God loves are those wicked and undeserving people who are
nevertheless those for whom Christ died.
The
point of comparison between God’s love
and our love is: God loves unworthy sinners (though they are the elect whom God
knows) and we are to love unworthy sinners (though we do not know elect from
reprobate). In doing so, we imitate our Father in heaven.
We
may very well ask the question: Why does
God want us to love our neighbor and not only our brethren? The very obvious answer to that question is
this: We do not know who are our brethren
(or will become our brethren) and who are
not. That is why the Pharisees interpreted the command to love our neighbor
as referring to those who love them. If, said the Pharisees, a person loves us,
he must be one of our brethren and we ought to love him.
This
was very perverse and wicked. We do not even know with absolute certainty who
among our brethren are truly people of God; much less do we know of those outside the circle of our brethren who
are true people of God. Luther was right
when he said that there would be many in heaven who surprised him by their
presence, and there would be many he thought to meet in heaven who were not
there. Hypocrites are to be found in the church and God’s people are to be
found outside the circle of “brethren,” though they may, as yet, be
unconverted. God knows who are His own; we do not know with absolute certainty.
Nor need we know. It is enough for us to live in fellowship with those who
manifest themselves as faithful servants of Christ, with whom we live in our
homes and in the communion of the saints. Going back all the way to Calvin and
our Reformed fathers after him and following them, we must exercise towards
those who profess to be believers “the judgment of charity,” or “the judgment
of love.”
But
God is pleased to save His church from the world of unbelief. He is pleased to
save His church by the preaching of the gospel. The effect of the preaching of
the gospel is that God’s people are His witnesses in the world of sin; and the
witness of God’s people is, itself, the power of the preaching within them. God
uses the witness of Christians to bring His people outside the church into the
fellowship of the saints and under the preaching. This is God’s reason for the
command to love our neighbor.
As
Jesus makes clear, our neighbor is anyone who comes in our pathway: our wives
or husbands, our children, our fellow saints, the man next to us in the shop,
the man who knocks on our door to ask for food, the man who threatens us with
harm, the man who persecutes us—these, and all the rest, who, if only
fleetingly, enter our lives. God brings them there. God has His purpose in
bringing them there. That purpose is to hear our witness of what God has done
for us. We “do good” to those on our pathway whom God has put there.
We
who are husbands surely seek the salvation of our wives. We do all we can to
help them fulfill their own calling in the home and in the church. We surely
seek the salvation of our children, for we teach them the ways of God’s covenant
and insist that they walk in those ways. We surely seek the salvation of our
fellow saints, for we earnestly desire to go to heaven with them.
The
command to love our neighbor is broader
than showing love to our acquaintances. We are to love those whose pathway
crosses our pathway, and who, like the wounded Samaritan, block our path so
that we have to go around them if we are to ignore them. God put him on our
pathway and did so for a good purpose.
Our
neighbor is emphatically someone on our
pathway. To love my neighbor who lives in Zaire is very easy. Even if, occasionally, I have to write out a
check because famine is stalking Africa, to love these neighbors is the easiest
thing in the world. But to love the unkempt and stinking man who knocks on my
door for some food when I am in a rush to meet an appointment with a
parishioner who has just lost a loved one … That is something more difficult.
We
must love the neighbor. Love is not
sentimental and syrupy “do-goodism.” Paul defines “love” as being “the bond of
perfection” (Col. 3:14). Paul means that love binds two people together in a friendship that is characterized by
holiness. So it is within the church. When that love is to be extended to
our “neighbor,” it means that we earnestly
desire the salvation of our neighbor, that he may, through faith in Christ,
be perfect also, and that, saved by God’s grace, he may be one with whom we
live in the communion of the saints. Love always seeks the salvation even of those that hate and curse us, despitefully
use us and persecute us, for they may very well be brought to faith in
Christ by our love for them.
Love
is not, therefore, having fellowship with them in their sins, going to parties
and sporting events with them, visiting them in their homes for amiable chats
in front of the fireplace, or having a beer with them at the local pub. To seek
their salvation is to reprove their sins,
call them to repentance and faith in
Christ, and point them to the way of
salvation. When God shows mercy to us,
He shows mercy to the unthankful and evil. We, moved deeply by such a mercy, do
likewise.
To
love them is, therefore, to do good to them and to pray for them, for this is what the Lord
enjoins. Our concern for their salvation must be earnest, heart-felt and rooted
in a genuine desire to see them one with us. But it is always a reflection in
our lives of God’s love for us, undeserving sinners. God does not love those who do good to Him, who deserve His love. He loves the unthankful and evil But He loves them in Christ—He seeks their salvation by sending His own Son into the
world to suffer and die, and does all that is necessary to bring them to
heaven.
As
I said, witnessing has the same power as preaching. Preaching brings to faith
in Christ; so does witnessing. Preaching is directed to far more people than
the elect; so is witnessing. Preaching condemns sin and calls to faith in
Christ; so does witnessing. Preaching is a two-edged sword that hardens as well
as saves; so is witnessing. Witnessing is a sort of echo or reverberation of
the preaching—preaching that we have heard and by which we have a faith that
echoes in our witnessing. The two belong together. God uses promiscuous
preaching to save His elect; so also He uses witnessing to bring His elect to
the preaching of the gospel, to the fellowship of the church and to faith in
Christ. We must not be as the Pharisees; we must be children of our Father in
heaven.
Considering
these things, we can understand the words:
… that ye may be the children of your
Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the
good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
The
point Jesus is making is that we must do
to others what God has done to us. This is always a theme in Scripture, as
Jesus makes clear in the parable of the two debtors (Matt. 18:21-35). God loves
us and has shown His love for us by giving us Christ and salvation in Him. We
are undeserving sinners who have no claim at all on God’s mercy. We receive
what we do not deserve. If we fail to show this great blessing to our neighbor,
we are thankless and unappreciative, not worthy of the blessings we are given.
If we are aware of the amazing wonder of our salvation and if we have the love
of God shed abroad in our hearts, then we will also be inwardly compelled, by the power of that love, to love our
neighbor as ourselves. That is Jesus’ point in this passage.
If
you say that Jesus points us to the fact that God sends His rain and sunshine
on men indiscriminately, you are, of
course, correct. The point of the terms “just and unjust” is precisely to
demonstrate that God’s love does not
depend on the worthiness of the object. But, further, God always gives only
good gifts. I have pointed out in an
earlier installment that God gives good
gifts, for He is good in Himself. The
good gifts He gives show beyond question the wickedness of the world, for they
despise God’s good gifts and use them in the service of sin. In this way, God
Himself demonstrates that His judgment on the wicked is a judgment they deserve. In His good gifts to the
reprobate, God sets them on “slippery places” where they slide rapidly into
everlasting destruction (Ps. 73:18-19). Behind this just judgment stands the
eternal and unchangeable decree of sovereign predestination.
But
God’s goodness is a manifestation of His grace
to those whom He has chosen in Christ and
for whom Christ died. We are unthankful and evil and deserve nothing. But
God knows us as His own, and knows
all who are His own. He saves us
sovereignly. We do not know who are elect and who are not. We are called to be
witnesses of what God has done for us in the hope that God will do the same to
those to whom we witness. And God will
do what He has eternally planned to do, but in such a way that our witnessing
always accomplishes His purpose whether that means to save or to harden. Or, to
put it a little differently, God, who knows His own in this world, gives good
gifts to them for their salvation;
but He also gives good gifts so that the wicked may be without excuse and God’s purpose in reprobation accomplished. We do
not know who are elect and who are reprobate, but our manifestations of love
have the same affect: they save (by God’s grace) the elect and harden and
condemn the wicked.
You
say, “But God gives rain and sunshine
to the just and unjust!” That is, of course, true. But it is a false assumption
to interpret giving rain and sunshine to just and unjust as tokens of God’s love for the wicked. He
gives rain and sunshine to the unjust reprobate for their condemnation, and to the just elect for their salvation. So we, the objects of such undeserved favor, must love
our enemies and do good to them that hate
us—that is, we must seek their salvation, not knowing whom God will be pleased to save through our goodness.
God will use that very love for our neighbor to harden and condemn the wicked,
but also to save those whom He has chosen to everlasting life.
One
correspondent asks whether it is an accurate statement of God’s attitude
towards the reprobate to say, “The good gifts of providence that He gives to
them (the wicked—HH) are meant as a testimony to them that He is a good God,
full of kindness and love, and, therefore, one worthy to be worshipped and
before whom they should repent were they in their right mind, and that if they
were to do so they would experience His loving fellowship as sweet.” My
response to that summary is a hearty “Amen.”
This
is biblical and what we must believe.
---------------------------------------------------
(III)
[Source: Another Look at Common Grace (2019 edition), pp. 100-101]
(III)
[Source: Another Look at Common Grace (2019 edition), pp. 100-101]
The
love of which Christ speaks when He enjoins us to love our enemies is a genuine love. By that, I mean that it is
a love which is not sloppily sentimental, not simply the giving of material
help; it is a love which is like the love
of God. God’s love seeks (and accomplishes) the salvation of sinners. So
also our love must seek the salvation of sinners, although we cannot accomplish
that salvation; it is God’s work. But we must, even when we do good to those
who hate us, seek their salvation. We
must call them to forsake their evil way, repent of their sins, and believe in
Christ.
In
this connection, it must be immediately understood that God knows those who are
His own. We do not know them. God pours out His love upon His people, and by
the power of His love He saves them. We have no such power in our love. We can
only reveal to others God’s love for us. But because we seek their salvation,
we reflect God’s love for us.
If
that expression of love is shown to an elect, it will be the means God uses to
bring that sinner to Christ. If the one to whom we show love is a reprobate, it
will be the means to harden that
sinner in his sin so that he will no longer want even the good that we show to
him.
And
so we reflect God’s love for us and show that we are the children of our Father
in heaven. God also loves us when we are unthankful and evil. He does not give
love to those who deserve it; He
gives His love to undeserving
sinners, such as we are. It is this very consciousness of God’s unmerited love
that moves us to show our love to those who hate us, persecute us, and curse
us. Undeserving sinners who are the objects of God’s love, show love to other
undeserving sinners.
We
show this love by doing good to sinners. God also “does good” to sinners—not
only to the elect, but also to the reprobate. In this way, too, we reflect the
love of God. God’s good gifts to reprobate sinners harden them in their sins so
that they are without excuse; God’s good gifts to elect sinners bring them to
repentance and faith through the work of the Spirit in their hearts. Our love,
which we show to our enemies, does the same.
The
only difference is that God knows His
own; we do not know those who belong to Him. He accomplishes His sovereign
purpose; we are instruments in His hand to accomplish that purpose.
But
of God’s “love” or “favor” to reprobate sinners, the text says not a word.
The
passage in Luke 6 teaches the same thing. How churlish and ungrateful we would
be if we, the objects of God’s unmerited love, would show love only to those
who are deserving of our love. Even
the publicans do that. But we are children of our Father in heaven. We must be
different.
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