It has been our purpose for a long time to discuss the subjects of God's sovereignty and man's responsibility in these pages. The two subjects are often set in opposition to each other, as though they were mutually contradictory, rather than complimentary. Both are true, and they are found side by side in the Word of God. Parties and sects have been formed around each subject, while much heat and little light have been generated on both sides.
A stormy controversy arose in the latter part of the 16th century between the followers of John Calvin (1509-64) and Jacobus Arminius, whose real name was Jacob Harmensen, or Herrnansz, (1560-1609). The battle between Calvinists and Arminians is still going on.
Calvin saw and taught the total ruin of man, that since Adam fell all his posterity were born in sin and possessed a will opposed to God. Thus Calvinism taught that mankind was hopelessly lost unless God stepped in and saved some, but that this He did, first by His own sovereign choice in a past eternity, and then by giving them faith in Christ when they were living on the earth.
Arminius denied that man was beyond the power to help himself, and contended that he could by exercising his own free will improve himself, and that at least he had the power to accept the good and refuse the evil, to exercise faith in Christ, or reject Him. This is generally termed the doctrine of "free will." Whether Arminius realized it or not, his doctrine had much of the Pelagian error in it. Let us consider Pelagius and his doctrine.
Of Pelagius's early life we know little; he probably died early in the 5th century. This much is known, that he was a monk in the great monastery at Bangor, Wales, and that his real name was Morgan. He had a close follower named Celestius, a native of Ireland. These two men went to Rome, then to Africa, and then to Jerusalem, spreading their evil doctrine. Grace to them was nothing more than a call to man to exercise his best efforts toward God. We shall quote the words of another about the Pelagian heresy:
"The fundamental error of the monk Pelagius was the denial of our total corruption by sin derived from Adam, and met only by the death and resurrection of the second Man, the last Adam. Hence he asserted liberty as now true of all men, not merely in the sense of exemption from external restraint, but of freedom within the nature as to good and evil, denying thus in the race internal bondage to sin. So he appears to have seen little more in grace, even in its Christian application, than pardon for this or that offense, not the impartation to the believer of a new nature, in virtue of which he does not practice sin, because he is born of God. Thus no room was left in the Pelagian scheme for man's being lost now on the one side, or for the believer's being saved now on the other. In fact the race was conceived to be in an innocence like the primeval state of Adam, till each sinned and thus fell under guilt and its consequences. The Pelagians denied the imputation of Adam's sin, seeing no more than the influence of a bad example. As the moral ruin of man was thus enfeebled and the relation of the head last, so on the other hand under grace were reckoned all the natural endowments of the human family, as well as the supernatural. Hence conscience, law, and gospel were regarded as different methods, as well as advancing stages of righteousness, in every case the means and operations of grace being effectual only according to the measure of the tendencies of the will. Again, the redemption of Christ became thus, if not an amelioration, certainly an exaltation and transfiguration of humanity. Christ Himself was but the highest pattern of righteousness, some before Him having perfectly kept the moral law, and others since being stimulated by His work, love, and example to the evangelical counsels of moral perfection beyond law."
It should be apparent to the most superficial reader of the above that Pelagius denied both the fall and utter ruin of man on the one hand, and the only way of redemption through the work of Christ for, and the operation of the Spirit in its application to man, on the other. It was a deadly error that nullified the necessity of the whole counsels and operation of the grace of God.
It would have foredoomed the creature to remain in his alienation from God, although this alienation is denied.
If man is not lost, then the Lord Jesus needed not to come "to seek and to save that which was lost" (Luke 19:10). If a man could elevate himself by the exercise of his own will, and by good thus performed, back to God, then God needed not to send His beloved Son to suffer and die. But God has faithfully told us that we were not only lost and without any strength to do anything about it, but that we were morally dead—dead toward God—that there is not one movement of our hearts toward Him. (Romans and Ephesians.) Being thus in such a plight, we needed One to rescue us, to save us; and we needed the impartation of life, an entirely new life.
But let us come back to Arminianism which is today held by much of Christendom, especially by large segments of evangelical bodies. Has man today such a thing as a free will morally? No! Adam was placed in the Garden of Eden by his Creator. He was perfect in innocence, for God, after creating him, looked at His creation and said it was "very good." He was happy in relationship with his Creator, but to remain so he needed to walk in obedience, for that was the only right thing for a creature. He was not outwardly forced to remain in that state; and one, but only one, test was applied to him in the matter of obedience. He was to abstain from the fruit of only one tree, and God warned him of the consequences of disobedience. As soon then as he exercised his own will, he sinned. This was not all; he became a sinner with a will opposed to God. From that moment forward, all of mankind (with the single exception of the "Lord from heaven," "the second Man," "the last Adam") have been disposed to evil. Since man's will is now inclined toward evil, how can he by the exercise of it bring himself back to God? Let us quote from another on the subject of free will:
"It is simple nonsense to talk of freedom when applied to man's actual condition, if he is already inclined to evil."
"A man being really set to choose between evil and good.. is alike horrible and absurd; because it supposes the good and evil to be outside, and himself neither. If he is one or other in disposition, the choice is there. To have a fair choice, he must be personally indifferent; but to be in, a state of indifference to good and evil is perfectly horrible. If a man has an inclination, his choice is not free; a free will is rank nonsense morally, because, if he have a will, he wills something. God can will to create. But will in moral things [in man] means either self-will, which is sin (for we ought to obey), or an inclination to something, which is really a choice made as far as will goes."
"To say that he [man] is not inclined to evil, is to deny all Scripture and all fact; to make him free to choose he must be as yet indifferent, indifferent to—having no preference for—good and evil, which is not true, for evil lusts and self-will are there, the two great elements of sin, and if it were true would be perfectly horrible."
"The doctrine of free will helps on the doctrine of the natural man's pretension not to be entirely lost, for that is really what it amounts to. All men who have never been deeply convinced of sin, all persons with whom this conviction is based upon gross and outward sins, believe more or less in free will. You know that it is the dogma... of all reasoners, of all philosophers. But this idea completely changes all the idea of Christianity and entirely perverts it."
If natural man could by the exercise of his own will bring himself into favor with God, then it is not true that "They that are in the flesh cannot please God," but God's Word is true. It would likewise negate the positive declaration, "Ye must be born again." Why did the Lord say, "No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him"? Because man's heart is so far estranged from God that if man be left to himself he would never come. It is true, as in the parable, that when the invitation reaches needy sinners, "They all with one consent [begin] to make excuse." They not only have a nature disposed toward evil, but they are not disposed to accept God's gracious invitation, no, not even with God's beseeching them to come. If it were not for sovereign grace that drew any of us to Christ, none would have partaken of God's free gift. As the poet has so aptly said,
"Why was I made to hear His voice,
And enter while there's room,
When thousands make a wretched choice,
And rather starve than come?
'Twas the same love that spread the feast,
That sweetly forced me in,
Else I had still refused to taste,
And perished in my sin."
Scripture completely sets aside any good in man, as our Lord said, "Ye will not come to Me," not even when He was graciously seeking them. The will was at fault. But the Lord said to His own, "Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you." How completely that sets aside our doing, even in coming to Christ! Again we read of His own, "Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." John 1:13. And in Jas. 1:18, "Of His own will begat He us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures." Even the faith to believe in Him is not of ourselves, but "is the gift of God." (See Eph. 2:8.) When the redeemed ones in glory render praise and worship to the Lamb who saved them (Rev. 5), there will be no one present who was saved by exercising his own will, or apart from the constraining of divine grace. Not one will be there who will mar that new song by taking any credit to himself, not even for his faith. Every one there will be there as the evident trophy of God's grace, even as Mephibosheth in David's house was visible evidence of David's goodness (2 Sam. 9).
Arminius may not have realized how much he borrowed from the fatal scheme of Pelagius, nor how much he taught that which is one of the most natural weeds to grow in the human heart—that which in substance exalts the first man and sets aside the second Man, the Lord from heaven. (All was lost and condemned in the first man, and the believer in Christ is now seen in the second Man—he is a new creature in Christ.) Arminius may have been actuated largely from a desire to refute the excesses of Calvinism, and there are many. These we purpose, the Lord willing, to bring before our readers next month.