Hoeksema and Engelsma against the Genuine Offer of the Gospel: Part Three of a series on “the Free Offer of the Gospel”

Despite the defense of John Murray and others, there are Reformed thinkers who would contend that they can deny any such “disposition” to God (of love toward the reprobate) without being guilty of “desperate exegetical violence.” Perhaps the most well-known of those who would deny Murray’s exegetical conclusion are Herman Hoeksema and David Engelsma But these authors, in their books on the subject, do not deal with the exegesis.Hoeksema does not even mention Luke 6.35, 36 in his magnum opus, Reformed Dogmatics.[Grand Rapids, MI: Reformed Free Publishing Assoc., 1966] Furthermore, his “discussion” of Matthew 5.44, 45 is rather trite [p. 106-107]. Having surveyed other passages of Scripture, Hoeksema develops a definition of love which dictates that it “can exist only in the sphere of ethical perfection. It requires an ethically perfect subject as well as an ethically perfect object.” Having developed this definition, he then “in passing, remarks” that the sort of love to which Jesus refers in Matthew 5.44 must refer to a substandard “onesided” sort of love. But why was not this verse included in the passages which contributed to Hoeksema’s definition of love? Why is it only worthy of a “passing” and dismissive “remark” after a definition which excluded it from consideration has already been decided upon? Hoeksema gives us here a case study in arbitrary theology, in which the conclusions are known well in advance of the investigation.

It is this assertion that love requires perfection which Hoeksema invoked in a much earlier and now less-well-known work to defuse the import of Matthew 5.44-45. According to Hoeksema, to use the text to prove common grace “proves too much” and “leads to absurdity.” It proves too much because “all the Scriptures witness that God does not love, but hates his enemies and purposes to destroy them.” It leads to absurdity because “if rain and sunshine are a manifestation of love for all men, the just and the unjust, what are floods and droughts, pestilences and earthquakes and all destructive forces and evils sent to all through nature, but manifestations of His hatred for all, the just and the unjust?”[The Protestant Reformed Churches in America: Their Origin, Early History, and Doctrine (Grand Rapids, MI: no pub., 1936), p. 317.]

Finally, Hoeksema demonstrates the desperate exegetical violence which Murray mentions: “Besides, it must not be overlooked that the text does not at all state that God is gracious to the just and to the unjust, but that He rains and causes His sun to shine on all.” [Ibid, p. 318.]

What are we to say to all this? First of all, the plain meaning of Jesus’ words is that the natural blessings brought through God’s providence represent His love. Hoeksema has done nothing to disprove this obvious fact.

Second, it is well worth asking how we are to interpret the destructive forces of nature, but such a question cannot reduce the plain meaning of Jesus’ words to absurdity, unless God can be guilty of absurdity, which is blasphemous to contemplate. Perhaps we need to ask if we have not created more trouble than necessary by absolutizing the distinction between God’s “Fatherly displeasure” and His “wrath,” between “discipline” and “chastisement” on the one hand, and “punishment” on the other. As Louis Berkhof asks rhetorically: “Are the elect in this life the objects of God’s love only, and never in any sense the objects of His wrath? Is Moses thinking of the reprobate when he says: ‘For we are consumed in thine anger, and in thy wrath we are troubled’? Psa 90.7.”[Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1941), p. 445.] It is a profound truth and great comfort that all things, including sufferings, work ultimately to our good as Christians. The question is whether that fact necessitates that all things are alike and in the same way to be considered “good” simply because of the future result in glory.

Third, Murray does not deny the doctrine of reprobation, that God purposes to destroy some of His enemies, those whom He does not reconcile to Himself. Murray, like those Hoeksema is attacking, believes that common grace is compatible with reprobation. To say that a passage that seems to teach common grace simply cannot do so because other passages clearly teach reprobation, is to fundamentally beg the question. Hoeksema needs to demonstrate this contradiction, not simply assume it as the basis of his argument.

David Engelsma only mentions Matthew 5.44-48 once in his defense of Hoeksema from the charge of “hyper-calvinism.” Of Murray’s and Stonehouse’s booklet on “The Free Offer of the Gospel” he writes:

But where do they begin when they look for Biblical support for this doctrine? Matthew 5.44-48! a passage which they themselves admit “does not indeed deal with the overtures of grace in the gospel . . . . The particular aspect of God’s grace reflected upon here is the common gifts of providence, the making of the sun to rise upon evil and good . . . .” Nevertheless, this “common grace” in things temporal is made the foundation and source of the doctrine of a grace of God that desires salvation and that operates in the preaching: in the common grace of God “is disclosed to us a principle that applies to all manifestations of divine grace, namely, that the grace bestowed expresses the lovingkindness in the heart of God . . . .” [Hyper-Calvinism & the Call of the Gospel (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformed Free Publishing Assoc., 1980), p. 112.]

Yet, after strongly denying that Matthew 5.44-48 has anything to do with the genuine offer of the Gospel, on the very next page Engelsma writes:

Men simply cannot escape the overpowering testimony of Scripture that the grace of God is one, not two, and that this grace is the glorious favor of God towards damnworthy sinners that wills their deliverance from sin and death, provides redemption for them in the cross of the Beloved, and manifests itself in the gospel. If, then, there is a grace of God for all, men must conclude that the grace of God in Christ Jesus is for all. . . The only safeguard against universal, saving grace is the complete repudiation of Kuyperian common grace.

Now Engelsma is, as far as I can tell, making some gross exaggerations in merging universalism, with hypothetical universalism, with the sincere offer of the Gospel, with common grace, but, at the very least, this statement strongly supports the use of Matthew 5.44, 45 to defend the genuine offer of the Gospel! If Engelsma is even partly right (and he is only partly right), then it makes perfect sense to cite God’s disposition of love toward the reprobate as evidence that this disposition motivates the offer of the Gospel. Yet Engelsma never bothers to explain where Murray made his mistake. He simply goes on to argue against common grace and the sincere offer of the Gospel without ever again mentioning Matthew 5.44, 45. He avoids “desperate exegetical violence” by simply avoiding exegesis altogether.

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