Last week, I began looking at four reasons why Spurgeon rejected Hyper-Calvinism. The first was the universal invitation of the gospel, denied by the Hyper-Calvinists. The second is
that it turned individuals away from their only sure warrant for trusting in Christ, namely, the objective commands and invitations of the gospel. Hyper-Calvinism denies such a universal warrant, applicable to all, and claims, instead, that Scripture only addresses invitations to specific people — to the penitent, the ‘heavy laden’, to the convicted, to the ‘sensible’ sinner and so on. Under such preaching, gospel hearers must first find some warrant within themselves for thinking that Christ’s invitations are addressed to them personally. Subjective experience is thus made a kind of necessary preliminary and qualification before anyone can trust in scriptural promises. Against this, Spurgeon held that the scriptural warrant for the unconverted to trust in Christ rests on nothing in themselves; the warrant lies in the invitation of Christ. His entire presentation of the gospel turned on the truth that no sinner has any more warrant than any other for trusting in Christ. The warrant lies in Scripture alone. Before a man has any willingness to be saved, it is ‘his duty to believe in Christ, for it is not man’s willingness that gives him a right to believe. Men are to believe in obedience to God’s command. God commandeth all men everywhere to repent, and this is his great command, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved”.’ Christ’s ambassadors are authorised to call ‘on all people of every clime and kindred, to believe the gospel with a promise of personal salvation to each and every one that believes.’ The message is not, ‘Wait for feelings’, it is, ‘Believe and live’. ‘I find Jesus Christ says nothing to sinners about waiting, but very much about coming.’
To this the Hyper-Calvinists replied that if all are called to trust in Christ then such trust must involve them in believing a falsehood because Christ has not died for all. In their view, to preach a universal warrant is to deny that redemption is definite and particular. This was a further ground for charging Spurgeon with inconsistency, for he believed in particular redemption and yet summoned all to believe in Christ. But Spurgeon, along with Scripture, did not make, ‘Believe that Christ died for you’, part of faith to which the unbeliever is summoned. The call to the sinner is to commit himself to Christ, not because he has been saved but rather because he is lost and must come to Jesus in order to be saved.
. . .
To deny a universal warrant, and to require subjective experiences before Christ is trusted, is bound to lead to confusion and legality. Such teaching makes men look at themselves instead of the Saviour. It leads people to suppose that possessing a broken heart and feeling the burden of sin are some kind of qualification for believing. But this is to require a discernment on the part of would-be converts for which Scripture does not ask. The truth is that individuals under conviction are unable to understand themselves and it is common for those who are most burdened to fear that they have no true sense of sin at all. The Holy Spirit is indeed given to convict of sin but Scripture says nothing about him assuring the convicted of their convictions prior to faith. On this Spurgeon says in the same sermon on ‘The Warrant of Faith’:‘I believe the tendency of that preaching which puts the warrant for faith anywhere but in the gospel command, is to vex the true penitent, and to console the hypocrite; the tendency of it is to make the poor soul which really repents, feel that he must not believe in Christ, because he sees so much of his own hardness of heart. The more spiritual a man is, the more unspiritual he see himself to be . . . Often the most penitent men are those who think themselves the most impenitent.’
‘If we begin to preach to sinners that they must have a certain sense of sin and a certain measure of conviction, such teaching would turn the sinner away from God in Christ to himself. The man begins at once to say, “Have I a broken heart? Do I feel the burden of sin?” This is only another form of looking at self. Man must not look to himself to find reasons for God’s grace.’—Iain Murray, Spurgeon v. Hyper-Calvinism (Banner of Truth, 2002), 71–74, 77–78.
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1 Comments:
#1 || 09·12·02··07:46 || Daniel
That was so tasty and true.
What an excellent read -- and it was my first read of the day, excepting, of course, the scriptures which I read earlier on; Spurgeon not only "got it" he could articulate it in such a way that made it plain and obvious. Would that we had even more teachers like that today, and in every generation. Would that we had more ears to hear those teachers as well.
You have outdone yourself this morning David.
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