Waldron:

The Free Offer

Another objection raised against particular redemption is derived from the free offer of the gospel. The pressing question here is, How can we invite and call each and every man to be saved if Christ did not die for each and every man? This is a difficult question involving deep mysteries, but enough is clear to remove the immediate difficulty. The problem is not to be solved by denying the free offer of the gospel to everyone who hears the gospel. The idea has been spread by some that particular redemption makes men deny the free offer. This is false. Most people who believe in particular redemption also believe in the free offer. I emphatically am one of them. God not only commands but also desires the salvation of everyone who hears the gospel, whether they are elect or not. This view is embedded in the Canons of Dort themselves (third and fourth heads, Article 8): “As many as are called by the gospel are unfeignedly called. For God has most earnestly and truly declared in His Word what is acceptable to Him, namely, that those who are called should come unto Him. He also seriously promises rest of soul and eternal life to all who come to Him and believe.”

The solution to this difficulty is to be found in realizing that a common manner of preaching the gospel has no biblical warrant. The free offer of the gospel does not require us to tell men that Christ died for them. Yes, it is true that this is the way the gospel is commonly preached. It is so commonly preached in this fashion that it may seem incredible to think that this way of preaching is utterly without biblical precedent. The fact is, however, that the gospel does not present men with a theory about the extent of the atonement. It presents men with Christ Himself in His all-sufficient ability to save. Of course, if the free offer of the gospel meant telling unconverted sinners, “Christ died for you,” then particular redemption would be inconsistent with the free offer. But nowhere in the Bible is the gospel proclaimed by telling unconverted sinners that Christ died for them. Never, for instance, do the apostles do this in the book of Acts. The Church is told that Christ died for her but not the unsaved recipients of the gospel offer. The assurance that Christ died for me is never presented as the reason I should take Christ as my Savior. Instead, the assurance that Christ died for me is presented as the triumphant conviction of one who already possesses assurance of his salvation (Gal 2:20).¹

Samuel Waldron, “The Biblical Confirmation of Particular Redemption,” in Calvinism: A Southern Baptist Dialogue, ed., E. Ray Clendenen and Brad J Waggoner, (Nashville: Tennessee, 2008), 149-150. [Footnote value modified, and underlining mine.]

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¹Murray (Ibid. , 65) responds to the objection that particular redemption undermines the free offer of the gospel by saying, “This is grave misunderstanding and misrepresentation. The truth really is that it is only on the basis of such a doctrine that we can have a full and free offer of Christ to lost men.” Murray proceeds to argue that only particular redemption enables us to offer men what is actually offered in the gospel. I agree with Murray but also want to admit that there are mysteries involved in the relation of the free offer and particular redemption which I do not fully understand. The fact that I do not understand these mysteries is, however, no reason for me or anyone else to reject either side of this tension. There are also mysteries in the doctrine of the Trinity, for instance, but no evangelical thinks the doctrine of the Trinity should therefore be rejected.

Brown:

Now, what are the elements of this love of Christians towards all men? They are obviously not the same as in the case of brotherly kindness. This is not the love of approbation or of  complacential esteem; for a Christian cannot approve of, cannot delight in, worldly and wicked men. Its leading element is good-will–a sincere and ardent wish for their true happiness, especially in the form of cordial commiseration–deep pity, for the hazardous and miserable condition in which their guilt and depravity have placed them.

As to the appropriate manifestations of this love, I begin with remarking, that it must be manifested in abstaining from everything like injury to any man. “Love works no ill to his neighbor.” It cannot work ill to him. He who loves his neighbor cannot injure him, either in his person, or in his property, or in his relatives, or in his reputation.

But this love is not a mere negation–the absence of hatred producing the absence of injury. It is positive good-will–kind regard producing benefits. This love is manifested in thinking of, and feeling towards, all men, as kindly as possible, even though obviously not belonging to the Christian brotherhood. In human nature unchanged by divine influence, there is indeed no spiritual good; but there may be much that is amiable, much that is morally estimable in unrenewed men. Some of these qualities are perhaps, in all men. It were absurd to deny that there are candor and truthfulness, and honor, and kindness, in some men plainly irreligious; and an enlightened Christian loves these men for such qualities just as his Lord loved the  young man who had not yet entered, and would not enter, into the kingdom of God. The love which Christians should cherish to unconverted men ought to be manifested chiefly in earnest, persevering endeavors to relieve their wants and miseries, and bring them into the possession of true happiness. Their endeavors to relieve the miseries of poverty and disease are not to be confined to the brotherhood. It is enough that the victim of poverty and disease be a man, to give him a resistless claim on the kind regard of a Christian, who has added charity to brotherly kindness and godliness.

“Not to the good alone we owe good-will: In good or bad, distress demands it still.”¹

The wants and miseries of men, as guilty, depraved, wretched already, and in danger of becoming much more and irreparably wretched, are those which chiefly bulk in the eye of an enlightened Christian man, and call out his love, in the form of pity, to active exertions in order to their removal. It is love that makes him desire and endeavor to save souls from death. To provide for the ignorant the means of instruction, especially religious instruction; to seek the prevention or cure of humoral habits; to send the blessed Bible and the glorious gospel to benighted nations, that they may be turned “from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in Christ:” these are the appropriate manifestations of Christian love. For these and similar objects Christian love labors; and, sensible how little human labor can do, love prays fur all men “that they may be saved, and come to the acknowledgment of the truth.”

As to the characteristic qualities of this love, they may all be described in one word. This love to the world of mankind, should resemble God’s. It should be sincere and universal. God does not, cannot love the world, as He loves His own. Christians do not, cannot, love the world as they love the brotherhood. But God does love the world; He loves man as man; His love is philanthropy–the love of man; and so should be the Christian’s. That a man is wicked, is no reason that I should not love him: when men were sinners, Christ, God’s Son, died for them. He makes His sun to shine, and His rain to fall, on the unthankful and evil. It is no reason why I should not love a man, that he is my enemy: when men were enemies, they were reconciled to God through the death of His Son. God’s love to the world is an active love. What human being does not enjoy innumerable fruits of His love? And this is the most remarkable fruit of His love–He gave His only-begotten Son to suffer and die, that any man–every man, however guilty and depraved, believing in Him, “might not perish but have everlasting life.” Our love to man should be fruitful love, and one of its chief fruits should be the carrying to all men the soul-saving truth–that God loves the world, and that whosoever believes in His Son who died, the just in the room of the unjust, shall not perish. God’s love to the world is patient, long-suffering love. Had it been otherwise, where would our guilty race have been?–Not in the land of the living, not in the place of hope. “It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not.” Our love to a perishing world should “suffer long and be kind;” our compassions should not fail. No obstinacy nor ingratitude should induce us to relinquish, or even to abate, our labors of love among our guilty, depraved, perishing brethren. They never can try us as we have tried God–we never can bear with them as He has borne with us.

John Brown, Parting Counsels: An Exposition of the First Chapter of the Second Epistle of the Apostle Peter, (Edinburgh: William Oliphant and Sons, 1861), 116-118.

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¹Armstrong.

Woods:

Secondly. The inspired writers speak familiarly of this work of divine mercy, as actually relating to those who perish, or who may he supposed to perish. Rom. 14:15; “Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died.” 1 Cor. 8:11; “And through thy knowledge shall thy weak brother perish, for whom Christ died.” Peter speaks of false teachers, who deny the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. 2 Pet. 2:1. They are false teachers and bring destruction upon themselves, and a very aggravated destruction, because they denied the Lord that bought or redeemed them. Is it conceivable that the inspired writers would speak in this manner, if the death of the Redeemer had no relation whatever to those who will finally perish, and produced no effect upon their circumstances?

Leonard Woods, ‘Lectures” in The Works of Leonard Woods, (Boston: John P. Jewett & Company, 1851), 498. [Italics original and underlining mine.]

Pendleton:

Paul says, “Destroy not him with thy meat, for whom Christ died.” Rom. xiv. I5. “And through thy knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died?” 1 Cor. viii. 11. But there are those who say that though these passages, at first view, seem to intimate that it is possible for one for whom Christ died to perish, yet they may be explained in another way. Be it so then, for it is not needful that I be tenacious of the view presented; but there is one passage about which there can be no dispute. It reads as follows: “But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction” 2 Peter ii. 1. Here the fact is plainly stated that these “false teachers” would introduce” damnable heresies,” literally, heresies of destruction, and that, prominent among these destructive heresies, would be a denial of the Lord of whom it is said that he “bought them.” Bought them how? Evidently with his blood; he having become a propitiation for the sins of the whole world, and thus acquiring a mediatorial claim to the love and service of every human being. The special point to be emphasized is. that these “false teachers,” though “bought” by the Lord, were to “bring upon themselves swift destruction.” It is therefore possible for those to perish for whom Christ died. This is the teaching of the divine word, and I leave it, without further comment, to make its own impression.

James M. Pendleton, The Atonement, (Philadelphia: American Baptists Publications Society, 1885),  99-100. [Underlining mine.]