March 2014

Westminster Confession of Faith (10.2) This effectual call is of God’s free and special grace alone, not from anything at all foreseen in man, who is altogether passive therein, until being quickened and renewed by the Holy Spirit, he is thereby enabled to answer this call, and to embrace the grace offered and conveyed in it.

Charles Spurgeon once sat listening to a boring sermon, and his mind began to wander. He asked himself how he had become converted. It was because I prayed. But then it occurred
to him, why did he pray? I was moved to pray by reading the Scriptures. But the questions persisted; why had he read the Bible? And suddenly, Spurgeon realized that God was at the
bottom of it all, and He is the author of saving faith.

We often want to claim something for ourselves in our conversion. One way of doing this is to say that God looked ahead into history and foresaw that you would trust in Christ, given the opportunity to do so. God therefore chose you, in this scheme, because He knew you would choose Him. But why would you choose Him? No one seeks for God (Rom. 3:11). In reality, we only choose Him because He first chose us.

The Westminster Confession reminds us that God did not choose or call you because He knew that you would respond positively. God announced the destiny of Esau and Jacob when they were “not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth” (Rom. 9:11).

God did not save you because you were better or more worthy than anybody else. He did not succeed in converting you because you cooperated more than other sinners do. Salvation
is by grace alone (Eph. 2:8–9). You were dead in sin, utterly unable to move towards God and horribly offensive to His holiness (Eph. 2:1–3). You played no more role in your effectual calling than a corpse plays in its being raised from the dead (Eph. 2:5).

This is what the Confession means when it says that mankind “is altogether passive therein, until being quickened and renewed by the Holy Spirit” (cf. Titus 3:5). We contribute nothing to our salvation except our desperate need. That is not to say that unconverted people can do nothing at all; the same legs that take them to a bar can carry them to a church service. They can read, listen to, and think about the Word of God (Acts 17:10–11). They may even fear God’s wrath. Like the blind man, they can cry out for Christ to have mercy upon them until He gives them sight. Sadly, most fallen human beings are not willing to do even what they can.

Most importantly, lost sinners cannot stir up the least drop of saving faith, hope, or love in themselves. Man is perishing in spiritual inability. Without the Holy Spirit, they are unable to receive the truths of the Spirit (1 Cor. 2:14), unable to submit to God’s law (Rom. 8:7–8), and unable to come to Christ (John 6:44). They cannot bow before the Lord Jesus and confess Him unto salvation (1 Cor. 12:3).

Grace alone makes us alive and enables us to repent and to believe, love, obey, and hope in Christ. Whoever believes in Christ has been born of God—the perfect tense of “has been born” showing that our faith comes from God’s regenerating work within us (1 John 5:1). We do not love God by nature, but by grace, we love Him because He first loved us (1 John 4:10, 19)
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This is why Paul erupted into praise to God whenever he heard that someone had been converted (1 Thess. 1:2–4; 2:13). Why else would he thank God for the faith, hope, and love of converts, unless all the glory or credit for them must go to God? Let us therefore praise God fervently for our effectual calling, and rejoice whenever a sinner repents! As the psalmist teaches us to sing:

Lord, if Thou shouldst mark transgressions,
In Thy presence who shall stand?
But with Thee there is forgiveness,
That Thy Name may fear command.

Hope in God, ye waiting people;
Mercies great with Him abound;
With the Lord a full redemption
From the guilt of sin is found.
—Psalm 130:3, 4, 7, 8

Westminster Confession of Faith (10.3)
Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated, and saved by Christ through the Spirit, who worketh when, and where, and how He pleaseth: so also, are all other elect persons who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word.

God has wrapped some things in a cloud of mystery. We dare not venture into the darkness of such mysteries with the feeble light of our speculations, but must rest content in the beams of light shining from the Word. One such mystery is God’s purpose in the death of those mentally incapable of understanding the gospel, whether infants or adults.

We cannot say that such persons are sinless. David confessed that he was in sin from the moment of his conception in his mother’s womb (Ps. 51:5). Sinners go astray from their infancy, showing their inward corruption even in early childhood by speaking lies (Ps. 58:3). Nor can we say that they are free from guilt, for their death shows that they are bound up in Adam’s fall and condemnation, even before they commit any willful act of transgression against the law of God (Rom. 5:14, 18). Children and mentally impaired adults, “descending from [Adam and Eve] by ordinary generation” (WCF 4:3), are included in the “all” who sinned in Adam and fell with him in his transgression.

How can they be saved? God’s ordinary way of saving sinners is to call sinners effectually through the gospel (2 Thess. 2:14). In fact, though there are many religions in the world, there is no other name but Jesus by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12). Those who follow other religions have no relationship with the true God and have no hope (Eph. 2:12).

But the Bible sheds a beam of light when it reveals that God can save infants. John the Baptist was leaping for joy in Elizabeth’s womb when he heard the voice of Mary, the mother of our Lord (Luke 1:41–44). The unborn child was already filled with the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:15). There is
much we don’t understand, but clearly God had saved the infant in the womb and moved him to rejoice in Christ. Therefore, we know that God is able to save sinners with underdeveloped or impaired mental capacities.

The Confession declares this comforting truth, but does so cautiously, saying that God saves “elect infants” and “elect persons who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word.” God will have mercy on those whom He will have mercy (Ex. 33:19). The Confession does not say whether all persons in the world dying in infancy are elect, or only some. The Westminster divines evidently felt that we should not rush in to dogmatize where Scripture is largely silent.

However, we can hope in the character of God. “Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations” (Deut. 7:9). He is our covenant God, whose blessings overflow to us and to our children. After David’s infant son perished because of the consequences of David’s sin, he had the faith to say, “I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me” (2 Sam. 12:24). Certainly the covenant people of God may entrust their children and childlike ones into the hands of a faithful God. David celebrates God’s covenant faithfulness and reminds us that behind the promise stands the unchanging love of God:

Unchanging is the love of God,
From age to age the same,
Displayed to all who do His will
And reverence His Name.

Those who His gracious covenant keep
The Lord will ever bless;
Their children’s children shall rejoice
To see His righteousness.
—Psalm 103:17, 18
(The Psalter, No. 278:4, 5)

Thus, we affirm that, based on God’s character and His covenant commitments to His own, it is His normal way to save children of believers whom it pleases Him to take away in infancy. That’s why the Canons of Dort say, “Since we are to judge of the will of God from His Word, which testifies that the children of believers are holy, not by nature, but in virtue of the covenant of grace, in which they, together with the parents, are comprehended, godly parents have no reason to doubt of the election and salvation of their children, whom it pleaseth God to call out of this life in their infancy” (1.17). This principle is also applicable to the mentally impaired, so that we believe that God’s normal way is sovereignly and mysteriously to call them to life eternal in Christ by placing the seed of regeneration in their souls.

Westminster Confession of Faith (10.4)
Others, not elected, although they may be called by the ministry of the Word, and may have some common operations of the Spirit, yet they never truly come unto Christ, and therefore cannot be saved: much less can men, not professing the Christian religion, be saved in any other way whatsoever, be they never so diligent to frame their lives according to the light of nature, and the law of that religion they do profess. And, to assert and maintain that they may, is very pernicious, and to be detested.

The Lord Jesus said, “Enter ye in at the strait [narrow] gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” (Matt. 7:13–14). Christ’s teaching about the narrow way does not sit well with modern religious relativism, but the Son of God speaks with divine authority and we must listen to Him.

The Westminster Confession addresses two cases of people who are not in the narrow way to life. In the first case, they go to church and hear the gospel preached. They may experience some work of the Holy Spirit upon their souls, such as conviction of sin (John 16:8), happiness at the message of God’s love (Matt. 13:20–21), and insight into the meaning of the Bible (Heb. 6:4). Perhaps they even exercise some spiritual gifts for ministry (Matt. 7:22). They may even for a time joyfully profess to be followers of Christ (Matt. 13:20–22). But they are not saved. Why not?

The Confession declares that “they never truly come to Christ.” Coming to Christ does not mean going up front in a meeting or reciting a prayer. Coming to Christ means trusting in Christ alone for eternal life and joy (John 6:35). Whatever else they do, these people do not repent of sin
and believe on the Lord Jesus as their only Savior. They are guilty of the great sin of unbelief, and therefore God’s wrath abides on them (John 3:36). Their good works and religious duties are done in vain because they do not proceed from a true faith, and “without faith it is impossible
to please God” (Heb. 11:6).

Yet the Confession probes deeper. Why didn’t they come to Christ? Someone might answer that it was their own free choice not to believe. This view only begs the question, why then did they choose not to believe? The Confession has the answer. They were called by the ministry of the Word, but they were not effectually called by God. And why didn’t God effectually call them? He did not call them because they were “not elected,” not chosen by God and “ordained to eternal
life” (Acts 13:48). This is what Jesus said, “Many are called, but few are chosen” (Matt. 22:14). Many hear the gospel invitation to come to Christ, but few are elected by God. Therefore, they refuse to come to Christ and perish forever.

The second case is those “not professing the Christian religion.” They may profess another religion or profess to have no religion at all. They may try to live a good life according to their conscience (“the light of nature”). They may fervently follow their own religion. They may be very noble and even sacrifice themselves for their god or their country. But they are not saved. Why not? Again, it is because they do not come to Christ. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). Christ is the only Mediator (1 Tim. 2:5). All other ways are excluded. No other way has been provided.

This exclusiveness may make God seem very harsh and unfair, but in fact it is necessary because God is very holy and just. Are you offended at the thought that God must effectually call a person through the gospel in order for him to be saved? If so, you should ask yourself why we need to be saved. And saved from what? The answer is that people are not innocent or basically good. They are sinners, and they deserve to be condemned and punished.

Sinners don’t deserve God. Sinners don’t desire God. Citing many passages from the Old Testament, Paul writes in Romans 3:10–12, “There is none righteous, no, not one: there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.” When Christ sends His Word and Spirit to a sinner, His love compels Him to seek after someone who
hates Him. He embraces someone who spits in His face. He pursues someone who is running away from Him.

Far be it from us to accuse God of injustice. Rather, let us marvel and be amazed that God effectually calls anyone out of the band of rebels that our race has become. Why would He do it? Ephesians 2:4–5 tells us, “But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ (by grace ye are saved).” Abundant mercy! Boundless love! Triumphant life! Glorious grace! The inspired salmist paints this picture of saving grace at work:

Rebels, who had dared to show
Proud contempt of God Most High,
Bound in iron and in woe,
Shades of death and darkness nigh,
Humbled low with toil and pain,
Fell, and looked for help in vain.

To Jehovah then they cried
In their trouble, and He saved,
Threw the prison open wide
Where they lay to death enslaved,
Bade the gloomy shadows flee,
Broke their bonds and set them free.
—Psalm 107:10–14
(The Psalter, No. 293:1, 2)

Finally, the Confession confronts our modern tendency to modify the claims of Christ to accommodate the claims of those who profess some other religion. “To assert and maintain” that such persons can be saved in some other way than the way of Christ is “very pernicious,” that is, destructive, ruinous, even fatal, since we are encouraging a vain hope in these people, one that will lead ultimately to their being “punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord” (2 Thess. 1:9). Therefore, this view is “to be detested,” that is, abhorred and rejected.

 

Rev. Paul Smalley is Dr. Beeke’s teacher’s assistant.

 

Dr. Joel R. Beeke is president and professor of Systematic Theology and Homiletics at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, and a pastor of the Heritage Netherlands Reformed Congregation of Grand Rapids, Michigan.