The same thing is advanced on page 199: "His [man's] second duty is to cry to God for His enabling power—to ask God in mercy to overcome his enmity and 'draw' him to Christ; to bestow upon him the gift of repentance and faith. If he will do so, sincerely from the heart, then most surely God will respond to his appeal." Can any man apart from the Holy Spirit's work in him draw nigh to God in this manner? For in coming to God thus, the man must have faith: "He that cometh to God must believe that He is." Is not this asking man to take the first step to salvation on his own strength, when he is "without strength"? How can a man in nature "sincerely from the heart" approach God, for his heart is incurably bad (Jer. 17:9).
Other remarks on the preaching of the gospel are indeed strange: "God suffers the gospel to fall on the ears of the non-elect.... The preaching of the gospel to the non-elect is made an admirable test of their characters." What strange language! Is God using His precious gospel concerning His Son just to test characters? Man was proved bad long before, according to Rom. 3. His trial was over then, for it ended in the cross.
When Mr. Pink says (p. 234), "God has to put His laws in our minds, and write them in our hearts (see Heb. 8:10)," he is applying to us what strictly belongs to the houses of Israel and Judah in the millennium—see Jer. 31:31-34. Christ in our hearts and occupation with Him in glory are the safeguards of our conduct, not the law given to Israel of old being in our hearts. To say this is to lower the whole standard of Christian living.
Mr. Pink is guilty of using the language of Scripture very carelessly. This is seen in many places, but on page 72 he says, "It surely does not need arguing that the Father had an express purpose in giving Him to die, or that God the Son had a definite design before Him in laying down His life." Did God the Son die? Could God die? To be specific, He was rejected and suffered as the Son of Man, a title first mentioned in Psa. 8, and that in connection with His rejection and His coming reign. The Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross, and the Son of Man had to be lifted up, but carelessness in use of words is dangerous and can lead to serious error, as is witnessed in Mr. Pink's statement.
On page 75, Mr. Pink makes a remark about substitution, which says, "The persons for whom He acts, whose sins He bears, whose legal obligations He discharges." This is sad, for to make Christ merely discharge our legal obligations is to remove grace and God's forgiveness. If He merely discharged our legal obligations, then nothing needs to be forgiven, but Scripture teaches God's forgiveness, and in such a way that God remains just while justifying the ungodly (Rom. 3:26).
We must now bring our review of Mr. Pink's book, which sets forth the Calvinistic line of teaching, to a close. Much more might be said, but we leave with our readers the challenges we have made and commend them to the Word of God: "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good" (1 Thess. 5:21).
In closing, however, we wish to again affirm that we stand squarely on the fact of man's total ruin and helplessness, and maintain that besides the work of Christ on the cross for the glory of God and for the putting away of the sins of all who believe, the work of the Spirit of God in the soul producing new birth is an absolute essential in the saving of souls. We close with the words of the poet Cowper:
Of all the gifts Thy love bestows,
Thou Giver of all good!
Not heaven itself a richer knows
Than the Redeemer's blood.
Faith, too, that trusts the blood through grace,
From that same love we gain;
Else, sweetly, as it suits our case,
The gift had been in vain.
We praise Thee, and would praise Thee more;
To Thee our all we owe;
The precious Savior, and the power
That makes Him precious too.