by J. I. Packer
Now, our question is: Supposing that all things do in fact happen under the direct dominion of God, and that God has already fixed the future by his decree and resolved whom he will save and whom not—how does this bear on our duty to evangelize?
This is a question that troubles many evangelical Christians today. There are some who have come to believe in the sovereignty of God in the unqualified and uncompromising way in which (as we judge) the Bible presents it. These are now wondering whether there is not some way in which they could and should witness to this faith by modifying the evangelistic practice which they have inherited from a generation with different convictions. These methods, they say, were devised by people who did not believe what we believe about God’s absolute sovereignty in salvation; is that not of itself reason enough for refusing to use them? Others, who do not construe the doctrine of divine sovereignty in quite this way, nor take it quite so seriously, fear that this new concern to believe it thoroughly will mean the death of evangelism; for they think it is bound to undercut all sense of urgency in evangelistic action. Satan, of course, will do anything to hold up evangelism and divide Christians; so he tempts the first group to become inhibited and cynical about all current evangelistic endeavors, and the second group to lose its head and become panicky and alarmist, and both to grow self-righteous and bitter and conceited as they criticize each other. Both groups, it seems, have urgent need to watch against the wiles of the devil.
The question, then, is pressing. It was the Bible itself that raised it, by teaching the antinomy of God’s dual relation to man; and we look now to the Bible to answer it.
The biblical answer may be stated in two propositions, one negative and one positive.
1. The sovereignty of God in grace does not affect anything that we have said about the nature and duty of evangelism. The principle that operates here is that the rule of our duty and the measure of our responsibility is God’s revealed will of precept and not his hidden will of event. We are to order our lives by the light of his law, not by our guesses about his plan. Moses laid down this principle when he had finished teaching Israel the law, the threats and the promises of the Lord. “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us . . . that we may do all the words of this law” (Deut 29:29). The things that God is pleased to keep to himself (the number and identity of the elect, for instance, and when and how he purposes to convert whom) have no bearing on any man’s duty. They are not relevant in any way for the interpreting of any part of God’s law. Now, the command to evangelize is a part of God’s law. It belongs to God’s revealed will for his people. It could not, then, in principle be affected in the slightest degree by anything that we might believe about God’s sovereignty in election and calling. We may well believe that (in the words of Article XVII of the Church of England) God “hath constantly [i.e., firmly, decisively] decreed by his counsel secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honor.” But this does not help us to determine the nature of the evangelistic task, nor does it affect our duty to evangelize universally and indiscriminately. The doctrine of God’s sovereignty in grace has no bearing on these things. Therefore we may say:
(1) The belief that God is sovereign in grace does not affect the necessity of evangelism. Whatever we may believe about election, the fact remains that evangelism is necessary, because no man can be saved without the gospel. “There is no distinction between Jew and Greek,” proclaims Paul, “for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord [Jesus Christ] will be saved.’” Yes; but nobody will be saved who does not call on the name of the Lord, and certain things must happen before anyone can do this. So Paul continues: “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?” (Rom 10:14 kjv). They must be told of Christ before they can trust him, and they must trust him before they can be saved by him. Salvation depends on faith, and faith on knowing the gospel. God’s way of saving sinners is to bring them to faith through bringing them into contact with the gospel. In God’s ordering of things, therefore, evangelism is a necessity if anyone is to be saved at all.
We must realize, therefore, that when God sends us to evangelize, he sends us to act as vital links in the chain of his purpose for the salvation of his elect. The fact that he has such a purpose, and that it is (so we believe) a sovereign purpose that cannot be thwarted, does not imply that, after all, our evangelizing is not needed for its fulfillment. In our Lord’s parable, the way in which the wedding was furnished with guests was through the action of the king’s servants, who went out as they were bidden into the highways and invited in all whom they found there. Hearing the invitation, the passersby came (Mt 22:1-14). It is in the same way, and through similar action by the servants of God, that the elect come into the salvation that the Redeemer has won for them.
(2) The belief that God is sovereign in grace does not affect the urgency of evangelism. Whatever we may believe about election, the fact remains that people without Christ are lost, and going to hell (pardon the use of this tarnished phrase: I use it because I mean it). “Unless you repent,” said our Lord to the crowd, “you will all . . . perish” (Lk 13:3, 5). And we who are Christ’s are sent to tell them of the One—the only One—who can save them from perishing. Is not their need urgent? If it is, does that not make evangelism a matter of urgency for us? If you knew that a man was asleep in a blazing building, you would think it a matter of urgency to try and get to him, wake him up and bring him out. The world is full of people who are unaware that they stand under the wrath of God: is it not similarly a matter of urgency that we should go to them, try to arouse them and show them the way of escape?
We should not be held back by the thought that if they are not elect, they will not believe us, and our efforts to convert them will fail. That is true; but it is none of our business and should make no difference to our action. In the first place, it is always wrong to abstain from doing good for fear that it might not be appreciated. In the second place, the nonelect in this world are faceless men as far as we are concerned. We know that they exist, but we do not and cannot know who they are, and it is as futile as it is impious for us to try and guess. The identity of the reprobate is one of God’s “secret things” into which his people may not pry. In the third place, our calling as Christians is not to love God’s elect, and them only, but to love our neighbor, irrespective of whether he is elect or not. Now, the nature of love is to do good and to relieve need. If, then, our neighbor is unconverted, we are to show love to him as best we can by seeking to share with him the good news without which he will perish. So we find Paul warning and teaching “everyone” (Col 1:28) not merely because he was an apostle, but because every man was his neighbor. And the measure of the urgency of our evangelistic task is the greatness of our neighbor’s need and the immediacy of his danger.
(3) The belief that God is sovereign in grace does not affect the genuineness of the gospel invitations, or the truth of the gospel promises. Whatever we may believe about election and, for that matter, about the extent of the atonement, the fact remains that God in the gospel really does offer Christ and promise justification and life to “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord.” “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Rom 10:13). As God commands all men everywhere to repent, so God invites all men everywhere to come to Christ and find mercy. The invitation is for sinners only, but for sinners universally; it is not for sinners of a certain type only, reformed sinners or sinners whose hearts have been prepared by a fixed minimum of sorrow for sin; but for sinners as such, just as they are. As the hymn puts it:
Let not conscience make you linger,
Nor of fitness fondly dream;
&nb
sp; All the fitness He requireth
Is to feel your need of Him.[9]
The fact that the gospel invitation is free and unlimited—“sinners Jesus will receive,” “come and welcome to Jesus Christ”[10]—is the glory of the gospel as a revelation of divine grace.
There is a great moment in the holy Communion service of the Church of England when the minister utters the “comfortable words.” First the congregation confesses its sins to God in language of extreme strength (“our manifold sins and wickedness . . . provoking most justly thy wrath . . . the burden of them is intolerable. Have mercy upon us, have mercy upon us”). Then the minister turns to face the people and proclaims to them the promises of God.
Hear what comfortable words our Savior Christ said to all that truly turn to him:
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. (Mt 11:28)
God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (Jn 3:16 kjv)
Hear also what the apostle Paul said:
This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. (1 Tim 1:15 kjv)
Hear also what the apostle John said:
If anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins. (1 Jn 2:1-2)
Why are these words “comfortable”? Because they are God’s words, and they are all true. They are the essential gospel. They are the promises and assurances which Christians who approach the Lord’s Table should come trusting. They are the word which the sacrament confirms. Note them carefully. Note first their substance. The object of faith which they present is not mere orthodoxy, not mere truth about Christ’s atoning death. It is not less than that, but it is more than that. It is the living Christ himself, the perfect Savior of sinners, who carries in himself all the virtue of his finished work on the cross. “Come unto me . . . he is the propitiation for our sins.” These promises direct our trust, not to the crucifixion as such, but to Christ crucified; not to his work in the abstract, but to him who wrought it. And note, second, the universality of these promises. They offer Christ to all who need him, all “that truly turn to him,” any man who has sinned. None are shut out from mercy save those who shut themselves out through impenitence and unbelief.
Some fear that a doctrine of eternal election and reprobation involves the possibility that Christ will not receive some of those who desire to receive him, because they are not elect. The “comfortable words” of the gospel promises, however, absolutely exclude this possibility. As our Lord elsewhere affirmed, in emphatic and categorical terms: “Whoever comes to me I will never cast out” (Jn 6:37).
It is true that God has from all eternity chosen whom he will save. It is true that Christ came specifically to save those whom the Father had given him. But it is also true that Christ offers himself freely to all men as their Savior, and guarantees to bring to glory everyone who trusts in him as such. See how he himself deliberately juxtaposes these two thoughts in the following passage:
“I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” (Jn 6:38-40). “All that he has given me”—here is Christ’s saving mission defined in terms of the whole company of the elect, whom he came specifically to save. “Everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him”—here is Christ’s saving mission defined in terms of the whole company of lost mankind, to whom he offers himself without distinction and whom he will certainly save if they believe. The two truths stand side by side in these verses, and that is where they belong. They go together. They walk hand in hand. Neither throws doubt on the truth of the other. Neither should fill our minds to the exclusion of the other. Christ means what he says, no less when he undertakes to save all who will trust him than when he undertakes to save all whom the Father has given him.
Thus John Owen, the Puritan, who wrote in defense of both unconditional election and limited atonement, is able—is, indeed, constrained—to address the unconverted as follows:
Consider the infinite condescension and love of Christ, in his invitations and calls of you to come unto him for life, deliverance, mercy, grace, peace and eternal salvation. . . . In the declaration and preaching of them, Jesus Christ yet stands before sinners, calling, inviting, encouraging them to come unto him.
This is somewhat of the word which he now speaks unto you: Why will ye die? Why will ye perish? Why will ye not have compassion on your own souls? Can your hearts endure, or can your hands be strong, in the day of wrath that is approaching? . . . Look unto me, and be saved; come unto me, and I will ease you of all sins, sorrows, fears, burdens, and give rest to your souls. Come, I entreat you; lay aside all procrastinations, all delays; put me off no more; eternity lies at the door . . . do not so hate me as that you will rather perish than accept of deliverance by me.
These and the like things doth the Lord Christ continually declare, proclaim, plead and urge upon the souls of sinners . . . he doth it in the preaching of the word, as if he were present with you, stood amongst you, and spake personally to every one of you . . . he hath appointed the ministers of the gospel to appear before you, and to deal with you in his stead, avowing as his own the invitations which are given you in his name, 2 Corinthians 5:19, 20.[11]
So indeed it is. The invitations of Christ are words of God. They are true. They are meant. They are genuine invitations. They are to be pressed on the unconverted as such. Nothing that we may believe about God’s sovereignty in grace makes any difference to this.
(4) The belief that God is sovereign in grace does not affect the responsibility of the sinner for his reaction to the gospel. Whatever we may believe about election, the fact remains that a man who rejects Christ thereby becomes the cause of his own condemnation. Unbelief in the Bible is a guilty thing, and unbelievers cannot excuse themselves on the grounds that they were not elect. The unbeliever was really offered life in the gospel and could have had it if he would; he, and no one but he, is responsible for the fact that he rejected it, and must now endure the consequences of rejecting it. “Everywhere in Scripture,” writes Bishop J. C. Ryle, “it is a leading principle that man can lose his own soul, that if he is lost at last it will be his own fault, and his blood will be on his own head. The same inspired Bible which reveals this doctrine of election is the Bible which contains the words, ‘Why will ye die, O house of Israel?’—‘Ye will not come unto me, that ye might have life.’—‘This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil’ (Ezk 18:31; Jn 5:40, 3:19). The Bible never says that sinners miss heaven because they are not elect, but because they ‘neglect the great salvation,’ and because they will not repent and believe. The last judgment will abundantly prove that it is not the want of God’s election, so much as laziness, the love of sin, unbelief, and unwillingness to come to Christ, which ruins the souls that are lost.”[12] God gives people what they choose, not the opposite of what they choose. Those who choose death, therefore, have only themselves to thank that God does not give them life. The doctrine of divine sovereignty does not affect the situation in any way.
So much for the first and negative proposition. The second is positive.
2. The sovereignty of God in grace gives us our only hope of success in evangelism. Some fear that belief in the sovereign grace of God leads to the conclusion that evangelism is pointless, since God will save his elect anyway, whether they hear the gospel or not. This, as we have seen, is a false conclusion based on a false assumption. But now we must go further, and point out that the truth is just the opposite. So far from making evange
lism pointless, the sovereignty of God in grace is the one thing that prevents evangelism from being pointless. For it creates the possibility—indeed, the certainty—that evangelism will be fruitful. Apart from it, there is not even a possibility of evangelism being fruitful. Were it not for the sovereign grace of God, evangelism would be the most futile and useless enterprise that the world has ever seen, and there would be no more complete waste of time under the sun than to preach the Christian gospel.
Why is this? Because of the spiritual inability of man in sin. Let Paul, the greatest of all evangelists, explain this to us: Fallen man, says Paul, has a blinded mind, and so is unable to grasp spiritual truth. “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor 2:14). Again, he has a perverse and ungodly nature. “For the mind that is set on the flesh [the mind of the unregenerate man] is hostile to God, it does not submit to God’s law; indeed it cannot.” The consequence? “Those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Rom 8:7-8). In both these passages Paul makes two distinct statements about fallen man in relation to God’s truth, and the progression of thought is parallel in both cases. First Paul asserts unregenerate man’s failure, as a matter of fact. He “does not accept the things of the Spirit of God”; he “does not submit to God’s law.” But then Paul goes on to interpret his first statement by a second, to the effect that this failure is a necessity of nature, something certain and inevitable and universal and unalterable, just because it is not in man to do otherwise than fail in this way. “He is not able to understand them.” “Indeed, it cannot.” Man in Adam has not got it in him to apprehend spiritual realities or to obey God’s law from his heart. Enmity against God, leading to defection from God, is the law of his nature. It is, so to speak, instinctive to him to suppress and evade and deny God’s truth, and to shrug off God’s authority and to flout God’s law—yes, and when he hears the gospel to disbelieve and disobey that too. This is the sort of person that he is. He is, says Paul, “dead in the trespasses and sins” (Eph 2:1)—wholly incapacitated for any positive reaction to God’s Word, deaf to God’s speech, blind to God’s revelation, impervious to God’s inducements. If you talk to a corpse, there is no response; the man is dead. When God’s Word is spoken to sinners, there is equally no response; they are “dead in the trespasses and sins.”
