February 2010 • Volume XII, Issue 22
The Psalms Versus Common Grace (2)
Like Psalm 5, which we treated in the last News, Psalm 11 opposes the
idea that God loves everybody, including the reprobate—the core
position of common grace. The key verses are: “[3] If the
foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? [4] The Lord is
in his holy temple, the Lord’s throne is in heaven: his eyes behold,
his eyelids try, the children of men. [5] The Lord trieth the
righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth.
[6] Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an
horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup. [7] For the
righteous Lord loveth righteousness; his countenance doth behold the
upright” (Ps. 11:3-7).
God’s attitude towards the ungodly is that of hatred: “the wicked
and him that loveth violence his soul hateth” (5). When it says that
God’s “soul” hates them, it means all that God is. He hates them
in His inmost being, so to speak. Moreover, God hates not just the
sin, but the sinner: “the wicked and him that loveth violence his
soul hateth” (5).
We are also told the ground for God’s hatred of the wicked. Jehovah
hates them (5) and will destroy them (6), “For the righteous Lord
loveth righteousness” (7). Jehovah’s perfect righteousness and
justice blaze against ungodly rebels. He is the holy and just One,
therefore “the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth”
(5).
God’s hatred of the ungodly in time issues in their terrible
punishment in hell: “Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and
brimstone, and an horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their
cup” (6). This is the ultimate and final expression of His
abhorrence of the wicked: their everlasting agony.
Psalm 11 speaks of the reprobate wicked, for those whom God hates (5)
He will punish in hell (6). The elect, prior to their conversion, live
in sin. But it is not true to say that God hates them, even when they
were in unbelief. God eternally loved His people in Christ (Rom.
9:13). Therefore, He brings them all to repentance (Jer. 31:3). We are
under His wrath prior to our conversion (Eph. 2:3), but He never hated
us, for His hatred is His resolute determination to thrust away from
Himself and punish everlastingly.
According to the title, David penned Psalm 11. He is being persecuted
by the ungodly in Israel, probably under Saul or Absalom. He asks,
“If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (3).
Righteousness and justice are the “foundations” of God’s kingdom
on earth. When these are subverted and undermined by wicked leaders so
that the saints are persecuted, what can the righteous do? So David
recalls the heavenly foundations of God’s church and covenant. No
matter what wicked church leaders do, God is holy, reigning in glory;
He sees all. “The Lord is in his holy temple, the Lord’s throne is
in heaven: his eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men”
(4). His rule is perfectly just. He loves and tests the righteous (5,
7) but He hates the wicked (5), whom He will cast into hell (6). This
is the moral foundation of the church and the universe: God’s holy
love of His saints in Christ and His righteous hatred of the ungodly.
You see how common grace attacks the foundations? Common grace says
that God loves the reprobate wicked. David, do you hear that? God
loves Saul (or Absalom) who is hunting you as a partridge on the hills
and seeking to kill you (1-2)! But what about God’s holiness and
righteousness which He loves (7)? What of His hatred of the wicked
with all His “soul” (5)? Common grace puts the world out of
kilter; the foundations are moved! For God is not perfectly righteous,
if He loves the reprobate who are wholly sinful.
Sadly, many Christians believe in common grace: God loves everybody,
there is good in everybody (contra total depravity), God approves of
some or much of the world’s activities (contra Prov. 21:4) and
Christians should see moral good in just about everything that the
wicked do. Thus there is good in the higher critics and their work,
though they undermine the authority and inerrancy of Holy Scripture.
Because of common grace, we can accept the ideas of the evolutionists
(big bang cosmology, uniformitarian geology and macro-evolution from
slime to humans), for they are good people, honestly searching for the
truth (contra Eph. 2:1-3). The theories of secular psychologists on
guilt, family relationships, etc., can be embraced and X-rated movies
can be watched because of the powerful operations of common grace,
some even dare argue.
Even sodomy! If God loves everybody, then God loves homosexuals—just
as they are. There is some moral good in them and so we can learn from
them, for they show us true love too. This line of reasoning regarding
sodomy has been embraced by many in the churches in the Netherlands,
the home country of Abraham Kuyper, the patron saint of common grace,
as well as Kuyper’s disciples in Toronto, Canada, etc. The Christian
Reformed Church (CRC) in N. America, which in 1924 expelled Herman
Hoeksema, justified allowing a lesbian group, singing about
lesbianism, at the CRC’s Calvin College on the basis of common grace
(2002). Church of England bishops argue for homosexual church members
and clergy using common grace: God loves homosexuals; they are in His
image. The Presbyterian Church in Ireland, believing that God loves
all sinners and under pressure from both homosexuals and political
correctness both within and without the denomination, produced a
“fudged” and compromised document on sodomy at its 2007 General
Assembly (www.cprf.co.uk/articles/pciandsodomy.htm).
If you deny that God hates the wicked and maintain that He loves them,
you have destroyed the moral foundations of the church (Jehovah’s
righteous and discriminating love for His people only in Jesus Christ)
and the church is already falling. The cracks are appearing and will
grow—even if this is not admitted or wanted. Rev.
Stewart
(For a further explanation of Psalm 11:3-7, please listen to
"The
Moral Foundations of the Church" or download it from
the CPRC
website.)
Having answered the reader concerning the place of children in
the covenant, only this part of her question remains for my
response: “With whom was the covenant of works made? The visible
or the invisible church? How does all that work out?”
After a close scrutiny of the covenant of works, Herman Hoeksema
came to the conclusion that it was an erroneous view. I here
summarise Hoeksema’s carefully developed analysis and arguments
(Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 1, pp. 308-312):
1) It finds no support in the Word of God, but is an unwarranted
deduction from God’s command to Adam not to eat of the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil.
2) The covenant of works postulates a period of probation for
Adam, at the end of which he would have received eternal and
heavenly life, but this is impossible for man except through
Christ (I Cor. 15:47). Also the concept of Adam’s entering
eternal life in heaven has imbedded in it the idea of merit, a
notion abhorrent to Reformed theology (Luke 17:10; Rom. 11:35).
3) This view raises other problems: How long was the
probationary period? Would Adam have entered heaven with all his
posterity? What would then happen to the earthly creation in
which Adam was prophet, priest and king?
4) The covenant of works makes the covenant between God and Adam
something incidental to Adam’s creation, for it was added to
Adam after his creation. What was Adam’s relationship to God
prior to this covenant?
5) If one looks at the whole concept from the viewpoint of
God’s sovereignty and wisdom, His original intention in
establishing a covenant of works with Adam ended in failure and
God found it necessary to resort to another plan to accomplish
salvation.
I am persuaded by these arguments and reject the idea of a
covenant of works with Adam. But this does not mean that Adam did
not stand in a covenant with God.
Adam was created as God’s servant, as the head of the entire
creation in which he stood as prophet, priest and king. He was
created in God’s image and was called to serve the Lord his God
in all he did.
Adam was God’s friend, as well as His servant, standing in a
relationship of fellowship with His Lord. The tree of life, from
which Adam was called to eat, was the symbol of this friendship
between God and Adam. In his joyful service of God in the midst of
His creation, Adam experienced fellowship with God. Not only did
the whole creation, formed by the Word of God, speak of His
greatness and power, His majesty and glory; it also spoke of
God’s goodness and love towards Adam—and, subsequently,
towards Eve. Adam could hear God’s speech in the singing of the
birds, the beauty of the flowers, the glory of the trees and the
splendour of the stars at night.
Hearing this grand and beautiful chorus that creation sang, Adam
was filled with love for God and overwhelmed with the greatness
and majesty of his creator. It was a pristine creation, for sin
had not yet entered, nor death to dull God’s speech. Adam
responded in praise and adoration to the great God who had blessed
him so richly.
There was also a special way in which God and Adam had fellowship
together. In paradise, God talked directly to Adam (e.g., Gen.
1:28-30; 2:16-17). After Adam and Eve had sinned, “they heard
the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the
day” (3:8). This indicates that God’s walking and speaking in
the garden was a common, perhaps daily, phenomenon. But this time
Adam and Eve, instead of going to meet God, hid themselves, for
they knew they had sinned (3:10).
Though not, of course, a covenant of grace in the sense that God
revealed His grace through Jesus Christ to sinful post-fall Adam,
we may very well call the covenant that God established with
pre-fall Adam a covenant of grace, for God showed His unmerited
favour to Adam and Eve. He had created Adam and Eve
perfect—itself a great, unmerited grace. God freely gave Adam
and Eve a beautiful and wonderful creation in which to live and
over which to rule. The Triune God made Adam His covenant friend,
a gift than which no greater can be found. The great and
infinitely perfect God had fellowship with a creature that He
Himself had made! Adam merited nothing, not even in a state of
perfection. True it is that God’s grace is revealed in a richer
way when God takes sinners into His covenant through Christ, but
we must not minimize the blessedness pre-fall Adam received, none
of which he had earned.
Understanding this truth, we can set aside the unbiblical doctrine
of a covenant of works. God’s covenant was established in the
very act of creation and not mechanically added to Adam’s
relationship to God. It was a covenant that was graciously
established and not in any sense merited. It was a covenant in
which Adam’s work was not merely an obligation, but a great
privilege and joy. It was a covenant in which Adam knew and
revelled in God’s friendship, favour and love. God was Adam’s
friend! And Adam was God’s friend! What more could Adam have?
But it was also a covenant that would be continued only in the way
of obedience. Sin broke God’s covenant and Adam and Eve were
driven from the garden.
God had some better thing in store for His people: a covenant of
grace revealed through Christ to sinners. A covenant in which God
and His people dwell in friendship through His Son. A covenant in
which God takes His people to heaven and gives them a glorified
earth as their inheritance—something forever beyond Adam’s
reach, even if he had not fallen. A covenant in which God is
glorified in a far higher way than in the first paradise. But it
is still a covenant of friendship and fellowship. A covenant in
which we, wretched sinners, are the friends of God through Jesus
Christ, God’s own Son, our Saviour and Lord—the second Adam
(Rom. 5:14; I Cor. 15:45-47).
The covenant was established with Adam and all his posterity, for
Adam was created as the head of the human race. When Adam fell,
the whole human race fell in Adam. Adam was a covenant breaker and
the entire human race broke God’s covenant in Adam. But God
sovereignly and wisely, for the sake of the realization of His own
purpose, moved Adam aside to make room for the second Adam, our
Lord Jesus Christ. In Him, God’s grace is fully revealed and the
riches of God’s covenant, greater than they ever could be in the
first paradise, are lavished on the elect church for whom Christ
died, the head of the true human race. Prof. Hanko
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