Systematic Theology

A Compendium and Commonplace-Book

Designed For The Use Of Theological Students

By

Augustus Hopkins Strong, D.D., LL.D.

President and Professor of Biblical Theology in the Rochester Theological Seminary

Revised and Enlarged

In Three Volumes

Volume 3

The Doctrine of Salvation

The Griffith & Rowland Press

Philadelphia

1909

Contents

[Transcriber's Note: The above cover image was produced by the submitter at Distributed Proofreaders, and is being placed into the public domain.]

“The eye sees only that which it brings with it the power of seeing.”—Cicero.

“Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.”—Psalm 119:18.

“For with thee is the fountain of life: In thy light shall we see light.”—Psalm 36:9.

“For we know in part, and we prophesy in part; but when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away.”—1 Cor. 13:9, 10.

Part VI. Soteriology, Or The Doctrine Of Salvation Through The Work Of Christ And Of The Holy Spirit.

[Transcriber's Note: This Volume begins with “Chapter II”, because “Chapter I” of “Part VI” was printed in Volume II.]

Chapter II. The Reconciliation Of Man To God, Or The Application Of Redemption Through The Work Of The Holy Spirit.

Section I.—The Application Of Christ's Redemption In Its Preparation.

(a) In this Section we treat of Election and Calling; Section Second being devoted to the Application of Christ's Redemption in its Actual Beginning,—namely, in Union with Christ, Regeneration, Conversion, and Justification; while Section Third has for its subject the Application of Christ's Redemption in its Continuation,—namely, in Sanctification and Perseverance.

The arrangement of topics, in the treatment of the reconciliation of man to God, is taken from Julius Müller, Proof-texts, 35. “Revelation to us aims to bring about revelation in us. In any being absolutely perfect, God's intercourse with us by faculty, and by direct teaching, would absolutely coalesce, and the former be just as much God's voice as the latter” (Hutton, Essays).

(b) In treating Election and Calling as applications of Christ's redemption, we imply that they are, in God's decree, logically subsequent to that redemption. In this we hold the Sublapsarian view, as distinguished from the Supralapsarianism of Beza and other hyper-Calvinists, which regarded the decree of individual salvation as preceding, in the order of thought, the decree to permit the Fall. In this latter scheme, the order of decrees is as follows: 1. the decree to save certain, and to reprobate others; 2. the decree to create both those who are to be saved and those who are to be reprobated; 3. the decree to permit both the former and the latter to fall; 4. the decree to provide salvation only for the former, that is, for the elect.

Richards, Theology, 302-307, shows that Calvin, while in his early work, the Institutes, he avoided definite statements of his position with regard to the extent of the atonement, yet in his latter works, the Commentaries, acceded to the theory of universal atonement. Supralapsarianism is therefore hyper-Calvinistic, rather than Calvinistic. Sublapsarianism was adopted by the Synod of Dort (1618, 1619). By Supralapsarian is meant that form of doctrine which holds the decree of individual salvation as preceding the decree to permit the Fall; Sublapsarian designates that form of doctrine which holds that the decree of individual salvation is subsequent to the decree to permit the Fall.

The progress in Calvin's thought may be seen by comparing some of his earlier with his later utterances. Institutes, 2:23:5—“I say, with Augustine, that the Lord created those who, as he certainly foreknew, were to go to destruction, and he did so because he so willed.” But even then in the Institutes, 3:23:8, he affirms that “the perdition of the wicked depends upon the divine predestination in such a manner that the cause and matter of it are found in themselves. Man falls by the appointment of divine providence, but he falls by his own fault.” God's blinding, hardening, turning the sinner he describes as the consequence of the divine desertion, not the divine causation. The relation of God to the origin of sin is not efficient, but permissive. In later days Calvin wrote in his Commentary on 1 John 2:2—“he is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the whole world”—as follows: “Christ suffered for the sins of the whole world, and in the goodness of God is offered unto all men without distinction, his blood being shed not for a part of the world only, but for the whole human race; for although in the world nothing is found worthy of the favor of God, yet he holds out the propitiation to the whole world, since without exception he summons all to the faith of Christ, which is nothing else than the door unto hope.”

Although other passages, such as Institutes, 3:21:5, and 3:23:1, assert the harsher view, we must give Calvin credit for modifying his doctrine with maturer reflection and advancing years. Much that is called Calvinism would have been repudiated by Calvin himself even at the beginning of his career, and is really the exaggeration of his teaching by more scholastic and less religious successors. Renan calls Calvin “the most Christian man of his generation.” Dorner describes him as “equally great in intellect and character, lovely in social life, full of tender sympathy and faithfulness to his friends, yielding and forgiving toward personal offences.” The device upon his seal is a flaming heart from which is stretched forth a helping hand.

Calvin's share in the burning of Servetus must be explained by his mistaken zeal for God's truth and by the universal belief of his time that this truth was to be defended by the civil power. The following is the inscription on the expiatory monument which European Calvinists raised to Servetus: “On October 27, 1553, died at the stake at Champel, Michael Servetus, of Villeneuve d'Aragon, born September 29, 1511. Reverent and grateful sons of Calvin, our great Reformer, but condemning an error which was that of his age, and steadfastly adhering to liberty of conscience according to the true principles of the Reformation and of the gospel, we have erected this expiatory monument, on the 27th of October, 1903.”

John DeWitt, in Princeton Theol. Rev., Jan. 1904:95—“Take John Calvin. That fruitful conception—more fruitful in church and state than any other conception which has held the English speaking world—of the absolute and universal sovereignty of the holy God, as a revolt from the conception then prevailing of the sovereignty of the human head of an earthly church, was historically the mediator and instaurator of his spiritual career.” On Calvin's theological position, see Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:409, note.

(c) But the Scriptures teach that men as sinners, and not men irrespective of their sins, are the objects of God's saving grace in Christ (John 15:9; Rom. 11:5, 7; Eph. 1:4-6; 1 Pet. 1:2). Condemnation, moreover, is an act, not of sovereignty, but of justice, and is grounded in the guilt of the condemned (Rom. 2:6-11; 2 Thess. 1:5-10). The true order of the decrees is therefore as follows: 1. the decree to create; 2. the decree to permit the Fall; 3. the decree to provide a salvation in Christ sufficient for the needs of all; 4. the decree to secure the actual acceptance of this salvation on the part of some,—or, in other words, the decree of Election.

That saving grace presupposes the Fall, and that men as sinners are the objects of it, appears from John 15:19—“If ye were of the world, the world would love its own: but because ye are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you”; Rom. 11:5-7—“Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. But if it is by grace, it is no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. What then? That which Israel seeketh for, that he obtained not; but the election obtained it, and the rest were hardened.” Eph. 1:4-6—“even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before him in love: having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved”; 1 Pet. 1:2—elect, “according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus: Grace to you and peace be multiplied.”

That condemnation is not an act of sovereignty, but of justice, appears from Rom. 2:6-9—“who will render to every man according to his works ... wrath and indignation ... upon every soul of man that worketh evil”; 2 Thess. 1:6-9—“a righteous thing with God to recompense affliction to them that afflict you ... rendering vengeance to them that know not God and to them that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus: who shall suffer punishment.” Particular persons are elected, not to have Christ die for them, but to have special influences of the Spirit bestowed upon them.

(d) Those Sublapsarians who hold to the Anselmic view of a limited Atonement, make the decrees 3. and 4., just mentioned, exchange places,—the decree of election thus preceding the decree to provide redemption. The Scriptural reasons for preferring the order here given have been already indicated in our treatment of the extent of the Atonement (pages 771-773).

When “3” and “4” thus change places, “3” should be made to read: “The decree to provide in Christ a salvation sufficient for the elect”; and “4” should read: “The decree that a certain number should be saved,—or, in other words, the decree of Election.”Sublapsarianism of the first sort may be found in Turretin, loc. 4, quæs. 9; Cunningham, Hist. Theol., 416-439. A. J. F. Behrends: “The divine decree is our last word in theology, not our first word. It represents the terminus ad quem, not the terminus a quo. Whatever comes about in the exercise of human freedom and of divine grace—that God has decreed.” Yet we must grant that Calvinism needs to be supplemented by a more express statement of God's love for the world. Herrick Johnson: “Across the Westminster Confession could justly be written: ‘The Gospel for the elect only.’ That Confession was written under the absolute dominion of one idea, the doctrine of predestination. It does not contain one of three truths: God's love for a lost world; Christ's compassion for a lost world, and the gospel universal for a lost world.”

I. Election.

Election is that eternal act of God, by which in his sovereign pleasure, and on account of no foreseen merit in them, he chooses certain out of the number of sinful men to be the recipients of the special grace of his Spirit, and so to be made voluntary partakers of Christ's salvation.

1. Proof of the Doctrine of Election.

A. From Scripture.

We here adopt the words of Dr. Hovey: “The Scriptures forbid us to find the reasons for election in the moral action of man before the new birth, and refer us merely to the sovereign will and mercy of God; that is, they teach the doctrine of personal election.” Before advancing to the proof of the doctrine itself, we may claim Scriptural warrant for three preliminary statements (which we also quote from Dr. Hovey), namely:

First, that “God has a sovereign right to bestow more grace upon one subject than upon another,—grace being unmerited favor to sinners.”

Mat. 20:12-15—“These last have spent but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us.... Friend, I do thee no wrong.... Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?” Rom. 9:20, 21—“Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why didst thou make me thus? Or hath not the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor?”

Secondly, that “God has been pleased to exercise this right in dealing with men.”

Ps. 147:20—“He hath not dealt so with any nation; And as for his ordinances, they have not known them”. Rom. 3:1, 2—“What advantage then hath the Jew? or what is the profit of circumcision? Much every way: first of all, that they were intrusted with the oracles of God”; John 15:16—“Ye did not choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that ye should go and bear fruit”; Acts 9:15—“he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings, and the children of Israel.”

Thirdly, that “God has some other reason than that of saving as many as possible for the way in which he distributes his grace.”

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Mat. 11:21—Tyre and Sidon “would have repented,” if they had had the grace bestowed upon Chorazin and Bethsaida; Rom. 9:22-25—“What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering vessels of wrath fitted unto destruction: and that he might make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy, which he afore prepared unto glory?”

The Scripture passages which directly or indirectly support the doctrine of a particular election of individual men to salvation may be arranged as follows:

(a) Direct statements of God's purpose to save certain individuals:

Jesus speaks of God's elect, as for example in Mark 13:27—“then shall he send forth the angels, and shall gather together his elect”; Luke 18:7—“shall not God avenge his elect, that cry to him day and night?”

Acts 13:48—“as many as were ordained (τεταγμένοι) to eternal life believed”—here Whedon translates: “disposed unto eternal life,” referring to κατηρτισμένα in verse 23, where “fitted” = “fitted themselves.” The only instance, however, where τάσσω is used in a middle sense is in 1 Cor. 16:15—“set themselves”; but there the object, ἑαυτούς, is expressed. Here we must compare Rom. 13:1—“the powers that be are ordained (τεταγμέναι) of God”; see also Acts 10:42—“this is he who is ordained (ὡρισμένος) of God to be the Judge of the living and the dead.”

Rom. 9:11-16—“for the children being not yet born, neither having done anything good or bad, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth.... I will have mercy upon whom I have mercy.... So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that hath mercy”; Eph. 1:4, 5, 9, 11—“chose us in him before the foundation of the world, [not because we were, or were to be, holy, but] that we should be holy and without blemish before him in love: having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto himself, according to the good pleasure of his will ... the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure ... in whom also we were made a heritage, having been foreordained according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his will”; Col. 3:12—“God's elect”; 2 Thess. 2:13—“God chose you from the beginning unto salvation in sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.”

(b) In connection with the declaration of God's foreknowledge of these persons, or choice to make them objects of his special attention and care;

Rom. 8:27-30—“called according to his purpose. For whom he foreknew, he also foreordained to be conformed to the image of his Son”; 1 Pet. 1:1, 2—“elect ... according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.” On the passage in Romans, Shedd, in his Commentary, remarks that “foreknew,” in the Hebraistic use, “is more than simple prescience, and something more also than simply ‘to fix the eye upon,’ or to ‘select.’It is this latter, but with the additional notion of a benignant and kindly feeling toward the object.” In Rom. 8:27-30, Paul is emphasizing the divine sovereignty. The Christian life is considered from the side of the divine care and ordering, and not from the side of human choice and volition. Alexander, Theories of the Will, 87, 88—“If Paul is here advocating indeterminism, it is strange that in chapter 9 he should be at pains to answer objections to determinism. The apostle's protest in chapter 9 is not against predestination and determination, but against the man who regards such a theory as impugning the righteousness of God.”

That the word “know,” in Scripture, frequently means not merely to “apprehend intellectually,”but to “regard with favor,” to “make an object of care,” is evident from Gen. 18:19—“I have known him, to the end that he may command his children and his household after him, that they may keep the way of Jehovah, to do righteousness and justice”; Ex. 2:25—“And God saw the children of Israel, and God took knowledge of them”; cf. verse 24—“God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob”; Ps. 1:6—“For Jehovah knoweth the way of the righteous; But the way of the wicked shall perish”; 101:4, marg.—“I will know no evil person”; Hosea 13:5—“I did know thee in the wilderness, in the land of great drought. According to their pasture, so were they filled”; Nahum 1:7—“he knoweth them that take refuge in him”; Amos 3:2—“You only have I known of all the families of the earth”; Mat. 7:23—“then will I profess unto them, I never knew you”; Rom. 7:15—“For that which I do I know not”; 1 Cor. 8:3—“if any man loveth God, the same is known by him”; Gal. 4:9—“now that ye have come to know God, or rather, to be known by God”; 1 Thess. 5:12, 13—“we beseech you, brethren, to know them that labor among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you; and to esteem them exceeding highly in love for their work's sake.” So the word “foreknow”: Rom. 11:2—“God did not cast off his people whom he foreknew”; 1 Pet. 1:20—Christ, “who was foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world.”

Broadus on Mat. 7:23—“I never knew you”—says; “Not in all the passages quoted above, nor elsewhere, is there occasion for the oft-repeated arbitrary notion, derived from the Fathers, that ‘know’ conveys the additional idea of approve or regard. It denotes acquaintance, with all its pleasures and advantages; ‘knew,’ i. e., as mine, as my people.”

But this last admission seems to grant what Broadus had before denied. See Thayer, Lex. N. T., on γινώσκω: “With acc. of person, to recognize as worthy of intimacy and love; so those whom God has judged worthy of the blessings of the gospel are said ὑπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ γινώσκεσθαι (1 Cor. 8:3; Gal. 4:9); negatively in the sentence of Christ: οὐδἐποτε ἔγνων ὑμᾶς, ‘I never knew you,’ never had any acquaintance with you.” On προγινώσκω, Rom. 8:29—οὒς προέγνω, “whom he foreknew,” see Denney, in Expositor's Greek Testament, in loco: “Those whom he foreknew—in what sense? as persons who would answer his love with love? This is at least irrelevant, and alien to Paul's general method of thought. That salvation begins with God, and begins in eternity, are fundamental ideas with him, which he here applies to Christians, without raising any of the problems involved in the relation of the human will to the divine. Yet we may be sure that προέγνω has the pregnant sense that γινώσκω often has in Scripture, e. g., in Ps. 1:6; Amos 3:2; hence we may render: ‘those of whom God took knowledge from eternity’ (Eph. 1:4).”

In Rom. 8:28-30, quoted above, “foreknew” = elected—that is, made certain individuals, in the future, the objects of his love and care; “foreordained” describes God's designation of these same individuals to receive the special gift of salvation. In other words, “foreknowledge”is of persons: “foreordination” is of blessings to be bestowed upon them. Hooker, Eccl. Pol., appendix to book v. (vol. 2:751)—“ ‘whom he did foreknow’ (know before as his own, with determination to be forever merciful to them) ‘he also predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son’—predestinated, not to opportunity of conformation, but to conformation itself.” So, for substance, Calvin, Rückert, DeWette, Stuart, Jowett, Vaughan. On 1 Pet. 1:1, 2, see Com. of Plumptre. The Arminian interpretation of “whom he foreknew” (Rom. 8:29) would require the phrase “as conformed to the image of his Son” to be conjoined with it. Paul, however, makes conformity to Christ to be the result, not the foreseen condition, of God's foreordination; see Commentaries of Hodge and Lange.

(c) With assertions that this choice is matter of grace, or unmerited favor, bestowed in eternity past:

Eph. 1:5-8—“foreordained ... according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved ... according to the riches of his grace”; 2:8—“by grace have ye been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God”—here “and that” (neuter τοῦτο, verse 8) refers, not to “faith” but to “salvation.” But faith is elsewhere represented as having its source in God,—see page [782], (k). 2 Tim. 1:9—“his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before times eternal.” Election is not because of our merit. McLaren: “God's own mercy, spontaneous, undeserved, condescending, moved him. God is his own motive. His love is not drawn out by our loveableness, but wells up, like an artesian spring, from the depths of his nature.”

(d) That the Father has given certain persons to the Son, to be his peculiar possession:

John 6:37—“All that which the Father giveth me shall come unto me”; 17:2—“that whatsoever thou hast given him, to them he should give eternal life”; 6—“I manifested thy name unto the men whom thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them to me”; 9—“I pray not for the world, but for those whom thou hast given me”; Eph. 1:14—“unto the redemption of God's own possession”; 1 Pet. 2:9—“a people for God's own possession.”

(e) That the fact of believers being united thus to Christ is due wholly to God:

John 6:44—“No man can come to me, except the Father that sent me draw him”; 10:26—“ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep”; 1 Cor. 1:30—“of him [God] are ye in Christ Jesus” = your being, as Christians, in union with Christ, is due wholly to God.

(f) That those who are written in the Lamb's book of life, and they only, shall be saved:

Phil. 4:3—“the rest of my fellow-workers, whose names are in the book of life”; Rev. 20:15—“And if any was not found written in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire”; 21:27—“there shall in no wise enter into it anything unclean ... but only they that are written in the Lamb's book of life” = God's decrees of electing grace in Christ.

(g) That these are allotted, as disciples, to certain of God's servants:

Acts 17:4—(literally)—“some of them were persuaded, and were allotted [by God] to Paul and Silas”—as disciples (so Meyer and Grimm); 18:9, 10—“Be not afraid, but speak and hold not thy peace: for I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to harm thee: for I have much people in this city.”

(h) Are made the recipients of a special call of God:

Rom. 8:28, 30—“called according to his purpose ... whom he foreordained, them he also called”; 9:23, 24—“vessels of mercy, which he afore prepared unto glory, even us, whom he also called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles”; 11:29—“for the gifts and the calling of God are not repented of”; 1 Cor. 1:24-29—“unto them that are called ... Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.... For behold your calling, brethren, ... the things that are despised, did God choose, yea and the things that are not, that he might bring to naught the things that are: that no flesh should glory before God”; Gal. 1:15, 16—“when it was the good pleasure of God, who separated me, even from my mother's womb, and called me through his grace, to reveal his Son in me”; cf. James 2:23—“and he [Abraham] was called [to be] the friend of God.”

(i) Are born into God's kingdom, not by virtue of man's will, but of God's will:

John 1:13—“born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God”; James 1:18—“Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth”; 1 John 4:10—“Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us.” S. S. Times, Oct. 14, 1899—“The law of love is the expression of God's loving nature, and it is only by our participation of the divine nature that we are enabled to render it obedience. ‘Loving God,’ says Bushnell, ‘is but letting God love us.’ So John's great saying may be rendered in the present tense: ‘not that we love God, but that he loves us.’ Or, as Madame Guyon sings: ‘I love my God, but with no love of mine, For I have none to give; I love thee, Lord, but all the love is thine, For by thy life I live’.”

(j) Receiving repentance, as the gift of God:

Acts 5:31—“Him did God exalt with his right hand to be a Prince and a Savior, to give repentance to Israel, and remission of sins”; 11:18—“Then to the Gentiles also hath God granted repentance unto life”; 2 Tim. 2:25—“correcting them that oppose themselves; if peradventure God may give them repentance unto the knowledge of the truth.”Of course it is true that God might give repentance simply by inducing man to repent by the agency of his word, his providence and his Spirit. But more than this seems to be meant when the Psalmist prays: “Create in me a clean heart, O God; And renew a right spirit within me” (Ps. 51:10).

(k) Faith, as the gift of God:

John 6:65—“no man can come unto me, except it be given unto him of the Father”; Acts 15:8, 9—“God ... giving them the Holy Spirit ... cleansing their hearts by faith”; Rom. 12:3—“according as God hath dealt to each man a measure of faith”; 1 Cor. 12:9—“to another faith, in the same Spirit”; Gal. 5:22—“the fruit of the Spirit is ... faith” (A. V.); Phil. 2:13—In all faith, “it is God who worketh in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure”; Eph. 6:23—“Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ”; John 3:8—“The Spirit breatheth where he wills, and thou [as a consequence] hearest his voice” (so Bengel); see A. J. Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit, 166; 1 Cor. 12:3—“No man can say, Jesus is Lord, but in the Holy Spirit”—but calling Jesus “Lord” is an essential part of faith,—faith therefore is the work of the Holy Spirit; Tit. 1:1—“the faith of God's elect”—election is not in consequence of faith, but faith is in consequence of election (Ellicott). If they get their faith of themselves, then salvation is not due to grace. If God gave the faith, then it was in his purpose, and this is election.

(l) Holiness and good works, as the gift of God.

Eph. 1:4—“chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy”; 2:9, 10—“not of works, that no man should glory. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God afore prepared that we should walk in them”; 1 Pet. 1:2—elect “unto obedience.” On Scripture testimony, see Hovey, Manual of Theol. and Ethics, 258-261; also art. on Predestination, by Warfield, in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible.

These passages furnish an abundant and conclusive refutation, on the one hand, of the Lutheran view that election is simply God's determination from eternity to provide an objective salvation for universal humanity; [pg 783] and, on the other hand, of the Arminian view that election is God's determination from eternity to save certain individuals upon the ground of their foreseen faith.

Roughly stated, we may say that Schleiermacher elects all men subjectively; Lutherans all men objectively; Arminians all believers; Augustinians all foreknown as God's own. Schleiermacher held that decree logically precedes foreknowledge, and that election is individual, not national. But he made election to include all men, the only difference between them being that of earlier or of later conversion. Thus in his system Calvinism and Restorationism go hand in hand. Murray, in Hastings' Bible Dictionary, seems to take this view.

Lutheranism is the assertion that original grace preceded original sin, and that the Quia Voluit of Tertullian and of Calvin was based on wisdom, in Christ. The Lutheran holds that the believer is simply the non-resistant subject of common grace; while the Arminian holds that the believer is the coöperant subject of common grace. Lutheranism enters more fully than Calvinism into the nature of faith. It thinks more of the human agency, while Calvinism thinks more of the divine purpose. It thinks more of the church, while Calvinism thinks more of Scripture. The Arminian conception is that God has appointed men to salvation, just as he has appointed them to condemnation, in view of their dispositions and acts. As Justification is in view of presentfaith, so the Arminian regards Election as taking place in view of future faith. Arminianism must reject the doctrine of regeneration as well as that of election, and must in both cases make the act of man precede the act of God.

All varieties of view may be found upon this subject among theologians. John Milton, in his Christian Doctrine, holds that “there is no particular predestination or election, but only general.... There can be no reprobation of individuals from all eternity.”Archbishop Sumner: “Election is predestination of communities and nations to external knowledge and to the privileges of the gospel.” Archbishop Whately: “Election is the choice of individual men to membership in the external church and the means of grace.” Gore, in Lux Mundi, 320—“The elect represent not the special purpose of God for a few, but the universal purpose which under the circumstances can only be realized through a few.” R. V. Foster, a Cumberland Presbyterian, opposed to absolute predestination, says in his Systematic Theology that the divine decree “is unconditional in its origin and conditional in its application.”

B. From Reason.

(a) What God does, he has eternally purposed to do. Since he bestows special regenerating grace on some, he must have eternally purposed to bestow it,—in other words, must have chosen them to eternal life. Thus the doctrine of election is only a special application of the doctrine of decrees.

The New Haven views are essentially Arminian. See Fitch, on Predestination and Election, in Christian Spectator, 3:622—“God's foreknowledge of what would be the results of his present works of grace preceded in the order of nature the purpose to pursue those works, and presented the grounds of that purpose. Whom he foreknew—as the people who would be guided to his kingdom by his present works of grace, in which result lay the whole objective motive for undertaking those works—he did also, by resolving on those works, predestinate.” Here God is very erroneously said to foreknow what is as yet included in a merely possible plan. As we have seen in our discussion of Decrees, there can be no foreknowledge, unless there is something fixed, in the future, to be foreknown; and this fixity can be due only to God's predetermination. So, in the present case, election must precede prescience.

The New Haven views are also given in N. W. Taylor, Revealed Theology, 373-444; for criticism upon them, see Tyler, Letters on New Haven Theology, 172-180. If God desired the salvation of Judas as much as of Peter, how was Peter elected in distinction from Judas? To the question, “Who made thee to differ?” the answer must be, “Not God, but my own will.” See Finney, in Bib. Sac., 1877:711—“God must have foreknown whom he could wisely save, prior in the order of nature to his determining to save them. But his knowing who would be saved, must have been, in the order of nature, subsequent to his election or determination to save them, and dependent upon [pg 784]that determination.” Foster, Christian Life and Theology, 70—“The doctrine of election is the consistent formulation, sub specie eternitatis, of prevenient grace.... 86—With the doctrine of prevenient grace, the evangelical doctrine stands or falls.”

(b) This purpose cannot be conditioned upon any merit or faith of those who are chosen, since there is no such merit,—faith itself being God's gift and foreordained by him. Since man's faith is foreseen only as the result of God's work of grace, election proceeds rather upon foreseen unbelief. Faith, as the effect of election, cannot at the same time be the cause of election.

There is an analogy between prayer and its answer, on the one hand, and faith and salvation on the other. God has decreed answer in connection with prayer, and salvation in connection with faith. But he does not change his mind when men pray, or when they believe. As he fulfils his purpose by inspiring true prayer, so he fulfils his purpose by giving faith. Augustine: “He chooses us, not because we believe, but that we may believe: lest we should say that we first chose him.” (John 15:16—“Ye did not choose me, but I chose you”; Rom. 9:21—“from the same lump”; 16—“not of him that willeth”.)

Here see the valuable discussion of Wardlaw, Systematic Theol., 2:485-549—“Election and salvation on the ground of works foreseen are not different in principle from election and salvation on the ground of works performed.” Cf. Prov. 21:1—“The king's heart is in the hand of Jehovah as the watercourses; He turneth it whithersoever he will”—as easily as the rivulets of the eastern fields are turned by the slightest motion of the hand or the foot of the husbandman; Ps. 110:3—“Thy people offer themselves willingly In the day of thy power.”

(c) The depravity of the human will is such that, without this decree to bestow special divine influences upon some, all, without exception, would have rejected Christ's salvation after it was offered to them; and so all, without exception, must have perished. Election, therefore, may be viewed as a necessary consequence of God's decree to provide an objective redemption, if that redemption is to have any subjective result in human salvation.

Before the prodigal son seeks the father, the father must first seek him,—a truth brought out in the preceding parables of the lost money and the lost sheep (Luke 15). Without election, all are lost. Newman Smyth, Orthodox Theology of To-day, 56—“The worst doctrine of election, to-day, is taught by our natural science. The scientific doctrine of natural selection is the doctrine of election, robbed of all hope, and without a single touch of human pity in it.”

Hodge, Syst. Theol., 2:335—“Suppose the deistic view be true: God created men and left them; surely no man could complain of the results. But now suppose God, foreseeing these very results of creation, should create. Would it make any difference, if God's purpose, as to the futurition of such a world, should precede it? Augustine supposes that God did purpose such a world as the deist supposes, with two exceptions: (1) he interposes to restrain evil; (2) he intervenes, by providence, by Christ, and by the Holy Spirit, to save some from destruction.” Election is simply God's determination that the sufferings of Christ shall not be in vain; that all men shall not be lost; that some shall be led to accept Christ; that to this end special influences of his Spirit shall be given.

At first sight it might appear that God's appointing men to salvation was simply permissive, as was his appointment to condemnation (1 Pet. 2:8), and that this appointment was merely indirect by creating them with foresight of their faith or their disobedience. But the decree of salvation is not simply permissive,—it is efficient also. It is a decree to use special means for the salvation of some. A. A. Hodge, Popular Lectures, 143—“The dead man cannot spontaneously originate his own quickening, nor the creature his own creating, nor the infant his own begetting. Whatever man may do after regeneration, the first quickening of the dead must originate with God.”

Hovey, Manual of Theology, 287—“Calvinism, reduced to its lowest terms, is election of believers, not on account of any foreseen conduct of theirs, either before or in the act of conversion, which would be spiritually better than that of others influenced by the same grace, but on account of their foreseen greater usefulness in manifesting the glory of God to moral beings and of their foreseen non-commission of the sin [pg 785]against the Holy Spirit.” But even here we must attribute the greater usefulness and the abstention from fatal sin, not to man's unaided powers but to the divine decree: see Eph. 2:10—“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God afore prepared that we should walk in them.”

(d) The doctrine of election becomes more acceptable to reason when we remember: first, that God's decree is eternal, and in a certain sense is contemporaneous with man's belief in Christ; secondly, that God's decree to create involves the decree of all that in the exercise of man's freedom will follow; thirdly, that God's decree is the decree of him who is all in all, so that our willing and doing is at the same time the working of him who decrees our willing and doing. The whole question turns upon the initiative in human salvation: if this belongs to God, then in spite of difficulties we must accept the doctrine of election.

The timeless existence of God may be the source of many of our difficulties with regard to election, and with a proper view of God's eternity these difficulties might be removed. Mason, Faith of the Gospel, 349-351—“Eternity is commonly thought of as if it were a state or series anterior to time and to be resumed again when time comes to an end. This, however, only reduces eternity to time again, and puts the life of God in the same line with our own, only coming from further back.... At present we do not see how time and eternity meet.”

Royce, World and Individual, 2:374—“God does not temporally foreknow anything, except so far as he is expressed in us finite beings. The knowledge that exists in time is the knowledge that finite beings possess, in so far as they are finite. And no such foreknowledge can predict the special features of individual deeds precisely so far as they are unique. Foreknowledge in time is possible only of the general, and of the causally predetermined, and not of the unique and free. Hence neither God nor man can foreknow perfectly, at any temporal moment, what a free will agent is yet to do. On the other hand, the Absolute possesses a perfect knowledge at one glance of the whole of the temporal order, past, present and future. This knowledge is ill called foreknowledge. It is eternal knowledge. And as there is an eternal knowledge of all individuality and of all freedom, free acts are known as occurring, like the chords in the musical succession, precisely when and how they actually occur.” While we see much truth in the preceding statement, we find in it no bar to our faith that God can translate his eternal knowledge into finite knowledge and can thus put it for special purposes in possession of his creatures.

E. H. Johnson, Theology, 2d ed., 250—“Foreknowing what his creatures would do, God decreed their destiny when he decreed their creation; and this would still be the case, although every man had the partial control over his destiny that Arminians aver, or even the complete control that Pelagians claim. The decree is as absolute as if there were no freedom, but it leaves them as free as if there were no decree.” A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 40, 42—“As the Logos or divine Reason, Christ dwells in humanity everywhere and constitutes the principle of its being. Humanity shares with Christ in the image of God. That image is never wholly lost. It is completely restored in sinners when the Spirit of Christ secures control of their wills and leads them to merge their life in his.... If Christ be the principle and life of all things, then divine sovereignty and human freedom, if they are not absolutely reconciled, at least lose their ancient antagonism, and we can rationally ‘work out our own salvation,’ for the very reason that ‘it is God that worketh in us, both to will and to work, for his good pleasure’ (Phil. 2:12, 13).”

2. Objections to the Doctrine of Election.

(a) It is unjust to those who are not included in this purpose of salvation.—Answer: Election deals, not simply with creatures, but with sinful, guilty, and condemned creatures. That any should be saved, is matter of pure grace, and those who are not included in this purpose of salvation suffer only the due reward of their deeds. There is, therefore, no injustice in God's election. We may better praise God that he saves any, than charge him with injustice because he saves so few.

God can say to all men, saved or unsaved, “Friend, I do thee no wrong.... Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?” (Mat. 20:13, 15). The question is not whether a father will treat his children alike, but whether a sovereign must treat condemned rebels alike. It is not true that, because the Governor pardons one convict from the penitentiary, he must therefore pardon all. When he pardons one, no injury is done to those who are left. But, in God's government, there is still less reason for objection; for God offers pardon to all. Nothing prevents men from being pardoned but their unwillingness to accept his pardon. Election is simply God's determination to make certain persons willing to accept it. Because justice cannot save all, shall it therefore save none?

Augustine, De Predest. Sanct., 8—“Why does not God teach all? Because it is in mercy that he teaches all whom he does teach, while it is in judgment that he does not teach those whom he does not teach.” In his Manual of Theology and Ethics, 260, Hovey remarks that Rom. 9:20—“who art thou that repliest against God?”—teaches, not that might makes right, but that God is morally entitled to glorify either his righteousness or his mercy in disposing of a guilty race. It is not that he chooses to save only a few ship-wrecked and drowning creatures, but that he chooses to save only a part of a great company who are bent on committing suicide. Prov. 8:36—“he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: All they that hate me love death.” It is best for the universe at large that some should be permitted to have their own way and show how dreadful a thing is opposition to God. See Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:455.

(b) It represents God as partial in his dealings and a respecter of persons.—Answer: Since there is nothing in men that determines God's choice of one rather than another, the objection is invalid. It would equally apply to God's selection of certain nations, as Israel, and certain individuals, as Cyrus, to be recipients of special temporal gifts. If God is not to be regarded as partial in not providing a salvation for fallen angels, he cannot be regarded as partial in not providing regenerating influences of his Spirit for the whole race of fallen men.

Ps. 44:3—“For they gat not the land in possession by their own sword, Neither did their own arm save them; But thy right hand, and thine arm, and the light of thy countenance, Because thou wast favorable unto them”; Is. 45:1, 4, 5—“Thus saith Jehovah to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him.... For Jacob my servant's sake, and Israel my chosen, I have called thee by thy name: I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me”; Luke 4:25-27—“There were many widows in Israel ... and unto none of them was Elijah sent, but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. And there were many lepers in Israel ... and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian”; 1 Cor. 4:7—“For who maketh thee to differ? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? but if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?” 2 Pet. 2:4—“God spared not angels when they sinned, but cast them down to hell”; Heb. 2:16—“For verily not to angels doth he give help, but he giveth help to the seed of Abraham.”

Is God partial, in choosing Israel, Cyrus, Naaman? Is God partial, in bestowing upon some of his servants special ministerial gifts? Is God partial, in not providing a salvation for fallen angels? In God's providence, one man is born in a Christian land, the son of a noble family, is endowed with beauty of person, splendid talents, exalted opportunities, immense wealth. Another is born at the Five Points, or among the Hottentots, amid the degradation and depravity of actual, or practical, heathenism. We feel that it is irreverent to complain of God's dealings in providence. What right have sinners to complain of God's dealings in the distribution of his grace? Hovey: “We have no reason to think that God treats all moral beings alike. We should be glad to hear that other races are treated better than we.”

Divine election is only the ethical side and interpretation of natural selection. In the latter God chooses certain forms of the vegetable and animal kingdom without merit of theirs. They are preserved while others die. In the matter of individual health, talent, property, one is taken and the other left. If we call all this the result of system, the reply is that God chose the system, knowing precisely what would come of it. Bruce, Apologetics, 201—“Election to distinction in philosophy or art is not incomprehensible, for these are not matters of vital concern; but election to holiness on the part of some, and to unholiness on the part of others, would be inconsistent with God's own holiness.” But there is no such election to unholiness except on the part of man himself. God's election secures only the good. See (c) below.

J. J. Murphy, Natural Selection and Spiritual Freedom, 73—“The world is ordered on a basis of inequality; in the organic world, as Darwin has shown, it is of inequality—of [pg 787]favored races—that all progress comes; history shows the same to be true of the human and spiritual world. All human progress is due to elect human individuals, elect not only to be a blessing to themselves, but still more to be a blessing to multitudes of others. Any superiority, whether in the natural or in the mental and spiritual world, becomes a vantage-ground for gaining a greater superiority.... It is the method of the divine government, acting in the provinces both of nature and of grace, that all benefit should come to the many through the elect few.”

(c) It represents God as arbitrary.—Answer: It represents God, not as arbitrary, but as exercising the free choice of a wise and sovereign will, in ways and for reasons which are inscrutable to us. To deny the possibility of such a choice is to deny God's personality. To deny that God has reasons for his choice is to deny his wisdom. The doctrine of election finds these reasons, not in men, but in God.

When a regiment is decimated for insubordination, the fact that every tenth man is chosen for death is for reasons; but the reasons are not in the men. In one case, the reason for God's choice seems revealed: 1 Tim. 1:16—“howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me as chief might Jesus Christ show forth all his longsuffering, for an ensample of them that should thereafter believe on him unto eternal life”—here Paul indicates that the reason why God chose him was that he was so great a sinner: verse 15—“Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.”Hovey remarks that “the uses to which God can put men, as vessels of grace, may determine his selection of them.” But since the naturally weak are saved, as well as the naturally strong, we cannot draw any general conclusion, or discern any general rule, in God's dealings, unless it be this, that in election God seeks to illustrate the greatness and the variety of his grace,—the reasons lying, therefore, not in men, but in God. We must remember that God's sovereignty is the sovereignty of God—the infinitely wise, holy and loving God, in whose hands the destinies of men can be left more safely than in the hands of the wisest, most just, and most kind of his creatures.

We must believe in the grace of sovereignty as well as in the sovereignty of grace. Election and reprobation are not matters of arbitrary will. God saves all whom he can wisely save. He will show benevolence in the salvation of mankind just so far as he can without prejudice to holiness. No man can be saved without God, but it is also true that there is no man whom God is not willing to save. H. B. Smith, System, 511—“It may be that many of the finally impenitent resist more light than many of the saved.” Harris, Moral Evolution, 401 (for substance)—“Sovereignty is not lost in Fatherhood, but is recovered as the divine law of righteous love. Doubtless thou art our Father, though Augustine be ignorant of us, and Calvin acknowledge us not.”Hooker, Eccl. Polity, 1:2—“They err who think that of God's will there is no reason except his will.” T. Erskine, The Brazen Serpent, 259—Sovereignty is “just a name for what is unrevealed of God.”

We do not know all of God's reasons for saving particular men, but we do know someof the reasons, for he has revealed them to us. These reasons are not men's merits or works. We have mentioned the first of these reasons: (1) Men's greater sin and need; 1 Tim. 1:16—“that in me as chief might Jesus Christ show forth all his longsuffering.” We may add to this: (2) The fact that men have not sinned against the Holy Spirit and made themselves unreceptive to Christ's salvation; 1 Tim. 1:13—“I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief”—the fact that Paul had not sinned with full knowledge of what he did was a reason why God could choose him. (3) Men's ability by the help of Christ to be witnesses and martyrs for their Lord; Acts 9:15, 16—“he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings, and the children of Israel: for I will show him how many things he must suffer for my name's sake.” As Paul's mission to the Gentiles may have determined God's choice, so Augustine's mission to the sensual and abandoned may have had the same influence. But if Paul's sins, as foreseen, constituted one reason why God chose to save him, why might not his ability to serve the kingdom have constituted another reason? We add therefore: (4) Men's foreseen ability to serve Christ's kingdom in bringing others to the knowledge of the truth; John 15:16—“I chose you and appointed you, that ye should go and bear fruit.” Notice however that this is choice to service, and not simply choice on account of service. In all these cases the reasons do not lie in the men themselves, for what these men are and what they possess is due to God's providence and grace.

(d) It tends to immorality, by representing men's salvation as independent of their own obedience.—Answer: The objection ignores the fact [pg 788] that the salvation of believers is ordained only in connection with their regeneration and sanctification, as means; and that the certainty of final triumph is the strongest incentive to strenuous conflict with sin.

Plutarch: “God is the brave man's hope, and not the coward's excuse.” The purposes of God are an anchor to the storm-tossed spirit. But a ship needs engine, as well as anchor. God does not elect to save any without repentance and faith. Some hold the doctrine of election, but the doctrine of election does not hold them. Such should ponder 1 Pet. 1:2, in which Christians are said to be elect, “in sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.”

Augustine: “He loved her [the church] foul, that he might make her fair.” Dr. John Watson (Ian McLaren): “The greatest reinforcement religion could have in our time would be a return to the ancient belief in the sovereignty of God.” This is because there is lack of a strong conviction of sin, guilt, and helplessness, still remaining pride and unwillingness to submit to God, imperfect faith in God's trustworthiness and goodness. We must not exclude Arminians from our fellowship—there are too many good Methodists for that. But we may maintain that they hold but half the truth, and that absence of the doctrine of election from their creed makes preaching less serious and character less secure.

(e) It inspires pride in those who think themselves elect.—Answer: This is possible only in the case of those who pervert the doctrine. On the contrary, its proper influence is to humble men. Those who exalt themselves above others, upon the ground that they are special favorites of God, have reason to question their election.

In the novel, there was great effectiveness in the lover's plea to the object of his affection, that he had loved since he had first set his eyes upon her in her childhood. But God's love for us is of longer standing than that. It dates back to a time before we were born,—aye, even to eternity past. It is a love which was fastened upon us, although God knew the worst of us. It is unchanging, because founded upon his infinite and eternal love to Christ. Jer. 31:3—“Jehovah appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee”; Rom. 8:31-39—“If God is for us, who is against us?... Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” And the answer is, that nothing “shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” This eternal love subdues and humbles: Ps. 115:1—“Not unto us, O Jehovah, not unto us, But unto thy name give glory For thy lovingkindness, and for thy truth's sake.”

Of the effect of the doctrine of election, Calvin, in his Institutes, 3:22:1, remarks that “when the human mind hears of it, its irritation breaks all restraint, and it discovers as serious and violent agitation as if alarmed by the sound of a martial trumpet.” The cause of this agitation is the apprehension of the fact that one is an enemy of God and yet absolutely dependent upon his mercy. This apprehension leads normally to submission. But the conquered rebel can give no thanks to himself,—all thanks are due to God who has chosen and renewed him. The affections elicited are not those of pride and self-complacency, but of gratitude and love.

Christian hymnology witnesses to these effects. Isaac Watts († 1748): “Why was I made to hear thy voice And enter while there's room, When thousands make a wretched choice, And rather starve than come. 'T was the same love that spread the feast That sweetly forced me in; Else I had still refused to taste, And perished in my sin. Pity the nations, O our God! Constrain the earth to come; Send thy victorious word abroad, And bring the wanderers home.” Josiah Conder († 1855): “'Tis not that I did choose thee, For, Lord, that could not be; This heart would still refuse thee; But thou hast chosen me;—Hast, from the sin that stained me, Washed me and set me free, And to this end ordained me That I should live to thee. 'T was sovereign mercy called me, And taught my opening mind; The world had else enthralled me, To heavenly glories blind. My heart owns none above thee: For thy rich grace I thirst; This knowing,—if I love thee, Thou must have loved me first.”

(f) It discourages effort for the salvation of the impenitent, whether on their own part or on the part of others.—Answer: Since it is a secret decree, it cannot hinder or discourage such effort. On the other hand, it is a ground of encouragement, and so a stimulus to effort; for, without [pg 789] election, it is certain that all would be lost (cf. Acts 18:10). While it humbles the sinner, so that he is willing to err for mercy, it encourages him also by showing him that some will be saved, and (since election and faith are inseparably connected) that he will be saved, if he will only believe. While it makes the Christian feel entirely dependent on God's power, in his efforts for the impenitent, it leads him to say with Paul that he “endures all things for the elects' sake, that they also may attain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory” (2 Tim. 2:10).

God's decree that Paul's ship's company should be saved (Acts 27:24) did not obviate the necessity of their abiding in the ship (verse 31). In marriage, man's election does not exclude woman's; so God's election does not exclude man's. There is just as much need of effort as if there were no election. Hence the question for the sinner is not, “Am I one of the elect?” but rather, “What shall I do to be saved?” Milton represents the spirits of hell as debating foreknowledge and free will, in wandering mazes lost.

No man is saved until he ceases to debate, and begins to act. And yet no man will thus begin to act, unless God's Spirit moves him. The Lord encouraged Paul by saying to him: “I have much people in this city” (Acts 18:10)—people whom I will bring in through thy word. “Old Adam is too strong for young Melanchthon.” If God does not regenerate, there is no hope of success in preaching: “God stands powerless before the majesty of man's lordly will. Sinners have the glory of their own salvation. To pray God to convert a man is absurd. God elects the man, because he foresees that the man will elect himself” (see S. R. Mason, Truth Unfolded, 298-307). The doctrine of election does indeed cut off the hopes of those who place confidence in themselves; but it is best that such hopes should be destroyed, and that in place of them should be put a hope in the sovereign grace of God. The doctrine of election does teach man's absolute dependence upon God, and the impossibility of any disappointment or disarrangement of the divine plans arising from the disobedience of the sinner, and it humbles human pride until it is willing to take the place of a suppliant for mercy.

Rowland Hill was criticized for preaching election and yet exhorting sinners to repent, and was told that he should preach only to the elect. He replied that, if his critic would put a chalk-mark on all the elect, he would preach only to them. But this is not the whole truth. We are not only ignorant who God's elect are, but we are set to preach to both elect and non-elect (Ez. 2:7—“thou shalt speak my words unto them, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear”), with the certainty that to the former our preaching will make a higher heaven, to the latter a deeper hell (2 Cor. 2:15, 16—“For we are a sweet savor of Christ unto God, in them that are saved, and in them that perish; to the one a savor from death unto death; to the other a savor from life unto life”; cf. Luke 2:34—“this child is set for the falling and the rising of many in Israel”—for the falling of some, and for the rising up of others).

Jesus' own thanksgiving in Mat. 11:25, 26—“I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou didst hide these things from the wise and understanding, and didst reveal them unto babes: yea, Father, for so it was well-pleasing in thy sight”—is immediately followed by his invitation in verse 28—“Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” There is no contradiction in his mind between sovereign grace and the free invitations of the gospel.

G. W. Northrup, in The Standard, Sept. 19, 1889—“1. God will save every one of the human race whom he can save and remain God; 2. Every member of the race has a full and fair probation, so that all might be saved and would be saved were they to use aright the light which they already have.”... (Private letter): “Limitations of God in the bestowment of salvation: 1. In the power of God in relation to free will; 2. In the benevolence of God which requires the greatest good of creation, or the greatest aggregate good of the greatest number; 3. In the purpose of God to make the most perfect self-limitation; 4. In the sovereignty of God, as a prerogative absolutely optional in its exercise; 5. In the holiness of God, which involves immutable limitations on his part in dealing with moral agents. Nothing but some absolute impossibility, metaphysical or moral, could have prevented him 'whose nature and whose name is love' from decreeing and securing the confirmation of all moral agents in holiness and blessedness forever.”

(g) The decree of election implies a decree of reprobation.—Answer: The decree of reprobation is not a positive decree, like that of election, [pg 790] but a permissive decree to leave the sinner to his self-chosen rebellion and its natural consequences of punishment.

Election and sovereignty are only sources of good. Election is not a decree to destroy,—it is a decree only to save. When we elect a President, we do not need to hold a second election to determine that the remaining millions shall be non-Presidents. It is needless to apply contrivance or force. Sinners, like water, if simply let alone, will run down hill to ruin. The decree of reprobation is simply a decree to do nothing—a decree to leave the sinner to himself. The natural result of this judicial forsaking, on the part of God, is the hardening and destruction of the sinner. But it must not be forgotten that this hardening and destruction are not due to any positive efficiency of God,—they are a self-hardening and a self-destruction,—and God's judicial forsaking is only the just penalty of the sinner's guilty rejection of offered mercy.

See Hosea 11:8—“How shall I give thee up, Ephraim?... my heart is turned within me, my compassions are kindled together”; 4:17—“Ephraim is joined to idols; let him alone”; Rom. 9:22, 23—“What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering vessels of wrath fitted unto destruction: and that he might make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy, which he afore prepared unto glory”—here notice that “which he afore prepared” declares a positive divine efficiency, in the case of the vessels of mercy, while “fitted unto destruction” intimates no such positive agency of God,—the vessels of wrath fitted themselves for destruction; 2 Tim. 2:20—“vessels ... some unto honor, and some unto dishonor”; 1 Pet. 2:8—“they stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed”; Jude 4—“who were of old set forth [‘written of beforehand’—Am. Rev.] unto this condemnation”; Mat. 25:34, 41—“the kingdom prepared for you ... the eternal fire which is prepared [not for you, nor for men, but] for the devil and his angels” = there is an election to life, but no reprobation to death; a “book of life” (Rev. 21:27), but no book of death.

E. G. Robinson, Christian Theology, 313—“Reprobation, in the sense of absolute predestination to sin and eternal damnation, is neither a sequence of the doctrine of election, nor the teaching of the Scriptures.” Men are not “appointed” to disobedience and stumbling in the same way that they are “appointed” to salvation. God uses positive means to save, but not to destroy. Henry Ward Beecher: “The elect are whosoever will; the non-elect are whosoever won't.” George A. Gordon, New Epoch for Faith, 44—“Election understood would have been the saving strength of Israel; election misunderstood was its ruin. The nation felt that the election of it meant the rejection of other nations.... The Christian church has repeated Israel's mistake.”

The Westminster Confession reads: “By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others to everlasting death. These angels and men, thus predestinated and foreordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed; and their number is so certain and definite that it cannot be either increased or diminished. The rest of mankind God was pleased, according to the unsearchable counsel of his own will, whereby he extendeth or withholdeth mercy as he pleaseth, for the glory of his sovereign power over his creatures, to pass by and to ordain them to dishonor and wrath for their sin, to the praise of his glorious justice.” This reads as if both the saved and the lost were made originally for their respective final estates without respect to character. It is supralapsarianism. It is certain that the supralapsarians were in the majority in the Westminster Assembly, and that they determined the form of the statement, although there were many sublapsarians who objected that it was only on account of their foreseen wickedness that any were reprobated. In its later short statement of doctrine the Presbyterian body in America has made it plain that God's decree of reprobation is a permissive decree, and that it places no barrier in the way of any man's salvation.

On the general subject of Election, see Mozley, Predestination; Payne, Divine Sovereignty; Ridgeley, Works, 1:261-324, esp. 322; Edwards, Works, 2:527 sq.; Van Oosterzee, Dogmatics, 446-458; Martensen, Dogmatics, 362-382; and especially Wardlaw, Systematic Theology, 485-549; H. B. Smith, Syst. of Christian Theology, 502-514; Maule, Outlines of Christian Doctrine, 36-56; Peck, in Bapt. Quar. Rev., Oct. 1891:689-706. On objections to election, and Spurgeon's answers to them, see Williams, Reminiscences of Spurgeon, 189. On the homiletical uses of the doctrine of election, see Bib. Sac., Jan. 1893:79-92.

II. Calling.

Calling is that act of God by which men are invited to accept, by faith, the salvation provided by Christ.—The Scriptures distinguish between:

(a) The general, or external, call to all men through God's providence, word, and Spirit.

Is. 45:22—“Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is none else”; 55:6—“Seek ye Jehovah while he may be found; call ye upon him while he is near”; 65:12—“when I called, ye did not answer; when I spake, ye did not hear; but ye did that which was evil in mine eyes, and chose that wherein I delighted not”; Ez. 33:11—“As I live, saith the Lord Jehovah, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?” Mat. 11:28—“Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest”; 22:3—“sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the marriage feast: and they would not come”; Mark 16:15—“Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to the whole creation”; John 12:32—“And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto myself”—draw, not drag; Rev. 3:20—“Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”

(b) The special, efficacious call of the Holy Spirit to the elect.

Luke 14:23—“Go out into the highways and hedges, and constrain them to come in, that my house may be filled”; Rom. 1:7—“to all that are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ”; 8:30—“whom he foreordained, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified”; 11:29—“For the gifts and the calling of God are not repented of”; 1 Cor. 1:23, 24—“but we preach Christ crucified, unto Jews a stumblingblock, and unto Gentiles foolishness; but unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God”; 26—“For behold your calling, brethren, that not many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called”; Phil. 3:14—“I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high [marg. ‘upward’] calling of God in Christ Jesus”; Eph. 1:18—“that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints”; 1 Thess. 2:12—“to the end that ye should walk worthily of God, who calleth you into his own kingdom and glory”; 2 Thess. 2:14—“whereunto he called you through our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ”; 2 Tim. 1:9—“who saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before times eternal”; Heb. 3:1—“holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling”; 2 Pet. 1:10—“Wherefore, brethren, give the more diligence to make your calling and election sure.”

Two questions only need special consideration:

A. Is God's general call sincere?

This is denied, upon the ground that such sincerity is incompatible, first, with the inability of the sinner to obey; and secondly, with the design of God to bestow only upon the elect the special grace without which they will not obey.

(a) To the first objection we reply that, since this inability is not a physical but a moral inability, consisting simply in the settled perversity of an evil will, there can be no insincerity in offering salvation to all, especially when the offer is in itself a proper motive to obedience.

God's call to all men to repent and to believe the gospel is no more insincere than his command to all men to love him with all the heart. There is no obstacle in the way of men's obedience to the gospel, that does not exist to prevent their obedience to the law. If it is proper to publish the commands of the law, it is proper to publish the invitations of the gospel. A human being may be perfectly sincere in giving an invitation which he knows will be refused. He may desire to have the invitation accepted, while yet he may, for certain reasons of justice or personal dignity, be unwilling to put forth special efforts, aside from the invitation itself, to secure the acceptance of it on the part of those to whom it is offered. So God's desires that certain men should be saved may not be accompanied by his will to exert special influences to save them.

These desires were meant by the phrase “revealed will” in the old theologians; his purpose to bestow special grace, by the phrase “secret will.” It is of the former that Paul speaks, in 1 Tim, 2:4—“who would have all men to be saved.” Here we have, not the active σῶσαι, but the passive σωθῆναι. The meaning is, not that God purposes to save all men, but that he desires all men to be saved through repenting and believing the gospel. Hence God's revealed will, or desire, that all men should be saved, is perfectly consistent with his secret will, or purpose, to bestow special grace only upon a certain number (see, on 1 Tim. 2:4, Fairbairn's Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles).

The sincerity of God's call is shown, not only in the fact that the only obstacle to compliance, on the sinner's part, is the sinner's own evil will, but also in the fact that [pg 792]God has, at infinite cost, made a complete external provision, upon the ground of which “he that will” may “come” and “take the water of life freely” (Rev. 22:17); so that God can truly say: “What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it?” (Is. 5:4). Broadus, Com. on Mat. 6:10—“Thy will be done”—distinguishes between God's will of purpose, of desire, and of command. H. B. Smith, Syst. Theol., 521—“Common grace passes over into effectual grace in proportion as the sinner yields to the divine influence. Effectual grace is that which effects what common grace tends to effect.” See also Studien und Kritiken, 1887:7 sq.

(b) To the second, we reply that the objection, if true, would equally hold against God's foreknowledge. The sincerity of God's general call is no more inconsistent with his determination that some shall be permitted to reject it, than it is with foreknowledge that some will reject it.

Hodge, Syst. Theol., 2:643—“Predestination concerns only the purpose of God to render effectual, in particular cases, a call addressed to all. A general amnesty, on certain conditions, may be offered by a sovereign to rebellious subjects, although he knows that through pride or malice many will refuse to accept it; and even though, for wise reasons, he should determine not to constrain their assent, supposing that such influence over their minds were within his power. It is evident, from the nature of the call, that it has nothing to do with the secret purpose of God to grant his effectual grace to some, and not to others.... According to the Augustinian scheme, the non-elect have all the advantages and opportunities of securing their salvation, which, according to any other scheme, are granted to mankind indiscriminately.... God designed, in its adoption, to save his own people, but he consistently offers its benefits to all who are willing to receive them.” See also H. B. Smith, System of Christian Theology, 515-521.

B. Is God's special call irresistible?

We prefer to say that this special call is efficacious,—that is, that it infallibly accomplishes its purpose of leading the sinner to the acceptance of salvation. This implies two things:

(a) That the operation of God is not an outward constraint upon the human will, but that it accords with the laws of our mental constitution. We reject the term “irresistible,” as implying a coercion and compulsion which is foreign to the nature of God's working in the soul.

Ps. 110:3—“Thy people are freewill-offerings in the day of thy power: in holy array, Out of the womb of the morning Thou hast the dew of thy youth”—i. e., youthful recruits to thy standard, as numberless and as bright as the drops of morning dew; Phil. 2:12, 13—“Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who worketh in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure”—i. e., the result of God's working is our own working. The Lutheran Formula of Concord properly condemns the view that, before, in, and after conversion, the will only resists the Holy Spirit: for this, it declares, is the very nature of conversion, that out of non-willing, God makes willing, persons (F. C. 60, 581, 582, 673).

Hos. 4:16—“Israel hath behaved himself stubbornly, like a stubborn heifer,” or “or as a heifer that slideth back”= when the sacrificial offering is brought forward to be slain, it holds back, settling on its haunches so that it has to be pushed and forced before it can be brought to the altar. These are not “the sacrifices of God” which are “a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart”(Ps. 51:17). E. H. Johnson, Theology, 2d ed., 250—“The N. T. nowhere declares, or even intimates, ... that the general call of the Holy Spirit is insufficient. And furthermore, it never states that the efficient call is irresistible. Psychologically, to speak of irresistible influence upon the faculty of self-determination in man is express contradiction in terms. No harm can come from acknowledging that we do not know God's unrevealed reasons for electing one individual rather than another to eternal life.”Dr. Johnson goes on to argue that if, without disparagement to grace, faith can be a condition of justification, faith might also be a condition of election, and that inasmuch as salvation is received as a gift only on condition of faith exercised, it is in purpose a gift, even if only on condition of faith foreseen. This seems to us to ignore the abundant Scripture testimony that faith itself is God's gift, and therefore the initiative must be wholly with God.

(b) That the operation of God is the originating cause of that new disposition of the affections, and that new activity of the will, by which the sinner accepts Christ. The cause is not in the response of the will to the presentation of motives by God, nor in any mere coöperation of the will of man with the will of God, but is an almighty act of God in the will of man, by which its freedom to choose God as its end is restored and rightly exercised (John 1:12, 13). For further discussion of the subject, see, in the next section, the remarks on Regeneration, with which this efficacious call is identical.

John 1:12, 13—“But as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”God's saving grace and effectual calling are irresistible, not in the sense that they are never resisted, but in the sense that they are never successfully resisted. See Andrew Fuller, Works, 2:373, 513, and 3:807; Gill, Body of Divinity, 2:121-130; Robert Hall, Works, 3:75.

Matheson, Moments on the Mount, 128, 129—“Thy love to Him is to his love to thee what the sunlight on the sea is to the sunshine in the sky—a reflex, a mirror, a diffusion; thou art giving back the glory that has been cast upon the waters. In the attraction of thy life to him, in the cleaving of thy heart to him, in the soaring of thy spirit to him, thou art told that he is near thee, thou hearest the beating of his pulse for thee.”

Upton, Hibbert Lectures, 302—“In regard to our reason and to the essence of our ideals, there is no real dualism between man and God; but in the case of the will which constitutes the essence of each man's individuality, there is a real dualism, and therefore a possible antagonism between the will of the dependent spirit, man, and the will of the absolute and universal spirit, God. Such real duality of will, and not the appearanceof duality, as F. H. Bradley put it, is the essential condition of ethics and religion.”

Section II.—The Application Of Christ's Redemption In Its Actual Beginning.

Under this head we treat of Union with Christ, Regeneration, Conversion (embracing Repentance and Faith), and Justification. Much confusion and error have arisen from conceiving these as occurring in chronological order. The order is logical, not chronological. As it is only “in Christ” that man is “a new creature” (2 Cor. 5:17) or is “justified” (Acts 13:39), union with Christ logically precedes both regeneration and justification; and yet, chronologically, the moment of our union with Christ is also the moment when we are regenerated and justified. So, too, regeneration and conversion are but the divine and human sides or aspects of the same fact, although regeneration has logical precedence, and man turns only as God turns him.

Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 3:694 (Syst. Doct., 4:159), gives at this point an account of the work of the Holy Spirit in general. The Holy Spirit's work, he says, presupposes the historical work of Christ, and prepares the way for Christ's return. “As the Holy Spirit is the principle of union between the Father and the Son, so he is the principle of union between God and man. Only through the Holy Spirit does Christ secure for himself those who will love him as distinct and free personalities.” Regeneration and conversion are not chronologically separate. Which of the spokes of a wheel starts first? The ray of light and the ray of heat enter at the same moment. Sensation and perception are not separated in time, although the former is the cause of the latter.

“Suppose a non-elastic tube extending across the Atlantic. Suppose that the tube is completely filled with an incompressible fluid. Then there would be no interval of time between the impulse given to the fluid at this end of the tube, and the effect upon the fluid at the other end.” See Hazard, Causation and Freedom in Willing, 33-38, who argues that cause and effect are always simultaneous; else, in the intervening time, there would be a cause that had no effect; that is, a cause that caused nothing; that is, a cause that that was not a cause. “A potential cause may exist for an unlimited period without producing any effect, and of course may precede its effect by any length of time. But actual, effective cause being the exercise of a sufficient power, its effect cannot be delayed; for, in that case, there would be the exercise of a sufficient power to produce the effect, without producing it,—involving the absurdity of its being both sufficient and insufficient at the same time.

“A difficulty may here be suggested in regard to the flow or progress of events in time, if they are all simultaneous with their causes. This difficulty cannot arise as to intelligent effort; for, in regard to it, periods of non-action may continually intervene; but if there are series of events and material phenomena, each of which is in turn effect and cause, it may be difficult to see how any time could elapse between the first and the last of the series.... If, however, as I suppose, these series of events, or material changes, are always effected through the medium of motion, it need not trouble us, for there is precisely the same difficulty in regard to our conception of the motion of matter from point to point, there being no space or length between any two consecutive points, and yet the body in motion gets from one end of a long line to the other, and in this case this difficulty just neutralizes the other.... So, even if we cannot conceive how motion involves the idea of time, we may perceive that, if it does so, it may be a means of conveying events, which depend upon it, through time also.”

Martineau, Study, 1:148-150—“Simultaneity does not exclude duration,”—since each cause has duration and each effect has duration also. Bowne, Metaphysics, 106—“In the system, the complete ground of an event never lies in any one thing, but only in a complex of things. If a single thing were the sufficient ground of an effect, the effect would coëxist with the thing, and all effects would be instantaneously given. Hence all events in the system must be viewed as the result of the interaction of two or more things.”

The first manifestation of life in an infant may be in the lungs or heart or brain, but that which makes any and all of these manifestations possible is the antecedent life. We may not be able to tell which comes first, but having the life we have all the rest. When the wheel goes, all the spokes will go. The soul that is born again will show it in faith and hope and love and holy living. Regeneration will involve repentance and faith and justification and sanctification. But the one life which makes regeneration and all these consequent blessings possible is the life of Christ who joins himself to us in order that we may join ourselves to him. Anne Reeve Aldrich, The Meaning: “I lost my life in losing love. This blurred my spring and killed its dove. Along my path the dying roses Fell, and disclosed the thorns thereof. I found my life in finding God. In ecstasy I kiss the rod; For who that wins the goal, but lightly Thinks of the thorns whereon he trod?”

See A. A. Hodge, on the Ordo Salutis, in Princeton Rev., March, 1888:304-321. Union with Christ, says Dr. Hodge, “is effected by the Holy Ghost in effectual calling. Of this calling the parts are two: (a) the offering of Christ to the sinner, externally by the gospel, and internally by the illumination of the Holy Ghost; (b) the reception of Christ, which on our part is both passive and active. The passive reception is that whereby a spiritual principle is ingenerated into the human will, whence issues the active reception, which is an act of faith with which repentance is always conjoined. The communion of benefits which results from this union involves: (a) a change of state or relation, called justification; and (b) a change of subjective moral character, commenced in regeneration and completed through sanctification.” See also Dr. Hodge's Popular Lectures on Theological Themes, 340, and Outlines of Theology, 333-429.

H. B. Smith, however, in his System of Christian Theology, is more clear in the putting of Union with Christ before Regeneration. On page 502, he begins his treatment of the Application of Redemption with the title: “The Union between Christ and the individual believer as effected by the Holy Spirit. This embraces the subjects of Justification, Regeneration, and Sanctification, with the underlying topic which comes first to be considered, Election.” He therefore treats Union with Christ (531-539) before Regeneration (553-569). He says Calvin defines regeneration as coming to us by participation in Christ, and apparently agrees with this view (559).

“This union [with Christ] is at the ground of regeneration and justification” (534). “The great difference of theological systems comes out here. Since Christianity is redemption through Christ, our mode of conceiving that will determine the character of our whole theological system” (536). “The union with Christ is mediated by his Spirit, whence we are both renewed and justified. The great fact of objective Christianity is incarnation in order to atonement; the great fact of subjective Christianity is union with Christ, whereby we receive the atonement” (537). We may add that this union with Christ, in view of which God elects and to which God calls the sinner, is begun in regeneration, completed in conversion, declared in justification, and proved in sanctification and perseverance.

I. Union with Christ.

The Scriptures declare that, through the operation of God, there is constituted a union of the soul with Christ different in kind from God's natural and providential concursus with all spirits, as well as from all unions of mere association or sympathy, moral likeness, or moral influence,—a union of life, in which the human spirit, while then most truly possessing its own individuality and personal distinctness, is interpenetrated and energized by the Spirit of Christ, is made inscrutably but indissolubly one with him, and so becomes a member and partaker of that regenerated, believing, and justified humanity of which he is the head.

Union with Christ is not union with a system of doctrine, nor with external religious influences, nor with an organized church, nor with an ideal man,—but rather, with a personal, risen, living, omnipresent Lord (J. W. A. Stewart). Dr. J. W. Alexander well calls this doctrine of the Union of the Believer with Christ “the central truth of all theology and of all religion.” Yet it receives little of formal recognition, either in dogmatic treatises or in common religious experience. Quenstedt, 886-912, has devoted a section to it; A. A. Hodge gives to it a chapter, in his Outlines of Theology, 369 sq., to which we are indebted for valuable suggestions; H. B. Smith treats of it, not however as a separate topic, but under the head of Justification (System, 531-539).

The majority of printed systems of doctrine, however, contain no chapter or section on Union with Christ, and the majority of Christians much more frequently think of Christ as a Savior outside of them, than as a Savior who dwells within. This comparative neglect of the doctrine is doubtless a reaction from the exaggerations of a false mysticism. But there is great need of rescuing the doctrine from neglect. For this we rely wholly upon Scripture. Doctrines which reason can neither discover nor prove need large support from the Bible. It is a mark of divine wisdom that the doctrine of the Trinity, for example, is so inwoven with the whole fabric of the New Testament, that the rejection of the former is the virtual rejection of the latter. The doctrine of Union with Christ, in like manner, is taught so variously and abundantly, that to deny it is to deny inspiration itself. See Kahnis, Luth. Dogmatik, 3:447-450.

1. Scripture Representations of this Union.

A. Figurative teaching. It is illustrated:

(a) From the union of a building and its foundation.

Eph. 2:20-22—“being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief corner stone; in whom each several building, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God in the Spirit”; Col. 2:7—“builded up in him”—grounded in Christ as our foundation; 1 Pet. 2:4, 5—“unto whom coming, a living stone, rejected indeed of men, but with God elect, precious, ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house”—each living stone in the Christian temple is kept in proper relation to every other, and is made to do its part in furnishing a habitation for God, only by being built upon and permanently connected with Christ, the chief corner-stone. Cf. Ps. 118:22—“The stone which the builders rejected Is become the head of the corner”; Is. 28:16—“Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone of sure foundation: he that believeth shall not be in haste.”

(b) From the union between husband and wife.

Rom. 7:4—“ye also were made dead to the law through the body of Christ; that ye should be joined to another, even to him who was raised from the dead, that we might bring forth fruit unto God”—here union with Christ [pg 796]is illustrated by the indissoluble bond that connects husband and wife, and makes them legally and organically one; 2 Cor. 11:2—“I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy: for I espoused you to one husband, that I might present you as a pure virgin to Christ”; Eph. 5:31, 32—“For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great: but I speak in regard of Christ and of the church”—Meyer refers verse 31 wholly to Christ, and says that Christ leaves father and mother (the right hand of God) and is joined to the church as his wife, the two constituting thenceforth one moral person. He makes the union future, however,—“For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother”—the consummation is at Christ's second coming. But the Fathers, as Chrysostom, Theodoret, and Jerome, referred it more properly to the incarnation.

Rev. 19:7—“the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready”; 22:17—“And the Spirit and the bride say, Come”; cf. Is. 54:5—“For thy Maker is thine husband”; Jer. 3:20—“Surely as a wife treacherously departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, saith Jehovah”; Hos. 2:2-5—“for their mother hath played the harlot”—departure from God is adultery; the Song of Solomon, as Jewish interpreters have always maintained, is an allegorical poem describing, under the figure of marriage, the union between Jehovah and his people: Paul only adopts the Old Testament figure, and applies it more precisely to the union of God with the church in Jesus Christ.

(c) From the union between the vine and its branches.

John 15:1-10—“I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit: for apart from me ye can do nothing”—as God's natural life is in the vine, that it may give life to its natural branches, so God's spiritual life is in the vine, Christ, that he may give life to his spiritual branches. The roots of this new vine are planted in heaven, not on earth; and into it the half-withered branches of the old humanity are to be grafted, that they may have life divine. Yet our Lord does not say “I am the root.”The branch is not something outside, which has to get nourishment out of the root,—it is rather a part of the vine. Rom. 6:5—“if we have become united with him [σύμφυτοι—‘grown together’—used of the man and horse in the Centaur, Xen., Cyrop., 4:3:18], in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection”; 11:24—“thou wast cut out of that which is by nature a wild olive tree, and wast grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree”; Col. 2:6, 7—“As therefore ye received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and builded up in him”—not only grounded in Christ as our foundation, but thrusting down roots into him as the deep, rich, all-sustaining soil. This union with Christ is consistent with individuality: for the graft brings forth fruit after its kind, though modified by the tree into which it is grafted.

Bishop H. W. Warren, in S. S. Times, Oct. 17, 1891—“The lessons of the vine are intimacy, likeness of nature, continuous impartation of life, fruit. Between friends there is intimacy by means of media, such as food, presents, care, words, soul looking from the eyes. The mother gives her liquid flesh to the babe, but such intimacy soon ceases. The mother is not rich enough in life continuously to feed the ever-enlarging nature of the growing man. Not so with the vine. It continuously feeds. Its rivers crowd all the banks. They burst out in leaf, blossom, clinging tendrils, and fruit, everywhere. In nature a thorn grafted on a pear tree bears only thorn. There is not pear-life enough to compel change of its nature. But a wild olive, typical of depraved nature, grafted on a good olive tree finds, contrary to nature, that there is force enough in the growing stock to change the nature of the wild scion.”

(d) From the union between the members and the head of the body.

1 Cor. 6:15, 19—“Know ye not that your bodies are members of Christ?... know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have from God?” 12:12—“For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of the body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ”—here Christ is identified with the church of which he is the head; Eph. 1:22, 23—“he put all things in subjection under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all”—as the members of the human body are united to the head, the source of their activity and the power that controls their movements, so all believers are members of an invisible body whose head is Christ. Shall we tie a string round the finger to keep for it its own blood? No, for all the blood of the body is needed to nourish one finger. So Christ is “head over all things to [for the benefit of] the church” (Tyler, Theol. Greek Poets, preface, ii). “The church is the fulness (πλήρωμα) of Christ; as it was not good for the first man, Adam, to be alone, no more was it good for the second man, Christ” (C. H. M.). Eph. 4:15, 16—“grow up in all things into him, who is the head, even Christ; from whom all the body ... maketh the increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love”; 5:29, 30—“for no man ever hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as Christ also the church; because we are members of his body.”

(e) From the union of the race with the source of its life in Adam.

Rom. 5:12, 21—“as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin.... that, as sin reigned in death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord”; 1 Cor. 15:22, 45, 49—“as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.... The first man Adam became a living soul. The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit.... as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly”—as the whole race is one with the first man Adam, in whom it fell and from whom it has derived a corrupted and guilty nature, so the whole race of believers constitutes a new and restored humanity, whose justified and purified nature is derived from Christ, the second Adam. Cf. Gen. 2:23—“This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man”—here C. H. M. remarks that, as man is first created and then woman is viewed in and formed out of him, so it is with Christ and the church. “We are members of Christ's body, because in Christ we have the principle of our origin; from him our life arose, just as the life of Eve was derived from Adam.... The church is Christ's helpmeet, formed out of Christ in his deep sleep of death, as Eve out of Adam.... The church will be nearest to Christ, as Eve was to Adam.” Because Christ is the source of all spiritual life for his people, he is called, in Is. 9:6, “Everlasting Father,” and it is said, in Is. 53:10, that “he shall see his seed” (see page 680).

B. Direct statements.

(a) The believer is said to be in Christ.

Lest we should regard the figures mentioned above as merely Oriental metaphors, the fact of the believer's union with Christ is asserted in the most direct and prosaic manner. John 14:20—“ye in me”; Rom. 6:11—“alive unto God in Christ Jesus”; 8:1—“no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus”; 2 Cor. 5:17—“if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature”; Eph. 1:4—“chose us in him before the foundation of the world”; 2:13—“now in Christ Jesus ye that once were far off are made nigh in the blood of Christ.” Thus the believer is said to be “in Christ,” as the element or atmosphere which surrounds him with its perpetual presence and which constitutes his vital breath; in fact, this phrase “in Christ,” always meaning “in union with Christ,” is the very key to Paul's epistles, and to the whole New Testament. The fact that the believer is in Christ is symbolized in baptism: we are “baptized into Christ” (Gal. 3:27).

(b) Christ is said to be in the believer.

John 14:20—“I in you”; Rom. 8:9—“ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you. But if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his”—that this Spirit of Christ is Christ himself, is shown from verse 10—“And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness”; Gal. 2:20—“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me”—here Christ is said to be in the believer, and so to live his life within the believer, that the latter can point to this as the dominating fact of his experience,—it is not so much he that lives, as it is Christ that lives in him. The fact that Christ is in the believer is symbolized in the Lord's supper: “The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” (1 Cor. 10:16).

(c) The Father and the Son dwell in the believer.

John 14:23—“If a man love me, he will keep my word: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him”; cf. 10—“Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I say unto you I speak not from myself: but the Father abiding in me doeth his works”—the Father and the Son dwell in the believer; for where the Son is, there always the Father must be also. If the union between the believer and Christ in John 14:23 is to be interpreted as one of mere moral influence, then the union of Christ and the Father in John 14:10must also be interpreted as a union of mere moral influence. Eph. 3:17—“that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith”; 1 John 4:16—“he that abideth in love abideth in God, and God abideth in him.”

(d) The believer has life by partaking of Christ, as Christ has life by partaking of the Father.

John 6:53, 56, 57—“Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have not life in yourselves .... He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so he that eateth me, he also shall live because of me”—the believer has life by partaking of Christ in a way that may not inappropriately be compared with Christ's having life by partaking of the Father. 1 Cor. 10:16, 17—“the cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a communion of the body of Christ?”—here it is intimated that the Lord's Supper sets forth, in the language of symbol, [pg 798]the soul's actual participation in the life of Christ; and the margin properly translates the word κοινωνία, not “communion,” but “participation.” Cf. 1 John 1:3—“our fellowship (κοινωνία) is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.” Foster, Christian Life and Theology, 216—“In John 6, the phrases call to mind the ancient form of sacrifice, and the participation therein by the offerer at the sacrificial meal,—as at the Passover.”

(e) All believers are one in Christ.

John 17:21-23—“that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us: that the world may believe that thou didst send me. And the glory which thou hast given me I have given unto them; that they may be one, even as we are one; I in them, and thou in me, that they may be perfected into one”—all believers are one in Christ, to whom they are severally and collectively united, as Christ himself is one with God.

(f) The believer is made partaker of the divine nature.

2 Pet. 1:4—“that through these [promises] ye may become partakers of the divine nature”—not by having the essence of your humanity changed into the essence of divinity, but by having Christ the divine Savior continually dwelling within, and indissolubly joined to, your human souls.

(g) The believer is made one spirit with the Lord.

1 Cor. 6:17—“he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit”—human nature is so interpenetrated and energized by the divine, that the two move and act as one; cf. 19—“know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have from God?” Rom. 8:26—“the Spirit also helpeth our infirmity: for we know not how to pray as we ought; but the Spirit himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered”—the Spirit is so near to us, and so one with us, that our prayer is called his, or rather, his prayer becomes ours. Weiss, in his Life of Jesus, says that, in the view of Scripture, human greatness does not consist in a man's producing everything in a natural way out of himself, but in possessing perfect receptivity for God's greatest gift. Therefore God's Son receives the Spirit without measure; and we may add that the believer in like manner receives Christ.

2. Nature of this Union.

We have here to do not only with a fact of life, but with a unique relation between the finite and the infinite. Our descriptions must therefore be inadequate. Yet in many respects we know what this union is not; in certain respects we can positively characterize it.

It should not surprise us if we find it far more difficult to give a scientific definition of this union, than to determine the fact of its existence. It is a fact of life with which we have to deal; and the secret of life, even in its lowest forms, no philosopher has ever yet discovered. The tiniest flower witnesses to two facts: first, that of its own relative independence, as an individual organism; and secondly, that of its ultimate dependence upon a life and power not its own. So every human soul has its proper powers of intellect, affection, and will; yet it lives, moves, and has its being in God (Acts 17:28).

Starting out from the truth of God's omnipresence, it might seem as if God's indwelling in the granite boulder was the last limit of his union with the finite. But we see the divine intelligence and goodness drawing nearer to us, by successive stages, in vegetable life, in the animal creation, and in the moral nature of man. And yet there are two stages beyond all these: first, in Christ's union with the believer; and secondly, in God's union with Christ. If this union of God with the believer be only one of several approximations of God to his finite creation, the fact that it is, equally with the others, not wholly comprehensible to reason, should not blind us either to its truth or to its importance.

It is easier to-day than at any other previous period of history to believe in the union of the believer with Christ. That God is immanent in the universe, and that there is a divine element in man, is familiar to our generation. All men are naturally one with Christ, the immanent God, and this natural union prepares the way for that spiritual union in which Christ joins himself to our faith. Campbell, The Indwelling Christ, 131—“In the immanence of Christ in nature we find the ground of his immanence in human nature.... A man may be out of Christ, but Christ is never out of him. Those who banish him he does not abandon.” John Caird, Fund. Ideas of Christianity, 2:233-256—“God [pg 799]is united with nature, in the atoms, in the trees, in the planets. Science is seeing nature full of the life of God. God is united to man in body and soul. The beating of his heart and the voice of conscience witness to God within. God sleeps in the stone, dreams in the animal, wakes in man.”

A. Negatively.—It is not:

(a) A merely natural union, like that of God with all human spirits,—as held by rationalists.

In our physical life we are conscious of another life within us which is not subject to our wills: the heart beats involuntarily, whether we sleep or wake. But in our spiritual life we are still more conscious of a life within our life. Even the heathen said: “Est Deus in nobis; agitante calescimus illo,” and the Egyptians held to the identification of the departed with Osiris (Renouf, Hibbert Lectures, 185). But Paul urges us to work out our salvation, upon the very ground that “it is God that worketh” in us, “both to will and to work, for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:12, 13). This life of God in the soul is the life of Christ.

The movement of the electric car cannot be explained simply from the working of its own motor apparatus. The electric current throbbing through the wire, and the dynamo from which that energy proceeds, are needed to explain the result. In like manner we need a spiritual Christ to explain the spiritual activity of the Christian. A. H. Strong, Sermon before the Baptist World Congress in London, 1905—“We had in America some years ago a steam engine all whose working parts were made of glass. The steam came from without, but, being hot enough to move machinery, this steam was itself invisible, and there was presented the curious spectacle of an engine, transparent, moving, and doing important work, while yet no cause for this activity was perceptible. So the church, humanity, the universe, are all in constant and progressive movement, but the Christ who moves them is invisible. Faith comes to believe where it cannot see. It joins itself to this invisible Christ, and knows him as its very life.”

(b) A merely moral union, or union of love and sympathy, like that between teacher and scholar, friend and friend,—as held by Socinians and Arminians.

There is a moral union between different souls: 1 Sam. 18:1—“the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul”—here the Vulgate has: “Anima Jonathæ agglutinata Davidi.” Aristotle calls friends “one soul.” So in a higher sense, in Acts 4:32, the early believers are said to have been “of one heart and soul.” But in John 17:21, 26, Christ's union with his people is distinguished from any mere union of love and sympathy: “that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us;... that the love wherewith thou lovedst me may be in them, and I in them.” Jesus' aim, in the whole of his last discourse, is to show that no mere union of love and sympathy will be sufficient: “apart from me,” he says, “ye can do nothing” (John 15:5). That his disciples may be vitally joined to himself, is therefore the subject of his last prayer.

Dorner says well, that Arminianism (and with this doctrine Roman Catholics and the advocates of New School views substantially agree) makes man a mere tangent to the circle of the divine nature. It has no idea of the interpenetration of the one by the other. But the Lutheran Formula of Concord says much more correctly: “Damnamus sententiam quod non Deus ipse, sed dona Dei duntaxat, in credentibus habitent.”

Ritschl presents to us a historical Christ, and Pfleiderer presents to us an ideal Christ, but neither one gives us the living Christ who is the present spiritual life of the believer. Wendt, in his Teaching of Jesus, 2:310, comes equally far short of a serious interpretation of our Lord's promise, when he says: “This union to his person, as to its contents, is nothing else than adherence to the message of the kingdom of God brought by him.” It is not enough for me to be merely in touch with Christ. He must come to be “not so far as even to be near.” Tennyson, The Higher Pantheism: “Closer is he than breathing, and nearer than hands or feet.” William Watson, The Unknown God: “Yea, in my flesh his Spirit doth flow, Too near, too far, for me to know.”

(c) A union of essence, which destroys the distinct personality and subsistence of either Christ or the human spirit,—as held by many of the mystics.

Many of the mystics, as Schwenkfeld, Weigel, Sebastian Frank, held to an essentialunion between Christ and the believer. One of Weigel's followers, therefore, could say to another: “I am Christ Jesus, the living Word of God; I have redeemed thee by my sinless sufferings.” We are ever to remember that the indwelling of Christ only puts the believer more completely in possession of himself, and makes him more conscious of his own personality and power. Union with Christ must be taken in connection with the other truth of the personality and activity of the Christian; otherwise it tends to pantheism. Martineau, Study, 2:190—“In nature it is God's immanent life, in morals it is God's transcendent life, with which we commune.”

Angelus Silesius, a German philosophical poet (1624-1677), audaciously wrote: “I know God cannot live an instant without me; He must give up the ghost, if I should cease to be.” Lowde, a disciple of Malebranche, used the phrase “Godded with God, and Christed with Christ,” and Jonathan Edwards, in his Religious Affections, quotes it with disapprobation, saying that “the saints do not become actually partakers of the divine essence, as would be inferred from this abominable and blasphemous language of heretics” (Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 224). “Self is not a mode of the divine: it is a principle of isolation. In order to religion, I must have a will to surrender.... ‘Our wills are ours, to make them thine.’... Though the self is, in knowledge, a principle of unification; in existence, or metaphysically, it is a principle of isolation” (Seth).

Inge, Christian Mysticism, 30—“Some of the mystics went astray by teaching a real substitution of the divine for human nature, thus depersonalizing man—a fatal mistake, for without human personality we cannot conceive of divine personality.” Lyman Abbott: “In Christ, God and man are united, not as the river is united with the sea, losing its personality therein, but as the child is united with the father, or the wife with the husband, whose personality and individuality are strengthened and increased by the union.” Here Dr. Abbott's view comes as far short of the truth as that of the mystics goes beyond the truth. As we shall see, the union of the believer with Christ is a vital union, surpassing in its intimacy any union of souls that we know. The union of child with father, or of wife with husband, is only a pointer which hints very imperfectly at the interpenetrating and energizing of the human spirit by the divine.

(d) A union mediated and conditioned by participation of the sacraments of the church,—as held by Romanists, Lutherans, and High-Church Episcopalians.

Perhaps the most pernicious misinterpretation of the nature of this union is that which conceives of it as a physical and material one, and which rears upon this basis the fabric of a sacramental and external Christianity. It is sufficient here to say that this union cannot be mediated by sacraments, since sacraments presuppose it as already existing; both Baptism and the Lord's Supper are designed only for believers. Only faith receives and retains Christ; and faith is the act of the soul grasping what is purely invisible and supersensible: not the act of the body, submitting to Baptism or partaking of the Supper.

William Lincoln: “The only way for the believer, if he wants to go rightly, is to remember that truth is always two-sided. If there is any truth that the Holy Spirit has specially pressed upon your heart, if you do not want to push it to the extreme, ask what is the counter-truth, and lean a little of your weight upon that; otherwise, if you bear so very much on one side of the truth, there is a danger of pushing it into a heresy. Heresy means selected truth; it does not mean error; heresy and error are very different things. Heresy is truth, but truth pushed into undue importance, to the disparagement of the truth upon the other side.” Heresy (αἵρεσις) = an act of choice, the picking and choosing of a part, instead of comprehensively embracing the whole of truth. Sacramentarians substitute the symbol for the thing symbolized.

B. Positively.—It is:

(a) An organic union,—in which we become members of Christ and partakers of his humanity.

Kant defines an organism, as that whose parts are reciprocally means and end. The body is an organism; since the limbs exist for the heart, and the heart for the limbs. So each member of Christ's body lives for him who is the head; and Christ the head equally lives for his members: Eph. 5:29, 30—“no man ever hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, [pg 801]even as Christ also the church; because we are members of his body.” The train-despatcher is a symbol of the concentration of energy; the switchmen and conductors who receive his orders are symbols of the localization of force; but it is all one organic system.

(b) A vital union,—in which Christ's life becomes the dominating principle within us.

This union is a vital one, in distinction from any union of mere juxtaposition or external influence. Christ does not work upon us from without, as one separated from us, but from within, as the very heart from which the life-blood of our spirits flows. See Gal. 2:20—“it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me: and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me;” Col 3:3, 4—“For ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall be manifested, then shall ye also with him be manifested in glory.” Christ's life is not corrupted by the corruption of his members, any more than the ray of light is defiled by the filth with which it comes in contact. We may be unconscious of this union with Christ, as we often are of the circulation of the blood, yet it may be the very source and condition of our life.

(c) A spiritual union,—that is, a union whose source and author is the Holy Spirit.

By a spiritual union we mean a union not of body but of spirit,—a union, therefore, which only the Holy Spirit originates and maintains. Rom. 8:9, 10—“ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you. But if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness.” The indwelling of Christ involves a continual exercise of efficient power. In Eph. 3:16, 17, “strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man” is immediately followed by “that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.”

(d) An indissoluble union,—that is, a union which, consistently with Christ's promise and grace, can never be dissolved.

Mat. 28:20—“lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world”; John 10:28—“they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand”; Rom. 8:35, 39—“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?... nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord”; 1 Thess. 4:14, 17—“them also that are fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring with him ... then we that are alive, that are left, shall together with them be caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”

Christ's omnipresence makes it possible for him to be united to, and to be present in, each believer, as perfectly and fully as if that believer were the only one to receive Christ's fulness. As Christ's omnipresence makes the whole Christ present in every place, each believer has the whole Christ with him, as his source of strength, purity, life; so that each may say: Christ gives all his time and wisdom and care to me. Such a union as this lacks every element of instability. Once formed, the union is indissoluble. Many of the ties of earth are rudely broken,—not so with our union with Christ,—that endures forever.

Since there is now an unchangeable and divine element in us, our salvation depends no longer upon our unstable wills, but upon Christ's purpose and power. By temporary declension from duty, or by our causeless unbelief, we may banish Christ to the barest and most remote room of the soul's house; but he does not suffer us wholly to exclude him; and when we are willing to unbar the doors, he is still there, ready to fill the whole mansion with his light and love.

(e) An inscrutable union,—mystical, however, only in the sense of surpassing in its intimacy and value any other union of souls which we know.

This union is inscrutable, indeed; but it is not mystical, in the sense of being unintelligible to the Christian or beyond the reach of his experience. If we call it mystical at all, it should be only because, in the intimacy of its communion and in the transforming power of its influence, it surpasses any other union of souls that we know, and so cannot be fully described or understood by earthly analogies. Eph. 5:32—“This mystery is great: but I speak in regard of Christ and of the church”; Col. 1:27—“the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

See Diman, Theistic Argument, 380—“As physical science has brought us to the conclusion that back of all the phenomena of the material universe there lies an invisible universe of forces, and that these forces may ultimately be reduced to one all-pervading [pg 802]force in which the unity of the physical universe consists; and as philosophy has advanced the rational conjecture that this ultimate all-pervading force is simply will-force; so the great Teacher holds up to us the spiritual universe as pervaded by one omnipotent life—a life which was revealed in him as its highest manifestation, but which is shared by all who by faith become partakers of his nature. He was Son of God: they too had power to become sons of God. The incarnation is wholly within the natural course and tendency of things. It was prepared for, it came, in the fulness of times. Christ's life is not something sporadic and individual, having its source in the personal conviction of each disciple; it implies a real connection with Christ, the head. Behind all nature there is one force; behind all varieties of Christian life and character there is one spiritual power. All nature is not inert matter,—it is pervaded by a living presence. So all the body of believers live by virtue of the all-working Spirit of Christ, the Holy Ghost.” An epitaph at Silton, in Dorsetshire, reads: “Here lies a piece of Christ—a star in dust, A vein of gold, a china dish, that must Be used in heaven when God shall feed the just.”

A. H. Strong, in Examiner, 1880: “Such is the nature of union with Christ,—such I mean, is the nature of every believer's union with Christ. For, whether he knows it or not, every Christian has entered into just such a partnership as this. It is this and this only which constitutes him a Christian, and which makes possible a Christian church. We may, indeed, be thus united to Christ, without being fully conscious of the real nature of our relation to him. We may actually possess the kernel, while as yet we have regard only to the shell; we may seem to ourselves to be united to Christ only by an external bond, while after all it is an inward and spiritual bond that makes us his. God often reveals to the Christian the mystery of the gospel, which is Christ in him the hope of glory, at the very time that he is seeking only some nearer access to a Redeemer outside of him. Trying to find a union of coöperation or of sympathy, he is amazed to learn that there is already established a union with Christ more glorious and blessed, namely, a union of life; and so, like the miners in the Rocky Mountains, while he is looking only for silver, he finds gold. Christ and the believer have the same life. They are not separate persons linked together by some temporary bond of friendship,—they are united by a tie as close and indissoluble as if the same blood ran in their veins. Yet the Christian may never have suspected how intimate a union he has with his Savior; and the first understanding of this truth may be the gateway through which he passes into a holier and happier stage of the Christian life.”

So the Way leads, through the Truth, to the Life (John 14:6). Apprehension of an external Savior prepares for the reception and experience of the internal Savior. Christ is first the Door of the sheep, but in him, after they have once entered in, they find pasture (John 10:7-9). On the nature of this union, see H. B. Smith, System of Christian Theology, 531-539; Baird, Elohim Revealed, 601; Wilberforce, Incarnation, 208-272, and New Birth of Man's Nature, 1-30. Per contra, see Park, Discourses, 117-136.

3. Consequences of this Union as respects the Believer.

We have seen that Christ's union with humanity, at the incarnation, involved him in all the legal liabilities of the race to which he united himself, and enabled him so to assume the penalty of its sin as to make for all men a full satisfaction to the divine justice, and to remove all external obstacles to man's return to God. An internal obstacle, however, still remains—the evil affections and will, and the consequent guilt, of the individual soul. This last obstacle also Christ removes, in the case of all his people, by uniting himself to them in a closer and more perfect manner than that in which he is united to humanity at large. As Christ's union with the race secures the objective reconciliation of the race to God, so Christ's union with believers secures the subjective reconciliation of believers to God.

In Baird, Elohim Revealed, 607-610, in Owen, on Justification, chap. 8, in Boston, Covenant of Grace, chap. 2, and in Dale, Atonement, 265-440, the union of the believer with Christ is made to explain the bearing of our sins by Christ. As we have seen in our discussion of the Atonement, however (page 759), this explains the cause by the effect, and implies that Christ died only for the elect (see review of Dale, in Brit. Quar. [pg 803]Rev., Apr. 1876:221-225). It is not the union of Christ with the believer, but the union of Christ with humanity at large, that explains his taking upon him human guilt and penalty.

Amnesty offered to a rebellious city may be complete, yet it may avail only for those who surrender. Pardon secured from a Governor, upon the ground of the services of an Advocate, may be effectual only when the convict accepts it,—there is no hope for him when he tears up the pardon. Dr. H. E. Robins: “The judicial declaration of acquittal on the ground of the death of Christ, which comes to all men (Rom. 5:18), and into the benefits of which they are introduced by natural birth, is inchoate justification, and will become perfected justification through the new birth of the Holy Spirit, unless the working of this divine agent is resisted by the personal moral action of those who are lost.” What Dr. Robins calls “inchoate justification” we prefer to call “ideal justification” or “attainable justification.” Humanity in Christ is justified, and every member of the race who joins himself to Christ by faith participates in Christ's justification. H. E. Dudley: “Adam's sin holds us all down just as gravity holds all, while Christ's righteousness, though secured for all and accessible to all, involves an effort of will in climbing and grasping which not all will make.” Justification in Christ is the birthright of humanity; but, in order to possess and enjoy it, each of us must claim and appropriate it by faith.

R. W. Dale, Fellowship with Christ, 7—“When we were created in Christ, the fortunes of the human race for good or evil became his. The Incarnation revealed and fulfilled the relations which already existed between the Son of God and mankind. From the beginning Christ had entered into fellowship with us. When we sinned, he remained in fellowship with us still. Our miseries” [we would add: our guilt] “were his, by his own choice.... His fellowship with us is the foundation of our fellowship with him.... When I have discovered that by the very constitution of my nature I am to achieve perfection in the power of the life of Another—who is yet not Another, but the very ground of my being—it ceases to be incredible to me that Another—who is yet not Another—should be the Atonement for my sin, and that his relation to God should determine mine.”

A tract entitled “The Seven Togethers” sums up the Scripture testimony with regard to the Consequences of the believer's Union with Christ: 1. Crucified together with Christ—Gal. 2:20—συνεσταύρωμαι. 2. Died together with Christ—Col. 2:20—ἀπεθάνετε. 3. Buried together with Christ—Rom. 6:4—συνετάφημεν. 4. Quickened together with Christ—Eph. 2:5—συνεζωοποίησεν. 5. Raised together with Christ—Col. 3:1—συνηγέρθητε. 6. Sufferers together with Christ—Rom. 8:17—συμπάσχομεν. 7. Glorified together with Christ—Rom. 8:17—συνδοξασθῶμεν. Union with Christ results in common sonship, relation to God, character, influence, and destiny.

Imperfect apprehension of the believer's union with Christ works to the great injury of Christian doctrine. An experience of union with Christ first enables us to understand the death of sin and separation from God which has befallen the race sprung from the first Adam. The life and liberty of the children of God in Christ Jesus shows us by contrast how far astray we had gone. The vital and organic unity of the new race sprung from the second Adam reveals the depravity and disintegration which we had inherited from our first father. We see that as there is one source of spiritual life in Christ, so there was one source of corrupt life in Adam; and that as we are justified by reason of our oneness with the justified Christ, so we are condemned by reason of our oneness with the condemned Adam.

A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 175—“If it is consistent with evolution that the physical and natural life of the race should be derived from a single source, then it is equally consistent with evolution that the moral and spiritual life of the race should be derived from a single source. Scripture is stating only scientific fact when it sets the second Adam, the head of redeemed humanity, over against the first Adam, the head of fallen humanity. We are told that evolution should give us many Christs. We reply that evolution has not given us many Adams. Evolution, as it assigns to the natural head of the race a supreme and unique position, must be consistent with itself, and must assign a supreme and unique position to Jesus Christ, the spiritual head of the race. As there was but one Adam from whom all the natural life of the race was derived, so that there can be but one Christ from whom all the spiritual life of the race is derived.”

The consequences of union with Christ may be summarily stated as follows:

(a) Union with Christ involves a change in the dominant affection of the soul. Christ's entrance into the soul makes it a new creature, in the sense that the ruling disposition, which before was sinful, now becomes holy. This change we call Regeneration.

Rom. 8:2—“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death”; 2 Cor. 5:17—“if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature” (marg.—“there is a new creation”); Gal. 1:15, 16—“it was the good pleasure of God ... to reveal his Son in me”; Eph. 2:10—“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.” As we derive our old nature from the first man Adam, by birth, so we derive a new nature from the second man Christ, by the new birth. Union with Christ is the true “transfusion of blood.” “The death-struck sinner, like the wan, anæmic, dying invalid, is saved by having poured into his veins the healthier blood of Christ” (Drummond, Nat. Law in the Spir. World). God regenerates the soul by uniting it to Jesus Christ.

In the Johnston Harvester Works at Batavia, when they paint their machinery, they do it by immersing part after part in a great tank of paint,—so the painting is instantaneous and complete. Our baptism into Christ is the outward picture of an inward immersion of the soul not only into his love and fellowship, but into his very life, so that in him we become new creatures (2 Cor. 5:17). As Miss Sullivan surrounded Helen Keller with the influence of her strong personality, by intelligence and sympathy and determination striving to awaken the blind and dumb soul and give it light and love, so Jesus envelops us. But his Spirit is more encompassing and more penetrating than any human influence however powerful, because his life is the very ground and principle of our being.

Tennyson: “O for a man to arise in me, That the man that I am may cease to be!”Emerson: “Himself from God he could not free; He builded better than he knew.”Religion is not the adding of a new department of activity as an adjunct to our own life or the grafting of a new method of manifestation upon the old. It is rather the grafting of our souls into Christ, so that his life dominates and manifests itself in all our activities. The magnet which left to itself can lift only a three pound weight, will lift three hundred when it is attached to the electric dynamo. Expositor's Greek Testament on 1 Cor. 15:45, 46—“The action of Jesus in ‘breathing’ upon his disciples while he said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’ (John 20:22 sq.) symbolized the vitalizing relationship which at this epoch he assumed towards mankind; this act raised to a higher potency the original ‘breathing’ of God by which ‘man became a living soul’ (Gen. 2:7).”

(b) Union with Christ involves a new exercise of the soul's powers in repentance and faith; faith, indeed, is the act of the soul by which, under the operation of God, Christ is received. This new exercise of the soul's powers we call Conversion (Repentance and Faith). It is the obverse or human side of Regeneration.

Eph. 3:17—“that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith”; 2 Tim. 3:15—“the sacred writings which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” Faith is the soul's laying hold of Christ as its only source of life, pardon, and salvation. And so we see what true religion is. It is not a moral life; it is not a determination to be religious; it is not faith, if by faith we mean an external trust that somehow Christ will save us; it is nothing less than the life of the soul in God, through Christ his Son. To Christ then we are to look for the origin, continuance and increase of our faith (Luke 17:5—“said unto the Lord, Increase our faith”). Our faith is but a part of “his fulness” of which “we all received, and grace for grace” (John 1:16).

A. H. Strong, Sermon before the Baptist World Congress, London, 1905—“Christianity is summed up in the two facts: Christ for us, and Christ in us—Christ for us upon the Cross, revealing the eternal opposition of holiness to sin, and yet, through God's eternal suffering for sin making objective atonement for us; and Christ in us by his Spirit, renewing in us the lost image of God, and abiding in us as the all-sufficient source of purity and power. Here are the two foci of the Christian ellipse: Christ for us, who redeemed us from the curse of the law by being made a curse for us, and Christ in us, the hope of glory, whom the apostle calls the mystery of the gospel.

“We need Christ in us as well as Christ for us. How shall I, how shall society, find healing and purification within? Let me answer by reminding you of what they did at Chicago. In all the world there was no river more stagnant and fetid than was Chicago River. [pg 805]Its sluggish stream received the sweepings of the watercraft and the offal of the city, and there was no current to carry the detritus away. There it settled, and bred miasma and fever. At last it was suggested that, by cutting through the low ridge between the city and the Desplaines River, the current could be set running in the opposite direction, and drainage could be secured into the Illinois River and the great Mississippi. At a cost of fifteen millions of dollars the cut was made, and now all the water of Lake Michigan can be relied upon to cleanse that turbid stream. What Chicago River could never do for itself, the great lake now does for it. So no human soul can purge itself of its sin; and what the individual cannot do, humanity at large is powerless to accomplish. Sin has dominion over us, and we are foul to the very depths of our being, until with the help of God we break through the barrier of our self-will, and let the floods of Christ's purifying life flow into us. Then, in an hour, more is done to renew, than all our efforts for years had effected. Thus humanity is saved, individual by individual, not by philosophy, or philanthropy, or self-development, or self-reformation, but simply by joining itself to Jesus Christ, and by being filled in Him with all the fulness of God.”

(c) Union with Christ gives to the believer the legal standing and rights of Christ. As Christ's union with the race involves atonement, so the believer's union with Christ involves Justification. The believer is entitled to take for his own all that Christ is, and all that Christ has done; and this because he has within him that new life of humanity which suffered in Christ's death and rose from the grave in Christ's resurrection,—in other words, because he is virtually one person with the Redeemer. In Christ the believer is prophet, priest, and king.

Acts 13:39—“by him [lit.: ‘in him’ = in union with him] every one that believeth is justified”; Rom. 6:7, 8—“he that hath died is justified from sin ... we died with Christ”; 7:4—“dead to the law through the body of Christ”; 8:1—“no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus”; 17—“heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ”; 1 Cor. 1:30—“But of him ye are in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness[justification]”; 3:21, 23—“all things are yours ... and ye are Christ's”; 6:11—“ye were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God”; 2 Cor. 5:14—“we thus judge, that one died for all, therefore all died”; 21—“Him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness [justification] of God in him” = God's justified persons, in union with Christ (see pages 760, 761).

Gal. 2:20—“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me”; Eph. 1:4, 6—“chose us in him ... to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved”; 2:5, 6—“even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ ... made us to sit with him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus”; Phil. 3:8, 9—“that I may gain Christ, and be found in him, not having a righteousness of mine own, even that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith”; 2 Tim. 2:11—“Faithful is the saying: For if we died with him, we shall also live with him.” Prophet: Luke 12:12—“the Holy Spirit shall teach you in that very hour what ye ought to say”; 1 John 2:20—“ye have an anointing from the Holy One, and ye know all things.” Priest: 1 Pet. 2:5—“a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ”; Rev. 20:6—“they shall be priests of God and of Christ”; 1 Pet. 2:9—“a royal priesthood.” King: Rev. 3:21—“He that overcometh, I will give to him to sit down with me in my throne”; 5:10—“madest them to be unto our God a kingdom and priests.”The connection of justification and union with Christ delivers the former from the charge of being a mechanical and arbitrary procedure. As Jonathan Edwards has said: “The justification of the believer is no other than his being admitted to communion in, or participation of, this head and surety of all believers.”

(d) Union with Christ secures to the believer the continuously transforming, assimilating power of Christ's life,—first, for the soul; secondly, for the body,—consecrating it in the present, and in the future raising it up in the likeness of Christ's glorified body. This continuous influence, so far as it is exerted in the present life, we call Sanctification, the human side or aspect of which is Perseverance.

For the soul: John 1:16—“of his fulness we all received, and grace for grace”—successive and increasing measures of grace, corresponding to the soul's successive and increasing needs; Rom. 8:10—“if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness”; [pg 806] 1 Cor. 15:45—“The last Adam became a life-giving spirit”; Phil. 2:5—“Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus”; 1 John 3:2—“if he shall be manifested, we shall be like him.” “Can Christ let the believer fall out of his hands? No, for the believer is his hands.”

For the body: 1 Cor. 6:17-20—“he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit ... know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you ... glorify God therefore in your body”; Thess. 5:23—“And the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved entire, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ”; Rom. 8:11—“shall give life also to your mortal bodies through his Spirit that dwelleth in you”; 1 Cor. 15:49—“as we have borne the image of the earthy [man], we shall also bear the image of the heavenly [man]”; Phil. 3:20, 21—“For our citizenship is in heaven; from whence also we wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, according to the working whereby he is able even to subject all things unto himself.”

Is there a physical miracle wrought for the drunkard in his regeneration? Mr. Moody says, Yes; Mr. Gough says, No. We prefer to say that the change is a spiritual one; but that the “expulsive power of a new affection” indirectly affects the body, so that old appetites sometimes disappear in a moment; and that often, in the course of years, great changes take place even in the believer's body. Tennyson, Idylls: “Have ye looked at Edyrn? Have ye seen how nobly changed? This work of his is great and wonderful; His very face with change of heart is changed.” “Christ in the soul fashions the germinal man into his own likeness,—this is the embryology of the new life. The cardinal error in religious life is the attempt to live without proper environment”(see Drummond, Natural Law in Spiritual World, 253-284). Human life from Adam does not stand the test,—only divine-human life in Christ can secure us from falling. This is the work of Christ, now that he has ascended and taken to himself his power, namely, to give his life more and more fully to the church, until it shall grow up in all things into him, the Head, and shall fitly express his glory to the world.

As the accomplished organist discloses unsuspected capabilities of his instrument, so Christ brings into activity all the latent powers of the human soul. “I was five years in the ministry,” said an American preacher, “before I realized that my Savior is alive.” Dr. R. W. Dale has left on record the almost unutterable feelings that stirred his soul when he first realized this truth; see Walker, The Spirit and the Incarnation, preface, v. Many have struggled in vain against sin until they have admitted Christ to their hearts,—then they could say: “this is the victory that hath overcome the world, even our faith”(1 John 5:4). “Go out, God will go in; Die thou, and let him live; Be not, and he will be; Wait, and he'll all things give.” The best way to get air out of a vessel is to pour water in. Only in Christ can we find our pardon, peace, purity, and power. He is “made unto us wisdom from God, and justification and sanctification, and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30). A medical man says: “The only radical remedy for dipsomania is religiomania” (quoted in William James, Varieties of Religious Experience, 268). It is easy to break into an empty house; the spirit cast out returns, finds the house empty, brings seven others, and “the last state of that man becometh worse than the first” (Mat. 12:45). There is no safety in simply expelling sin; we need also to bring in Christ; in fact only he can enable us to expel not only actual sin but the love of it.

Alexander McLaren: “If we are ‘in Christ,’ we are like a diver in his crystal bell, and have a solid though invisible wall around us, which keeps all sea-monsters off us, and communicates with the upper air, whence we draw the breath of calm life and can work in security though in the ocean depths.” John Caird, Fund. Ideas, 2:98—“How do we know that the life of God has not departed from nature? Because every spring we witness the annual miracle of nature's revival, every summer and autumn the waving corn. How do we know that Christ has not departed from the world? Because he imparts to the soul that trusts him a power, a purity, a peace, which are beyond all that nature can give.”

(e) Union with Christ brings about a fellowship of Christ with the believer,—Christ takes part in all the labors, temptations, and sufferings of his people; a fellowship of the believer with Christ,—so that Christ's whole experience on earth is in some measure reproduced in him; a fellowship of all believers with one another,—furnishing a basis for the spiritual unity of Christ's people on earth, and for the eternal communion of heaven. The doctrine of Union with Christ is therefore the indispensable preparation for Ecclesiology, and for Eschatology.

Fellowship of Christ with the believer: Phil. 4:13—“I can do all things in him that strengtheneth me”; Heb. 4:15—“For we have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities”; cf. Is. 63:9—“In all their affliction he was afflicted.” Heb. 2:18—“in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted” = are being tempted, are under temptation. Bp. Wordsworth: “By his passion he acquired compassion.” 2 Cor. 2:14—“thanks be unto God, who always leadeth us in triumph in Christ” = Christ leads us in triumph, but his triumph is ours, even if it be a triumph over us. One with him, we participate in his joy and in his sovereignty. Rev. 3:21—“He that overcometh, I will give to him to sit down with me in my throne.” W. F. Taylor on Rom. 8:9—“The Spirit of God dwelleth in you.... if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his”—“Christ dwells in us, says the apostle. But do we accept him as a resident, or as a ruler? England was first represented at King Thebau's court by her resident. This official could rebuke, and even threaten, but no more,—Thebau was sovereign. Burma knew no peace, till England ruled. So Christ does not consent to be represented by a mere resident. He must himself dwell within the soul, and he must reign.” Christina Rossetti, Thee Only: “Lord, we are rivers running to thy sea, Our waves and ripples all derived from thee; A nothing we should have, a nothing be, Except for thee. Sweet are the waters of thy shoreless sea; Make sweet our waters that make haste to thee; Pour in thy sweetness, that ourselves may be Sweetness to thee!”

Of the believer with Christ: Phil. 3:10—“that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed unto his death”; Col. 1:24—“fill up on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church”; 1 Pet. 4:13—“partakers of Christ's sufferings.” The Christian reproduces Christ's life in miniature, and, in a true sense, lives it over again. Only upon the principle of union with Christ can we explain how the Christian instinctively applies to himself the prophecies and promises which originally and primarily were uttered with reference to Christ: “thou wilt not leave my soul to Sheol; Neither wilt thou suffer thy holy one to see corruption” (Ps. 16:10, 11). This fellowship is the ground of the promises made to believing prayer: John 14:13—“whatsoever ye shall ask is my name, that will I do”; Westcott, Bib. Com., in loco: “The meaning of the phrase [‘in my name’] is ‘as being one with me even as I am revealed to you.’ Its two correlatives are ‘in me’ and the Pauline ‘in Christ’.” “All things are yours” (1 Cor. 3:21), because Christ is universal King, and all believers are exalted to fellowship with him. After the battle of Sedan, King William asked a wounded Prussian officer whether it were well with him. “All is well where your majesty leads!” was the reply. Phil. 1:21—“For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Paul indeed uses the words “Christ” and “church” as interchangeable terms: 1 Cor. 12:12—“as the body is one, and hath many members, ... so also is Christ.” Denney, Studies in Theology, 171—“There is not in the N. T. from beginning to end, in the record of the original and genuine Christian life, a single word of despondency or gloom. It is the most buoyant, exhilarating and joyful book in the world.” This is due to the fact that the writers believe in a living and exalted Christ, and know themselves to be one with him. They descend crowned into the arena. In the Soudan, every morning for half an hour before General Gordon's tent there lay a white handkerchief. The most pressing message, even on matters of life and death, waited till that handkerchief was withdrawn. It was the signal that Christ and Gordon were in communion with each other.

Of all believers with one another: John 17:21—“that they may all be one”; 1 Cor. 10:17—“we, who are many, are one bread, one body: for we all partake of the one bread”; Eph. 2:15—“create in himself of the two one new man, so making peace”; 1 John 1:3—“that ye also may have fellowship with us: yea, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ”—here the word κοινωνία is used. Fellowship with each other is the effect and result of the fellowship of each with God in Christ. Compare John 10:16—“they shall become one flock, one shepherd”; Westcott, Bib. Com., in loco: “The bond of fellowship is shown to lie in the common relation to one Lord.... Nothing is said of one ‘fold’ under the new dispensation.” Here is a unity, not of external organization, but of common life. Of this the visible church is the consequence and expression. But this communion is not limited to earth,—it is perpetuated beyond death: 1 Thess. 4:17—“so shall we ever be with the Lord”; Heb. 12:23—“to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect”; Rev. 21and 22—the city of God, the new Jerusalem, is the image of perfect society, as well as of intensity and fulness of life in Christ. The ordinances express the essence of Ecclesiology—union with Christ—for Baptism symbolizes the incorporation of the believer in Christ, while the Lord's Supper symbolizes the incorporation of Christ in the believer. Christianity is a social matter, and the true Christian feels the need of being with and among his brethren. The Romans could not understand why “this new sect”must be holding meetings all the time—even daily meetings. Why could they not go singly, or in families, to the temples, and make offerings to their God, and then come [pg 808]away, as the pagans did? It was this meeting together which exposed them to persecution and martyrdom. It was the natural and inevitable expression of their union with Christ and so of their union with one another.

The consciousness of union with Christ gives assurance of salvation. It is a great stimulus to believing prayer and to patient labor. It is a duty to “know what is the hope of his calling, what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe” (Eph. 1:18, 19). Christ's command, “Abide in me, and I in you” (John 15:4), implies that we are both to realize and to confirm this union, by active exertion of our own wills. We are to abide in him by an entire consecration, and to let him abide in us by an appropriating faith. We are to give ourselves to Christ, and to take in return the Christ who gives himself to us,—in other words, we are to believe Christ's promises and to act upon them. All sin consists in the sundering of man's life from God, and most systems of falsehood in religion are attempts to save man without merging his life in God's once more. The only religion that can save mankind is the religion that fills the whole heart and the whole life with God, and that aims to interpenetrate universal humanity with that same living Christ who has already made himself one with the believer. This consciousness of union with Christ gives “boldness” (παρρησία—Acts 4:13; 1 John 5:14) toward men and toward God. The word belongs to the Greek democracies. Freemen are bold. Demosthenes boasts of his frankness. Christ frees us from the hidebound, introspective, self-conscious spirit. In him we become free, demonstrative, outspoken. So we find, in John's epistles, that boldness in prayer is spoken of as a virtue, and the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews urges us to “draw near with boldness unto the throne of grace” (Heb. 4:16). An engagement of marriage is not the same as marriage. The parties may be still distant from each other. Many Christians get just near enough to Christ to be engaged to him. This seems to be the experience of Christian in the Pilgrim's Progress. But our privilege is to have a present Christ, and to do our work not only for him, but in him. “Since Christ and we are one, Why should we doubt or fear?” “We two are so joined, He'll not be in heaven, And leave me behind.”

We append a few statements with regard to this union and its consequences, from noted names in theology and the church. Luther: “By faith thou art so glued to Christ that of thee and him there becomes as it were one person, so that with confidence thou canst say: ‘I am Christ,—that is, Christ's righteousness, victory, etc., are mine’; and Christ in turn can say: ‘I am that sinner,—that is, his sins, his death, etc., are mine, because he clings to me and I to him, for we have been joined through faith into one flesh and bone.’ ” Calvin: “I attribute the highest importance to the connection between the head and the members; to the inhabitation of Christ in our hearts; in a word, to the mystical union by which we enjoy him, so that, being made ours, he makes us partakers of the blessings with which he is furnished.” John Bunyan: “The Lord led me into the knowledge of the mystery of union with Christ, that I was joined to him, that I was bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. By this also my faith in him as my righteousness was the more confirmed; for if he and I were one, then his righteousness was mine, his merits mine, his victory also mine. Now could I see myself in heaven and on earth at once—in heaven by my Christ, my risen head, my righteousness and life, though on earth by my body or person.” Edwards: “Faith is the soul's active uniting with Christ. God sees fit that, in order to a union's being established between two intelligent active beings, there should be the mutual act of both, that each should receive the other, as entirely joining themselves to one another.” Andrew Fuller: “I have no doubt that the imputation of Christ's righteousness presupposes a union with him; since there is no perceivable fitness in bestowing benefits on one for another's sake, where there is no union or relation between.”

See Luther, quoted, with other references, in Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 3:325. See also Calvin, Institutes, 1:660; Edwards, Works, 4:66, 69, 70; Andrew Fuller, Works, 2:685; Pascal, Thoughts, Eng. trans., 429; Hooker, Eccl. Polity, book 5, ch. 56; Tillotson, Sermons, 3:307; Trench, Studies in Gospels, 284, and Christ the True Vine, in Hulsean Lectures; Schöberlein, in Studien und Kritiken, 1847:7-69; Caird, on Union with God, in Scotch Sermons, sermon 2; Godet, on the Ultimate Design of Man, in Princeton Rev., Nov. 1880—the design is “God in man, and man in God”; Baird, Elohim Revealed, 590-617; Upham, Divine Union, Interior Life, Life of Madame Guyon and Fénelon; A. J. Gordon, In Christ; McDuff, In Christo; J. Denham Smith, Life-truths, 25-98; A. H. Strong, Philosophy and Religion, 220-225; Bishop Hall's Treatise on The Church Mystical; Andrew Murray, Abide in Christ; Stearns, Evidence of Christian Experience, 145, 174, 179; F. B. Meyer, Christian Living—essay on Appropriation of [pg 809]Christ, vs. mere imitation of Christ; Sanday, Epistle to the Romans, supplementary essay on the Mystic Union; H. B. Smith, System of Theology, 531; J. M. Campbell, The Indwelling Christ.

II. Regeneration.

Regeneration is that act of God by which the governing disposition of the soul is made holy, and by which, through the truth as a means, the first holy exercise of this disposition is secured.

Regeneration, or the new birth, is the divine side of that change of heart which, viewed from the human side, we call conversion. It is God's turning the soul to himself,—conversion being the soul's turning itself to God, of which God's turning it is both the accompaniment and cause. It will be observed from the above definition, that there are two aspects of regeneration, in the first of which the soul is passive, in the second of which the soul is active. God changes the governing disposition,—in this change the soul is simply acted upon. God secures the initial exercise of this disposition in view of the truth,—in this change the soul itself acts. Yet these two parts of God's operation are simultaneous. At the same moment that he makes the soul sensitive, he pours in the light of his truth and induces the exercise of the holy disposition he has imparted.

This distinction between the passive and the active aspects of regeneration is necessitated, as we shall see, by the twofold method of representing the change in Scripture. In many passages the change is ascribed wholly to the power of God; the change is a change in the fundamental disposition of the soul; there is no use of means. In other passages we find truth referred to as an agency employed by the Holy Spirit, and the mind acts in view of this truth. The distinction between these two aspects of regeneration seems to be intimated in Eph. 2:5, 6—“made us alive together with Christ,” and “raised us up with him.” Lazarus must first be made alive, and in this he could not coöperate; but he must also come forth from the tomb, and in this he could be active. In the old photography, the plate was first made sensitive, and in this the plate was passive; then it was exposed to the object, and now the plate actively seized upon the rays of light which the object emitted.

Availing ourselves of the illustration from photography, we may compare God's initial work in the soul to the sensitizing of the plate, his next work to the pouring in of the light and the production of the picture. The soul is first made receptive to the truth; then it is enabled actually to receive the truth. But the illustration fails in one respect,—it represents the two aspects of regeneration as successive. In regeneration there is no chronological succession. At the same instant that God makes the soul sensitive, he also draws out its new sensibility in view of the truth. Let us notice also that, as in photography the picture however perfect needs to be developed, and this development takes time, so regeneration is only the beginning of God's work; not all the dispositions, but only the governing disposition, is made holy; there is still need that sanctification should follow regeneration; and sanctification is a work of God which lasts for a whole lifetime. We may add that “heredity affects regeneration as the quality of the film affects photography, and environment affects regeneration as the focus affects photography” (W. T. Thayer).

Sacramentarianism has so obscured the doctrine of Scripture that many persons who gave no evidence of being regenerate are quite convinced that they are Christians. Uncle John Vassar therefore never asked: “Are you a Christian?” but always: “Have you ever been born again?” E. G. Robinson: “The doctrine of regeneration, aside from sacramentarianism, was not apprehended by Luther or the Reformers, was not indeed wrought out till Wesley taught that God instantaneously renewed the affections and the will.” We get the doctrine of regeneration mainly from the apostle John, as we get the doctrine of justification mainly from the apostle Paul. Stevens, Johannine Theology, 366—“Paul's great words are, justification, and righteousness; John's are, birth from God, and life. But, for both Paul and John, faith is life-union with Christ.”

Stearns, Evidence of Christian Experience, 134—“The sinful nature is not gone, but its power is broken; sin no longer dominates the life; it has been thrust from the centre [pg 810]to the circumference; it has the sentence of death in itself; the man is freed, at least in potency and promise. 218—An activity may be immediate, yet not unmediated. God's action on the soul may be through the sense, yet still be immediate, as when finite spirits communicate with each other.” Dubois, in Century Magazine, Dec. 1894:233—“Man has made his way up from physical conditions to the consciousness of spiritual needs. Heredity and environment fetter him. He needs spiritual help. God provides a spiritual environment in regeneration. As science is the verification of the ideal in nature, so religion is the verification of the spiritual in human life.” Last sermon of Seth K. Mitchell on Rev. 21:5—“Behold, I make all things new”—“God first makes a new man, then gives him a new heart, then a new commandment. He also gives a new body, a new name, a new robe, a new song, and a new home.”

1. Scripture Representations.

(a) Regeneration is a change indispensable to the salvation of the sinner.

John 3:7—“Ye must be born anew”; Gal. 6:15—“neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature” (marg.—“creation”); cf. Heb. 12:14—“the sanctification without which no man shall see the Lord”—regeneration, therefore, is yet more necessary to salvation; Eph. 2:3—“by nature children of wrath, even as the rest”; Rom. 3:11—“There is none that understandeth, There is none that seeketh after God”; John 6:44, 65—“No man can come to me, except the Father that sent me draw him ... no man can come unto me, except it be given unto him of the Father”; Jer. 13:23—“Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.”

(b) It is a change in the inmost principle of life.

John 3:3—“Except one be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God”; 5:21—“as the Father raiseth the dead and giveth them life, even so the Son also giveth life to whom he will”; Rom. 6:13—“present yourselves unto God, as alive from the dead”; Eph. 2:1—“And you did he make alive, when ye were dead through your trespasses and sins”; 5:14—“Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine upon thee.” In John 3:3—“born anew” = not, “altered,” “influenced,” “reinvigorated,” “reformed”; but a new beginning, a new stamp or character, a new family likeness to God and to his children. “So is every one that is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8) = 1. secrecy of process; 2. independence of the will of man; 3. evidence given in results of conduct and life. It is a good thing to remove the means of gratifying an evil appetite; but how much better it is to remove the appetite itself! It is a good thing to save men from frequenting dangerous resorts by furnishing safe places of recreation and entertainment; but far better is it to implant within the man such a love for all that is pure and good, that he will instinctively shun the impure and evil. Christianity aims to purify the springs of action.