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Calvin and Calvinism » 2010 » April

Archive for April, 2010

9
Apr

Louis Berkhof (1873-1957) on the Mercy of God

   Posted by: CalvinandCalvinism    in God is Merciful

Berkhof:

d. The mercy of God. Another important aspect of the goodness and love of God is His mercy or tender compassion. The Hebrew word most generally used for this is chesed. There is another word, however, which expresses a deep and tender compassion, namely, the word racham, which is beautifully rendered by “tender mercy” in our English Bible. The Septuagint and the New Testament employ the Greek word eleos to designate the mercy of God. If the grace of God contemplates man as guilty before God, and therefore in need of forgiveness, the mercy of God contemplates him as one who is bearing the consequences of sin, who is in a pitiable condition, and who therefore needs divine help. It may be defined as the goodness or love of God shown to those who are in misery or distress, irrespective of their deserts. In His mercy God reveals Himself as a compassionate God, who pities those who are in misery and is ever ready to relieve their distress. This mercy is bountiful, Deut. 5:10; Ps. 57:10; 86:5, and the poets of Israel delighted to sing of it as enduring forever, I Chron. 16:34; II Chron. 7:6; Ps. 136; Ezra 3:11. In the New Testament it is often mentioned alongside of the grace of God, especially in salutations’, I Tim. 1:2; II Tim. 1:1; Titus 1:4. We are told repeatedly that it is shown to them that fear God, Ex. 20:2; Deut. 7:9; Ps. 86:5; Luke 1:50. This does not mean, however, that it is limited to them, though they enjoy it in a special measure. God’s tender mercies are over all His works, Ps. 145:9, and even those who do not fear Him share in them, Ezek. 18:23,32; 33:11; Luke 6:35,36. The mercy of God may not be represented as opposed to His justice. It is exercised only in harmony with the strictest justice of God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ. Other terms used for it in the Bible are “pity,” “compassion,” and “lovingkindness.”

Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1969), 72. [underlining mine.]

Valdés:

14. That God wrought works that were more fatherly for this Hebrew people, and that the more God did for them, the more they practiced their malevolence and their impiety against God (Ps. 94 [Ps. 95]).

15. That when the time appointed by the divine Majesty arrived, the Word of God, whom the Holy Scripture calls the Son of God, took human flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary, God having willed to restore all things by his Word, just as he had made them all by his Word (John 1; Mt. L; Phil. 3 [Phil. 2J; Col. 1).

16. That this incarnate Word is the Messiah, promised to the Hebrews in the Law and in the Prophets, whom we call Christ, which is the same as Messiah or Anointed (John 3,4).

17. That upon this Word of God incarnate, upon this Son of God, upon this Christ, God placed all the iniquities, all the rebellions, and all the sins of all men, he being most innocent and free from all sin. God chastised them all in him with the same rigor as if he had committed them all, even to taking from him on the cross his life as a son of Adam and as a passible and mortal man. God afterwards resurrected and glorified him for his obedience, giving him absolute power in heaven and on earth (1 Pet. 2; Mt. 28; Col. 1).

18. That Christ, having ascended into heaven, sent the Holy Spirit upon his disciples, upon those he had elected and taken for his own while he conversed among men (Acts 1).

Juan de Valdés, The Manner which Ought to be Observed in Instructing the Children of Christians from Childhood about Religious Matters,” in Reformed Confessions of the 16th and 17th Centuries in English Translation, ed. James T. Dennison, (Grand Rapids Michigan: Reformation Heritage Books, 2008), 1:531. [underlining mine.]

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Fenner:

Now then for answer, do you ask, “Why is a man invited by the Ministry to repent, and turn unto the Lord, when he has not God’s secret, but cannot?” because the reason why he does not repent is, because he will not, nor cannot.

Yea, but you will say, “Preachers cannot bid him,” as for example; “He cannot command Judas, or Cain, to believe that their sins may be forgiven them; because Christ never died for the Reprobate.” I answer, Mentiris[?] Cain, you lie Cain, Christ died for thy sins, and that in five ways.

Augustine.

1. By way of Proclamation; remission of sins is to be proclaimed to you, if you will believe; so says Paul, “Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through Christ is Preached unto you forgiveness of sins,” Act. 13:38; “yea, among all the Nations,” Luke 24:47; “For to whom give all the Prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believes in him shall receive forgiveness of sins,” Act. 10:43, so that God’s Ministers are bound to preach that your sins may be forgiven you, if you repent and believe the Gospel.

2. By way of Obligation; you are bound to believe that your sins may be forgiven you in Christ, remission of sins is one of the Articles of your creed, that you are commanded to believe, “Repent and believe the Gospel,” Mark. 1:15, and therefore it is called, the Law of Faith; lex á ligando, the Law binds, Rom. 7:2. All are bound to believe in Christ Jesus, to the remission of sins, even reprobate and all, they are bound as well as the Apostles themselves. For our Savior commands them, to command all creatures the very same things he commanded them, “Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you,” Mat. 28:20, so that you are bound to believe that thy sins may be forgiven you.

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6
Apr

John Trapp (1601-1669) on Matthew 23:37

   Posted by: CalvinandCalvinism    in Matthew 23:37

Trapp:

Verse 37. How often would I, &c.] How then could they perish, whom God would have saved? It is answered, Voluntas Dei Alia est præcepti, revelata Antecedens, alia beneplaciti, arcana consequens. By the former God willed their conversion, but not by the later. A King wills the welfare of all his Subjects; yet he will not acquit those that are laid for treason, murder, and like foul crimes. A father is willing to give his son the inheritance; yet if he prove an unthrift, he’ll put him beside it, and take another. How oft would I have gathered? that is (say some) by the external Ministry of the Prophets, sent unto thee, verse 34, 35. Not by internal regenerating operation of the Spirit.

Chytræus
in Levit. 12.

Even as a hen gathers her chickens] Columbarum Masculus ispe ovis  incubat, sicut Christus ipse ecclesiam, suam sovet. Of unreasonable creatures, birds, and of birds, the hen excels in kindness to her young; so that she doubts not, in their defence, to encounter a Kite, a Dog, &c. Iniquo & impari prælio, though with greatest disadvantage.

Paraeus.

And you would not] Men may nill their conversion then, though called by God.  Quo nihil est verius, sed & nihil turpius, says one.

Cesset voluntas
propia & non
orit infernus

If there were no will, there would be no hell, John 12:39. Therefore they could not believe: they could not, that is, they would not, says Theophylact out of Chrysostom, who yet usually extolls man’s free-will more than is meet.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition Upon All the Books of the New Testament, (London: Printed by R.W. and to be sold by Nath. Ekins, at the Gun in Pauls Church-yard, 1656), 292. [Some reformatting; some spelling modernized; marginal side references cited inline; and italics original.]

Gale:

God’s Will Complancential,
Providential and
Beneplaciti.

3. Aquinas and others distinguished God’s Will unto Complacential , Providential, and Beneplaciti. (1) God’s Complacential Will, is his simple complacence in all good Actions, Habits, and Events, of men; yea it extends not only to moral, but to natural goods, as Gen. 1:31. There is a perpetual necessary volition in God, which takes pleasure in all good, whether create or increate. Such is the infinite Bonitie and Purity of the Divine Nature, as that it cannot but take infinite complacence in all good. This they call God’s Love of simple complacence, of which see Ruiz, de Volunt. Dei Disp. 6. §. 2. p. 38. and Disp. 19: p. 214. (2) God’s Providential Will is that, whereby he is said to will and intend an end, when he in his providence, either gracious or common, affords such means which have an aptitude to produce it. As where God sends his Gospel, he may be said to really intend the salvation of those to whom it is sent, albeit they are not all saved; because he vouchsafes them those means which have a real aptitude to produce the same, were they but really embraced and improved. In this regard Davenant and others affirm, that Christ’s death is, pan-machon, an universal remedy applicable to all, and that God, by his Voluntas Providentia (as Aquinas styles it) intended it as such. This intention or will of God is measured by the nature of the means, and therefore reducible to God’s Legislative Will, which gives constitution and measure to all the means of man’s salvation. (3) There is God’s Beneplaciti or Decretive Will, which is only strictly and properly styled the will of God, as before: so Ruiz de Volunt. Dei, Disp. 18. §. 4. p. 185.

Theophilus Gale, The Court of the Gentiles, (Printed by A. Maxwell and R. Roberts, for T. Cockeril at the Sign of the Atlas in Cornhil, near the Royal Exchange, 1677), part 1, Book 2, p., 357. [Some spelling modernized; marginal side header cited inline; italics original; and underlining mine.]

Credit to Tony for the find.