Calvinism: Mr. Pink
Paul Wilson
Table of Contents
Calvinism: Mr. Pink
In turning now to the errors of Calvinism, it is not our purpose to examine the works of John Calvin; we will instead take a fairly recent book of this persuasion which has had a large sale, and which has turned many from positive truth into bypaths of error. It is entitled, "The Sovereignty of God," and was written by Arthur W. Pink, a man whom we understand died in Scotland during the years of World War II.
It is obviously impossible for us to review Mr. Pink's book in minute detail in our limited space, for it is a work of 320 pages. This, however, is not necessary, for if it can be proved to be built upon false premises, and permeated with erroneous teachings, then it will be evident that it is not trustworthy. This we purpose to do, without rancor or malice, but solely in the interest of the truth of God's Word, and for the help and edification of His children.
We will select for our first consideration author Pink's teaching of a limited atonement; that is, that Christ died on the cross for certain ones whom God in His sovereignty chose in a past eternity, but in no way for any others. To prove that he taught this, we quote a few excerpts from his book: "Surely the Lord Jesus had some absolute determination before Him when He went to the cross. If He had, then it necessarily follows that the extent of that purpose was limited, because an absolute determination or purpose must be effected." p. 72. On another page (123) he says, "From it [Adam's fallen race] God purposed to save a few as the monuments of His grace; the others He determined to destroy." Therefore, according to Mr. Pink, Christ came and died for "a few" of fallen men. Truly his ideas of the atonement are limited. He also seeks to bolster his "limited atonement" doctrine by misuse of portions of Isa. 53 as he attempts to prove that the Father in a past eternity made certain promises to the Son in respect to the limited number for whom He would die. We say at the outset, these ideas are the work of the finite mind trying to confine the infinite within its own exceedingly "limited" apprehension. Who has been able to comprehend the extent of the heavens that declare the glory of God in creation? or who shall rightly declare the moral glory of God in redemption? Shall mortal man limit the excelling glory of God in the work of the atonement?—that inestimable work that has glorified God in His very nature, character, and all His attributes. The Apostle Paul speaks of God's ways being "past finding out," but this writer seems to feel that he has found them out. Another has said about trying to comprehend God by the mind: "He would not be God if human understanding could measure Him."
The "limited atonement" doctrine is built upon a premise that lacks understanding of the two views of the cross of Christ as regards His work; that is, propitiation and substitution. The types used on the day of atonement in Lev. 16 are set aside in deference to a theory, a doctrine of men (be they good men or bad is not the point). On that memorable day, which occurred once a year in Israel's history, there were, among other similitudes, two goats—one called the Lord's lot, and the other the people's. The goat of the Lord's lot was killed and its blood taken inside of the veil by the high priest, where he sprinkled the blood once upon the mercy seat and seven times on the desert sand before it. It was there above the mercy seat that God dwelt among the people, and as they were sinners He must needs have the evidence of death presented before Him—the blood was sprinkled there. This was propitiation—a satisfaction rendered to God whereby He could act in grace toward a sinful people. On the head of the other goat, the sins of the people were confessed by the high priest, and it was led into a land not inhabited, so that their sins were removed. This was substitution. In a sense, both goats are one in the matter of sin—the one being slain and its blood presented before God, and the other bearing the sins away to be remembered no more—for without the blood of the one goat there could be no bearing away of sins on the other. Let us notice the words of another:
"There is a continual tendency in the different classes, even of believers in Christendom, to ignore one or other of these truths. Take for instance those zealous that the gospel go out to every creature. It is notorious that most of these deny God's special favor to the elect. They overlook or pare down any positive difference on God's part toward His own children. They hold that a man throughout his course may be a child of God today and not tomorrow. This destroys substitution [seen in the live goat led away]. They hold propitiation [seen in the blood of the other goat as presented before God], and there they are right, and quite justified in preaching the gospel unrestrictedly to every creature, as the Lord indeed enjoined. But how their one-sidedness enfeebles the proper portion of the saints!
"But look for a moment at the opposite side [Mr. Pink's], which holds that all God has done and reveals is in view of the elect only, and that all He has wrought in Christ Jesus is in effect for the Church, and that He does not care about the world, except to judge it at the last day. This may be put rather bluntly, for I do not present such grievous narrowness toward man and dishonor of God and His Son in as polished terms as those might desire who cherish notions so unsavory and unsound. But it is true that a certain respectable class around us do see nothing but the elect as the object of God. Their doctrine supposes only the second goat, or the people's lot. They see the all-importance of substitution, but Jehovah's lot has no place as distinct.
"How came the two contending parties of religionists not to see both goats? The Word of God reveals both.... Plainly there are two goats. The goat of propitiation is to provide in the fullest manner for the glory of God, even where sin is before Him. In fulfilling it what was the consequence? Christ was forsaken of God that the believer should never be forsaken. He bore the judgment of sin that God's glory might be immutably established in righteousness. Thus grace in the freest way can and does now go out to every creature here below.
"But there is much more. Besides opening the sluices that divine lo-,-e might flow out freely everywhere, we also find another line of truth altogether: the fullest and nicest care that those who are His children should be kept in peace and blessing.... God took care, not only to vindicate His own glory and nature, but to give them knowledge of salvation by the remission of their sins. The sins are all out to be borne away.
"Even the type demonstrates... that we require these two distinct truths to maintain the balance of God's truth.... They are admirably held together; they compose God's truth. It is quite true that in the first goat God has secured His majesty, and His righteous title to send forth His message of love to every creature. Again, in the second goat He has equally cared for the assurance of His people, that all their sins, transgressions, and iniquities, are completely borne away. How could the truth of atonement be more admirably shown by types beforehand?"
Before leaving this part of the subject, let us refer to the words of another servant of God: "Christ is both high priest and victim, has confessed all the sins of His people as His own, and borne our sins in His own body on the tree. The two goats are but one Christ; but there is the double aspect of His sacrifice—Godward, and bearing our sins. The blood is the witness of the accomplishing of all, and He is entered in not without blood. He is the propitiation for our sins."
The error of the one-sided Calvinistic theology in the denial of propitiation in its wide scope for the whole world has necessitated a determined but futile attempt to remove or explain away every scripture which supports it. Take the verse which explains that Christ was the propitiation for our sins (1 John 2:2), so that His propitiatory sacrifice furnished the righteous foundation on which our sins have been removed; it also says, "and not for ours only, but also for the... whole world." The words in the King James translation "the sins of" are definitely not in the Greek, and are shown in italics in many Bibles, thus indicating that they were added by the translators. He was not a propitiation for the sins of the whole world, but He is the propitiation for the whole world. The writer of the previous paragraph continues: "He is the propitiation for our sins. But in this aspect the world comes in too. He is the propitiation for the whole world. All has been done that is needed. His blood is available for the vilest, whoever he may be. Hence the gospel to the world says, 'Whosoever will, let him come.' In this aspect we may say Christ died for all, gave Himself a ransom for all, an adequate and available sacrifice for sin for whoever would come—tasted death for every man." But Mr. Pink says: "What then was the purpose of the Father and the design of the Son? We answer, Christ died for 'God's elect.' " p. 72. This is plainly error which limits the scope and value of the sacrifice to the limit of substitution—to the scape goat. Then he adds on page 73, "Christ died for the elect only." This is a flat denial of the Word of God.
Let us notice what Mr. Pink further says: "On the cross the Lord Jesus gave Himself a ransom, and that it was accepted by God was attested by the open grave three days later; the question we would here raise is, For whom was this ransom offered? If it was offered for all mankind then the debt incurred by every man has been canceled." p. 75. This is just so much human reasoning which sets aside the plain and emphatic statements of Scripture, but it all turns on Mr. Pink's not seeing, or being unwilling to see, the difference in the two goats, and what they signify.
We are cognizant of the fact that Mr. Pink uses the words propitiation and substitution, and speaks of their being Godward and manward (p. 75), but he makes them co-extensive and limits the work of Christ to bearing the sins of the elect. Words in themselves mean nothing unless that which is signified by them is admitted.
Mr. Pink rejects the correct rendering of 1 John 2:2, and uses the mistaken text of the King James Version: "propitiation for the sins of the whole world." This only aggravates his confusion and mixes the truth of the two goats instead of retaining the careful distinction of God's Word. Christ is indeed the propitiation (or the efficacious sacrifice Godward by which God can and does offer peace and pardon to all) for the whole world, but to inject "the sins of" alters the sense and introduces error; it brings in substitution where it was not intended to be. But Mr. Pink by his confusion only compounds his difficulty, and so he then has to explain away "the whole world" (p. 74), instead of leaving out the erroneous "sins of."
Heb. 9:26 also suffers from the same muddling at the hand of this author, for he makes "Hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself," to mean, to put away the sins of the elect. He connects the same error with John 1:29—"The Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world"—and makes both scriptures apply to the actual guilt of the elect only; but this is very far short of the truth and shows how restricted his theology really is. Both of these verses contemplate the final and complete removal of sin and all its effects from God's creation. It certainly is not so now, but the work on which it will be accomplished is finished. At present the believer knows his sins forgiven; in the Millennium there will be a greater display of the efficacy of that wondrous work, but only in the eternal state will its full meaning be known. To lose sight of the important truth taught by the goat of the Lord's lot is to narrow one's apprehension of Christ's work to only one phase of it, and be guilty of disparaging His mighty work. It is sad indeed for one who does this, and worse still for those who teach others this human limitation of an infinite work. (Substitution is taught in verse 28 of Heb. 9 "So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many.")
Mr. Pink's dedication to defend an unscriptural idea brought him into trouble with 2 Cor. 5:14, 15 and 1 Tim. 2:5, 6. The former says, "For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: and that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again." Now Mr. Pink labors to prove that these ails mean only all the elect, and then to bolster that point he makes "all were dead" to mean the elect believers died with Christ. This is not only far-fetched, but it is wrong from the very context. The all were in the place of death; that was the portion of all mankind because of sin. Then in grace the Lord Jesus came down and went into death for all—it is again the general thought as seen in propitiation. But the verse adds, "that they which live" might henceforth live "unto Him which died for them, and rose again." There is a contrast between the all being morally in the place of death, and death their allotted portion, and the "they which live" (not now all, but the saved who have life in Christ) who should now "live unto Him."
Here are the words of another: "Christ's death for all is the proof that it was all over for mankind. If He went down in grace to the grave, it was just because men were already there, and none otherwise could be delivered.... There is then life in Him risen, and this not in Him only, but for those who believe. He is our life. And such is the meaning of 'those who live'; not merely those alive on earth (though this be implied, of course), but living of His life, in contrast with 'all dead.' " After going into the meaning of the Greek words, this writer adds concerning those who live: "It is not as including all for whom He died, but as of some out of all, 'those that live' in contradistinction to all dead.... The reader will observe that Christ's resurrection is associated only with 'those who live.' This again confirms the special class of the living, as only included in, and not identical with, all for whom He died. Those who would narrow the all for whom He died to the elect lose the first truth"—the judgment of death seen written on all, so that Christ's death becomes the ground of deliverance.
We will not take time or space to elaborate on Mr. Pink's justifying his same error in connection with 1 Tim. 2:5, 6. The "ransom for all" is what it says—"for all." The Apostle by the Spirit had just stated that the mediator between God and men was the Man Christ Jesus; but man is reluctant to believe in God's grace to him even when One died and rose for his deliverance; "it is 'a ransom for all,' whoever may bow and reap the blessing; which those do who, renouncing their own proud will for God's mercy in Christ, repent and believe the gospel." Simply believing what God says, the way He says it, is very much better than raising objections to conform to a pre-determined scheme, and then having to explain away what the Word says.
We may well say with Mr. Pink's concluding statement, "The Atonement is no failure." p. 320. It certainly is not, but it is of far greater import and value than Mr. Pink ever imagined. It has so thoroughly glorified God's character and nature—light and love—that He is glorified in the vastness of Christ's work, so that He is justified in offering salvation, pardon, and eternal life to all without limit. It has also proved that God was righteous in having passed over the sins of those who in Old Testament times had faith in Himself (see Rom. 3:25 and Heb. 9:15).
Calvinism: Mr. Pink
A concomitant error to Mr. Pink's doctrine of a limited atonement, with its denial of the real truth of propitiation, is the Calvinistic denial of the elementary and basic truth that "God is love." This is seen in Mr. Pink's handling of John 3:16: "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." He goes to great lengths to prove that God does not love the world—mankind—and this precious verse suffers much at his hands. Everything must conform to his predetermined scheme; hence he says it is not the world as such that God loves, but only "the world of the godly" or "the world of God's people." But where was "the world of the godly" or of "God's people" when He sent and gave His beloved Son?
On this subject, Mr. Pink further says: "No matter how a man may live—in open defiance of Heaven, with no concern for his soul's eternal interests, still less for God's glory... notwithstanding, God loves him, we are told." p. 246. Here is serious heresy, for this of necessity makes God's love to man to depend on something in man. If Mr. Pink could restrict God's love to His own elect, will he say that they until conversion were otherwise than those whom he pictures as being unlovable? undeserving? Were God's elect in anywise different from all mankind? Instead of extolling God's sovereignty, Mr. Pink here makes God's love descend on the worthy only! If God does not love those who live "in open defiance of Heaven," and those who have "no concern" for their "soul's eternal interests" or for "God's glory," who then would be saved? If these are prerequisites for God's loving us, our case is hopeless indeed. If God loves any on this basis, it would strike a fatal blow at the very thing—God's sovereignty—for which Mr. Pink says he is contending.
Mr. Pink says, "One of the most popular beliefs of the day is that God loves everybody, and the very fact that it is so popular with all classes ought to be enough to arouse the suspicions of those who are subject to the Word of Truth. God's Love toward all His creatures is the fundamental and favorite tenet of Universalists, Unitarians, Theosophists, Christian Scientists, Spiritualists, Russellites, etc." pp. 245, 246. Here he treads on dangerous ground, for he assumes that God's love for His creatures is a fable simply because some false doctrines make His love a blind love that will wink at sin. God's love is real, in spite of Calvinism; but it is holy and will not tolerate sin, in spite of Universalism, and of all who would make God a party to sin. Even John 3:16 shows that God's love is not the kind that Mr. Pink would portray as being preached today, for He sent His only begotten Son into the world that whosoever believes in Him should not perish. Justice must be satisfied or all would have perished—"the Son of man" must "be lifted up."
To show the folly of Mr. Pink's contention that John 3:16 only means that God loved His own elect and no one else, let us ask those of his persuasion, What then is the purpose of the word "whosoever" in the rest of the verse? Absolutely none whatever, unless "that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life," should mean that because God loved the world and gave His Son, any or all who will may come and be saved through Him. "Whosoever" has no meaning if it does not signify the scope of the offer. It is without limit or restriction. Would God make an offer that was not real? God did love the world and gave His Son; now all may come.
Author Pink remarks: "To tell the Christ-rejecter that God loves him is to cauterize his conscience, as well as afford him a sense of security in his sins. The fact is, that the love of God, is a truth for saints only." p. 246. Was it to a believer that the Lord spoke John 3:16? No, Nicodemus was not so then. He still needed to be born again, as the Lord told him. Will Mr. Pink impugn the wisdom of the Lord Himself in quoting that verse to him? Listen to the words of a more sober strain:
"The love of God, and even His love announced in forgiveness through the work of Christ, may, through the power of the Holy Ghost, awaken the sense of need: still having the forgiveness is another thing. That love, brought home to the soul through grace, produces confidence, not peace; but it does produce confidence. Hence we come into the light. God is light and God is love. Christ in the world was the light of the world, and He was there in divine love.... When God reveals Himself, He must be both—light and love. The love draws and produces confidence; as with the woman in the city who was a sinner (Luke 7), the prodigal (Luke 15), Peter in the boat (Luke 5)." "The law may by grace reach the conscience and make us feel our guilt, but it does not reveal God in love." If conscience only were reached, it would drive man into hiding from God, as Adam did in the Garden; but it is the thought that there is goodness in the heart of God that draws anyone to Him. It was the sense of goodness in the father's heart and house that led the prodigal to return. Little did Mr. Pink think of it, but his denial that God is love is closely akin to the devil's lie when he libeled God to Eve, for he insinuated that God was not good—not love—that He was arbitrarily keeping back something from the creature which would have been for his good. "What a solemn thing to echo a false accusation against God! To believe Mr. Pink, one would have to come to the conclusion that God is neither love nor good. This, the devil propagated among the heathen, so that they sought to appease an angry God. At present there is generally another form of his old lie in the garden, which in substance says, If God would put the sinner in hell, He would not be good or love. But be it remembered that a good and loving God can punish sin without any impairment of His goodness; a holy God must punish sin. A loving earthly father can punish a disobedient child without foregoing his natural love. Mr. Pink is on dangerous ground in his assumptions that God has no love toward the sinner; they strike at the very root of God's nature, for He is love.
Mr. Pink says, "It has been customary to say God loves the sinner, though He hates his sin. But this is a meaningless distinction. What is there in a sinner but sin?" p. 246. Ah, Mr. Pink, there is in the sinner a soul that will live on and on and on, either in bliss or in woe. Your statement will not bear scrutiny. God does love the sinner.
It would be amusing, if it were not so serious, to watch the way Mr. Pink twists Scripture to his own ends. When it comes to the rich young ruler in Mark 10, whom Jesus loved, Mr. Pink clears up the difficulty for himself by saying, "We fully believe that he was one of God's elect, and was 'saved' sometime after his interview with the Lord." p. 247. This is only his bare assumption without any support.
Notice the following foolish error in the book we are reviewing: "Why say 'he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father' if the Father loves everybody?" p. 248. Who said that the Father loves everybody? Let us keep with the very words of divine inspiration, and say, "God so loved the world that He gave." It is God that loves the world, not the Father. Furthermore, there is a special love of complacency in the Father for those who love His Son—"He that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father." Mr. Pink attacks such a differentiation, but it is there nonetheless. He misuses Heb. 12:6 in the same way when quoting "Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth," saying that God's love is restricted to members of His own family (p. 248). Does it need to be said, that this again is not God's love to the world—the world of mankind? It is the children in the family who are disciplined in love by the Father. He also confuses Eph. 5:25 with John 3:16; but let it be noted that "Christ loved the church, and gave Himself for it," but God loved the world. It does not say that Christ loved the world, nor that God loved the Church. Why cannot men quote Scripture as it is given, and revel in its perfect exactitude as evidence of divine inspiration?
Mr. Pink becomes rather daring in the following: " 'God so loved the world.' Many suppose that this means the entire human race. But the entire human race includes all mankind from Adam to the close of Earth's history: it reaches backward as well as forward! Consider, then, the history of mankind before Christ was born. Unnumbered millions lived and died before the Savior came to the earth, lived here 'having no hope and without God in the world,' and therefore passed out into an eternity of woe. If God 'loved' them, where is the slightest proof thereof?" pp. 248, 249. This almost savors of replying "against God." Let such as endorse Mr. Pink's grave error read Rom. 1 and hold their peace. In that chapter we are told that at one time the human race knew God—"that, when they knew God"—all who came out of the ark had the knowledge of God, and the long lives of the Patriarchs from the flood to the tower of Babel made it possible for men to learn of God through their ancestors. Shem, Noah's son, was still living when Isaac was past fifty years of age, although Isaac was born about 500 years after the flood. But they did not like to retain that knowledge. They gave up God, and God gave them up to uncleanness. They had also the testimony of God in creation; "Because that which may be known of God is manifest in [rather, to] them; for God bath showed it unto them. For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse." Here is the right answer. God never left man without a testimony of Himself, and men at all times were responsible for whatever revelation He was pleased to give them. The infidel today inquires about the heathen, asking what God will do with them, but Mr. Pink disposes of that question by an assumption of his own, that God designed to cast them all into hell. This in our judgment is very serious. Who gave Mr. Pink the right to speak for God?
We cannot but think of Job's friends when we read Mr. Pink's book. They did not speak right about God: "And it was so, that after the LORD had spoken these words unto Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends: for ye have not spoken of Me the thing that is right, as My servant Job hath." Job 42:7. Job had been through a hard school, and had learned about himself; but he had not said things that misrepresented God, as his friends had, and which we are persuaded Mr. Pink has done.
Again, Mr. Pink argues that God could not have loved the world as representing the whole human race, for half of the human race "was already in hell when Christ came." p. 251. What does he mean, "in hell"? There are none in hell yet, for the first two men who will go there will be the Roman beast and the false prophet in Jerusalem, and that has not happened. If he means those that died without faith are lost, we grant it. But how does he know how many in old times had faith in God? The Old Testament mentions individuals here and there who were not Jews who evidently had faith. Was not Job one of these? When he says, "The objects of God's love in John 3:16 are precisely the same objects of Christ's love in John 13:1," he is sadly mistaken. Why does he not make "His own" in John 1:11 The same as "His own" in John 13:1? It would be just as reasonable and just as wrong. The former were the Jews as a people, the latter the Jews who had faith in Him.
When Mr. Pink asks, "Is it conceivable that God will love the damned in the Lake of Fire? Yet, if He loves them now He will do so then, seeing that His love knows no change—He is `without variableness or shadow of turning'!" p. 248. This is just plain sophistry. Wrath and judgment, the just deserts of sin, are not incompatible with love.
If any reader doubts the absurd lengths to which Pinkism goes, let him notice this quotation: "There is far too much presenting of Christ to sinners today (by those sound in the faith)." p. 247. Did not Philip go down to Samaria and preach "Christ"? (Acts 8). Did not Paul preach at Corinth, Christ's death, burial, and resurrection (1 Cor. 15:3)? Of course man's need should be presented, for if a man has no need, there is no need of the gospel. But preaching only wrath and ruin will not draw a soul to God. Mr. Pink says, "The Gospel is not an 'offer' to be bandied around by evangelical peddlers" (p. 257), but Paul rejoiced that Christ was preached, even if not sincerely. Mr. Pink did not agree with Paul.
Another bit of sophistry is to be found on the subject of God's love: "God does not love everybody; if He did, He would love the devil." What semblance of authority has he for such a baseless conclusion? Does John 3:16 embrace infernal beings? A similar bit of reasoning is found on the same page (30), "In the final analysis, the exercise of God's love must be traced back to His sovereignty, or, otherwise, He would love by rule; and if He loved by rule, then He is under a law of love, and if He is under a law of love then is He not supreme, but is Himself ruled by law." The author of this has not considered that love is God's very nature. God cannot deny Himself, or act other than He is—He is love and will always be so; and judgment is "His strange work."
A sober servant of Christ has written: "The first part of what the Lord says in John 3 is: 'And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up.' The
Son of man, He who represented man, must be lifted up—die on the cross, and where was such a lamb to be found? 'God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.' The 'Son of man' must be lifted up, the 'Son of God' was given, the same blessed person: but 'Son of man,' to die for man's need, standing for man before God; 'Son of God,' vessel and proof of God's sovereign love." And again, "God loved us while we were sinners, and this is the characteristic of His love, His saving love." And, "God loved us while we were sinners; He loves us without any change when we are cleansed.... He loved us when we were in our sins."
What poor, unworthy thoughts of God, Mr. Pink had! and he would engender the same in all his followers, but it will not be to his credit, nor for the good of those who follow him. Let us rather sing:
"Oh the glory of the grace,
Shining in the Savior's face,
Telling sinners from above,
`God is light,' and `God is love.'"
Mr. Pink does not stop at denying God's love to the world—to mankind -but he actually goes so far as to teach that God hates those whom He does not love. Notice this: "He loves one and hates another. He exercises mercy toward some and hardens others, without reference to anything save His own sovereign will." p. 111. In speaking about God's hating Esau, Mr. Pink goes so far as to indicate that this was so before he was born; thus: "Go back to Rom. 9:11-13: did Esau fit himself to be an object of God's hatred, or was he not such before he was born?" p. 118. (Although this is put in the form of a question, there can be no doubt from the context that he is here teaching that Esau was hated before he was born.) Here is a more definite statement of Mr. Pink's: "If then God loved Jacob and hated Esau, and that before they were born or had done either good or evil, then the reason for His love was not in them, but in Himself." p. 30.
Let us notice what one, from whom we have previously quoted, says on the subject: "If God 'despiseth not any' (Job 36:5), we may be perfectly sure He hates not any. Such an idea could not enter a mind which was nurtured in the Word of God, apart from the reasonings of men. I say not this because of the smallest affinity with what is commonly called Arminianism; for I have just as little affinity for Calvinism. I believe the one to be as derogatory to God's glory as the other, though in very different ways—the one by exalting man most unduly, and the other by prescribing for God, and consequently not saying the thing that is right of Him."
Mr. Pink speaks of God's wrath upon one as though it might be synonymous with God's hatred, but this "confounds hatred with judicial anger. There is no hatred in God to man assuredly. Yet God is a righteous judge, and God is angry every day, and ought to be so." But Mr. Pink asks, "Can God 'love' the one on whom His 'wrath' abides?" p. 248. Our answer to this is "yes," for God's wrath against the sinner because of his sin is not inconsistent with infinite and sovereign love. Thus Christ in the synagogue looked upon them with anger, being grieved at the hardness of their hearts. The grief was love, the anger was His righteous estimate of their sin.
The consideration of Jacob and Esau brings us to Mr. Pink's affirmation of the Calvinistic doctrine of reprobation, but this must be left for another issue. It is far too important to pass over quickly, even for those who have never had to face it.