Providence: The Hand of God Over Everything - Charles Leiter

The providence of God has to do with the fact that God is looking out and taking thought for everything ahead of time. Are you in a hard situation right now? Well God says, “I have already thought of that and made provision for that.” Provision means that God saw it ahead of time and provided. God not only created all things in the past, but He also actively and constantly cares for all things in the present. He upholds all things, preserves all things, and directs all things in order that He might ultimately provide for all things.

     MP3: http://illbehonest.com/providence-han...    2017 Fellowship Conference Session #5    Charles Leiter | http://lakeroadchapel.org    http://www.grantedministries.org/

【約伯記：看不見的戰爭】史蒂夫勞森（2010牧者大會） The Invisible War - Steve Lawson

我們會在困境當中敬拜上帝嗎？當我們被擲入火窯時，我們會讚美他的名嗎？當我們在事奉中與到困難的時候，在家庭問題上遇到瓶頸時，我們私人生活遇到挫折時，我們會收攤回家，還是咒詛上帝還是試著逃避？還是我們會說：耶和華的名是應當稱頌的！----史蒂夫勞森 Shepherds' Conference｜Mar 5, 2010｜General Session 8 - The Invisible War｜Steve Lawson｜Job 1

Shepherds' Conference, Mar 5, 2010 General Session 8 - The Invisible War Steve Lawson Job 1
http://www.shepherdsfellowship.org

Amazing Grace: The History & Theology of Calvinism

“Amazing Grace – The History and Theology of Calvinism” is the first video documentary that answers these and other related questions. This fascinating three-part, four-hour presentation is detailed enough so as to not gloss over the controversy. At the same time, it is broken up into ten “Sunday-school-sized” sections to make the rich content manageable and accessible for the average viewer.

Part One explores the history of the debate. It begins with the pivotal dispute between Augustine and Pelagius and continues through the semi-pelagian controversy; focusing particularly on the debate between Martin Luther and Desiderius Erasmus. Many viewers will be shocked to discover that free-will theology was NOT the doctrine of the Reformation but instead the teaching of an increasingly apostate Roman Catholic Church. The history section ends with a definitive historical explanation of the issues that arose during the Calvinist/Arminian controversy. By examining the five points of Arminianism and the Synod of Dort’s response, the viewer will clearly see that the Protestant Church understood how the Gospel would be compromised if Arminianism prevailed.

Part Two opens the Word of God, our ultimate authority for life and faith. The five points of Arminianism are put on trial as what would later come to be known as the “five points of Calvinism” are clearly and forcefully presented.

Part Three asks and answers the provocative question: If Calvinism is true, if God is absolutely sovereign; then why should we evangelize? It also explores the vital issue of how to and to whom the gospel should be presented so as to be faithful to the great doctrines of God’s sovereignty, man’s depravity, and the miracle of amazing grace.

Rich in graphics, dramatic vignettes, and biblical analogies, Amazing Grace – The History and Theology of Calvinism also features many of the finest reformed thinkers and pastors of our time: Dr. R.C. Sproul, Dr. D. James Kennedy, Dr. George Grant, Dr. Stephen Mansfield, Dr. Thomas Ascol, Dr. Thomas Nettles, Dr. Roger Schultz, Pastor Walt Chantry, Dr. Joe Morecraft, Dr. Ken Talbot, Pastor Walter Bowie and Dr. R.C. Sproul, Jr..

Come learn what the great Baptist preacher C.H. Spurgeon meant when he said,“…to deny Calvinism is to deny the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

“This video series boldly, clearly, and winsomely sets forth the glorious, saving grace of God in its splendor and will help thousands to understand the gospel better and so to be filled with praise for their Savior.” Dr. E. Calvin Beisner, Associate professor of historical theology and social ethics, Knox Theological Seminary, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida

“I want you to know that ever since my wife and I bought our first copy when it was new and being mentioned in World Magazine, we have been excited about the product. We’ve ordered more copies for friends. This year my church asked if I would facilitate an eight-week discussion using your DVD. Week after week in our Adult Sunday school some twenty or thirty people have sat riveted by your presentation. The message and the abundant quantity of Scripture, the well-known and not so well-known speakers – all of them excellent communicators, as well as the extremely high production quality – camera angles, lighting, sets and sound, the humorous vignettes have captured everyone’s attention.  The Doctrines of Grace are, of course, a wonderful gift from our Lord, but your production is an excellent instructional tool, and if others and their churches are benefiting the way we have been, then I think the Lord must be pleased.”  Jack Blake, Charlotte, North Carolina

Available on DVD - PLS CLICK HERE.

Justification by Faith Alone: Sola Fide Debated and Defended - R. C. Sproul, PhD

R. C. Sproul speaks on the doctrine of justification by faith alone and how it was debated among Roman Catholic and Protestant Christians. This video comes from Sproul's Luther and the Reformation.

playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...

see also: Justification by Faith Alone

In this series, Dr. R.C. Sproul examines justification — the way in which we are declared righteous by God — as he explains the biblical teaching regarding justification. Demonstrating that Christ’s righteousness is reckoned to us by faith alone, Dr. Sproul joins with Martin Luther in calling the church to proclaim boldly that this doctrine is integral to the gospel of God. - MORE PLS CLICK HERE.

A Living Hope

YouTube Video: A Living Hope - Ligonier Ministries 
Many people place their hope in things that cannot meet their needs such as sports, politics, education, work, or even family and friends. This session will focus on 1 Peter 1:1-8 to explain what it means to be “born again” and why only the gospel of Jesus Christ provides true, lasting hope for Christians.

This message is from our 2017 Regional Conference, Stand Firm: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL30acyfm60fX-AplioozuvZ9CQAR2w59F

Purchase a digital download or DVD of this conference: http://www.ligonier.org/store/stand-f...

What John the Baptist Teaches us About the Gospel

"The gospel is light to those in darkness. The light of God is "unapproachable" (1 Tim 6:16) and when God reveals himself openly (though never fully) we are left undone (Isaiah 6:5). Yet, this is a necessary component of the gospel - the light that leads to life is the light which first illuminates our sin. Even the thoughts of our hearts are not left hidden by the piercing light of God. The apostle John emphasises the effects of sin on our lives (as does all Scripture) by describing it as an existence of darkness. It is an existence in which it is impossible to see one's way; an existence where danger and menace lurks in otherwise serene situations. It is an existence of confusion and chaos. In short, it is a hopeless existence. 

But the gospel is light which leads to life by penetrating that darkness. Or, perhaps we should say that the life that Christ possesses intrinsically is the light to all men (Jn 1:4). This light shines in the darkness of the world and of our hearts and opens our eyes to the truth of Christ. For Christ is the "light of the world" that "whoever follows [him] ... will have the light of life" (Jn 8:12). If it is life you are seeking, abundant and eternal life, then Christ Jesus is your only source.  If you have dwelt in the darkness of sin, or of false religion or selfish philosophies, then you have no light but only darkness. If you habitually live gratified by the lusts of the eyes and flesh and the pride of life, then you have only hopeless darkness that leads to death. But Christ has come. The light has shined and continues to shine. Your sin-darkened existence can be forever and radically changed by trusting in the Light that is Jesus Christ. Believe on him and be saved." - Extracted from What John the Baptist Teaches us About the Gospel, you can read the whole article HERE.

Reformation 500 Years Old

The World has Started to Wonder…
Luther and many other reformers embraced the idea that the Papacy is the antichrist. Many protestant denominations used to believe this. If you ask Christians today who the antichrist is, there is generally no clear meaning about it. The characteristics of antichrist found in the Bible, only fit one kingdom: The Papacy. (See Daniel 7 And Revelation 13). However, there are still sincere believers in this system, that live up to the light they have. We are not talking about people, but about the system.

As prophesied in Revelation 13:3, the deadly wound is getting healed. The healing of a wound takes time, but it is sure on a good way to restoration, and the world has started to wonder “after the beast”. Since Pope Francis was elected, he quickly got acknowledged internationally. In media, we find headlines such as:

• “Can Pope Francis heal the deep divisions in Christianity?”
• “Francis continues to take the world by storm.”
• “Pope Francis is only leader respected enough to end today’s wars.”

…Who like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?” (Revelation 13:4) Pope Francis has taken a role as peace advocate in many conflicts: Between Jews and Muslims, USA and Cuba, and the harassments done by ISIS.

Another headline in media recently has been: “Pope calls for end to fundamentalism.”, and that with good reasons of course. But soon, God’s people will be the ones looked upon as the fundamentalists and rebellions, because they refuse to worship the beast and his image. Following, a death penalty will threaten this group.

Barack Obama called Pope Francis “A moral leader in word and deed”, followed by an interesting acknowledgment, as Time Magazine listed world’s most influential people of the year. 7

Time to Wake Up, and Speak Up
Wittenberg is getting prepared for the celebration of the reformation anniversary. The mottos for the two next years are:

• “Reformation – Image and Bible” (2015)
• “Reformation and One World” (2016)

Anyone else thinking about Revelation 13?

The message of the book of Revelation for us all is: Choose who you want to belong to. One group will be faithful to the beast, a false system of worship. The other group will be faithful to God and will keep all His commandments. There are hard times ahead if you want to be on God’s side. Standing up for God will lead to great persecution. Let us watch, pray and work, as we behold Christ our Redeemer.

If we forget to protest, we forget our message. We are called to “protest” by sharing the three angels messages (Revelation 14), lifting up Christ and the Truth. God will have His people in false systems, until we do our job to call them out. Ekklesia, a greek word used in the Bible for Church, means called out. 8 God wants to call out His people, into His kingdom. He has chosen us, His Church, to call them out. This has to be done with a Christ-centered, Biblical message, and lives transformed by the righteousness of Christ.

“The Roman Church now presents a fair front to the world, covering with apologies her record of horrible cruelties. She has clothed herself in Christlike garments; but she is unchanged. Every principle of the papacy that existed in past ages exists today. The doctrines devised in the darkest ages are still held. Let none deceive themselves. The papacy that Protestants are now so ready to honor is the same that ruled the world in the days of the Reformation, when men of God stood up, at the peril of their lives, to expose her iniquity. She possesses the same pride and arrogant assumption that lorded it over kings and princes, and claimed the prerogatives of God. Her spirit is no less cruel and despotic now than when she crushed out human liberty and slew the saints of the Most High. {GC 571.1} 

Let’s not sleep, friends, but rather see the reality and take responsibility to deliver the message of the everlasting gospel.

Do you want to be faithful to God? Is it your wish to wake up and speak up?

The world needs to hear God’s last message. Will you deliver it?
Jesus is coming soon. - 

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE - HERE.

HELL

R.C. Sproul, Essential Truths of the Christian Faith (Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House, 1992), pp. 285-287.

HELL by R.C. Sproul

We have often heard statements such as “War is hell” or “I went through hell.” These expressions are, of course, not taken literally. Rather, they reflect our tendency to use the word hell as a descriptive term for the most ghastly human experience possible. Yet no human experience in this world is actually comparable to hell. If we try to imagine the worst of all possible suffering in the here and now we have not yet stretched our imaginations to reach the dreadful reality of hell.

Hell is trivialized when it is used as a common curse word. To use the word lightly may be a halfhearted human attempt to take the concept lightly or to treat it in an amusing way. We tend to joke about things most frightening to us in a futile effort to declaw and defang them, reducing their threatening power.

There is no biblical concept more grim or terror-invoking than the idea of hell. It is so unpopular with us that few would give credence to it at all except that it comes to us from the teaching of Christ Himself.
Almost all the biblical teaching about hell comes from the lips of Jesus. It is this doctrine, perhaps more than any other, that strains even the Christian’s loyalty to the teaching of Christ. Modern Christians have pushed the limits of minimizing hell in an effort to sidestep or soften Jesus’ own teaching. The Bible describes hell as a place of outer darkness, a lake of fire, a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth, a place of eternal separation from the blessings of God, a prison, a place of torment where the worm doesn’t turn or die. These graphic images of eternal punishment provoke the question, should we take these descriptions literally or are they merely symbols?

I suspect they are symbols, but I find no relief in that. We must not think of them as being merely symbols. It is probable that the sinner in hell would prefer a literal lake of fire as his eternal abode to the reality of hell represented in the lake of fire image. If these images are indeed symbols, then we must conclude that the reality is worse than the symbol suggests. The function of symbols is to point beyond themselves to a higher or more intense state of actuality than the symbol itself can contain. That Jesus used the most awful symbols imaginable to describe hell is no comfort to those who see them simply as symbols.

A breath of relief is usually heard when someone declares, “Hell is a symbol for separation from God.” To be separated from God for eternity is no great threat to the impenitent person. The ungodly want nothing more than to be separated from God. Their problem in hell will not be separation from God, it will be the presence of God that will torment them. In hell, God will be present in the fullness of His divine wrath. He will be there to exercise His just punishment of the damned. They will know Him as an all-consuming fire.

No matter how we analyze the concept of hell it often sounds to us as a place of cruel and unusual punishment. If, however, we can take any comfort in the concept of hell, we can take it in the full assurance that there will be no cruelty there. It is impossible for God to be cruel. Cruelty involves inflicting a punishment that is more severe or harsh than the crime. Cruelty in this sense is unjust. God is incapable of inflicting an unjust punishment. The Judge of all the earth will surely do what is right. No innocent person will ever suffer at His hand.

Perhaps the most frightening aspect of hell is its eternality. People can endure the greatest agony if they know it will ultimately stop. In hell there is no such hope. The Bible clearly teaches that the punishment is eternal. The same word is used for both eternal life and eternal death. Punishment implies pain. Mere annihilation, which some have lobbied for, involves no pain. Jonathan Edwards, in preaching on Revelation 6:15-16 said, “Wicked men will hereafter earnestly wish to be turned to nothing and forever cease to be that they may escape the wrath of God.” (John H. Gerstner, Jonathan Edwards on Heaven and Hell [Orlando: Ligonier Ministries, 1991], 75.)

Hell, then, is an eternity before the righteous, ever-burning wrath of God, a suffering torment from which there is no escape and no relief. Understanding this is crucial to our drive to appreciate the work of Christ and to preach His gospel.
Summary

1.The suffering of hell is beyond any experience of misery found in this world.
2.Hell is clearly included in the teaching of Jesus.
3.If the biblical descriptions of hell are symbols, then the reality will be worse than the symbols.
4.Hell is the presence of God in His wrath and judgment.
5.There is no cruelty in hell. Hell will be a place of perfect justice.
6.Hell is eternal. There is no escape through either repentance or annihilation.

Biblical passages for reflection: Matthew 8:11-12, Mark 9:42-48, Luke 16:19-31, Jude 1:3-13, Revelation 20:11-15.

Dr. R.C. Sproul, theologian, minister and teacher, is chairman of the board for Ligonier Ministries. He is widely known for his videocassette series on topics of theology, apologetics, and the Christian life. A graduate of Westminster College, Pittsburgh Theological seminary, and the Free University of Amsterdam, Dr. Sproul is professor of systematic theology and apologetics at Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando, Florida.

CELEBRATION OF GOD'S GRACE.

Did you know that REFORMED THEOLOGY is a Celebration of GOD's GRACE?

Reformed theology is a celebration of God’s grace.

"More than anything, Reformed theology exalts God’s grace by hinging entirely upon it. Total depravity means there is no way apart from God that any human would seek God on his own. We are completely “dead” in sin. Yet, the beauty of Reformed theology is that God came after us anyway and makes us alive through the gift of faith by his grace — a grace powerful enough to overcome our resistance to it. Here’s an analogy I heard recently that describes the Reformed view of grace:

You’re dead at the bottom of the sea, lungs full of water. God jumps in, pulls you up, and makes you alive again — and he does so because of his great love. We are entirely at the mercy of God’s grace to rescue us." - Extracted from 10 Things I Wish Everyone Knew About Reformed Theology. - You can read the whole article by clicking HERE.

Chosen in Christ: God’s Eternal Plan of Redemption

Chosen in Christ: God’s Eternal Plan of Redemption

Many struggle to see the value of the doctrine of election for Christian living. Yet from a biblical perspective, the doctrine of election is intended to comfort God’s people as well as magnify God’s grace. In this session, Dr. Derek Thomas will show why God’s eternal plan to redeem His people for His glory is the basis for the work of Christ as our mediator, the foundation for the historical unfolding of the covenant of grace, and the ground for our hope in the gospel.

SOURCE:  http://www.ligonier.org/learn/daily-video/

Joel Beeke: A Puritan Theology

This message is from our 2013 National Conference, No Compromise

In this session, based upon his book A Puritan Theology, Dr. Joel Beeke discusses the puritans' teaching on most major Reformed doctrines, particularly those doctrines in which the Puritans made significant contributions.

Yeshua - The Way, The Truth and The Life.

Youtube VID: Do you believe there's only one way to God? Tim Keller at Veritas

Don't Christians believe there's only one way to God? Isn't that narrow? Tim Keller argues that it all depends on whether or not Jesus is who he says he is. But where does that leave millions of Muslims, Sikhs, Jews? Hear Tim Keller answer some of the hardest questions about Christianity, brought to the table by NBC journalist Martin Bashir.

Enter ye in at the strait 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. - Mt. 7:13-14 KJV

Is Jesus really the only way? 

Posted by John on July 22, 2008 12:43 PM on ReformationTheology.com

(thoughts and ideas on sharing the gospel from a Reformed perspective)

Is Jesus really the only way? In an environment of such plurality and diversity this really seems an implausible or even arrogant claim of Christians. When confronted with the exclusive claims of Christianity, the question on many people's minds is how can Christians be so narrow as to believe that all non-Christians will be excluded from heaven? There are plenty of good people who are not Christians. Do Christians think they are better than others? So the question often put to Christians is what about a person, a good person who has been good all their life ... will they go to heaven?

Actually, Jesus himself answered this question. When asked by a rich young ruler what must he do to gain eternal life, Jesus answered: "If you want to enter life, obey the commandments" (Matt 19:17). So Jesus himself makes it clear that a good person who obeys all of God's commands would merit or qualify for eternal life. This includes all good people of all time from all nations, peoples, races and languages. The point is that if anyone could obey all God's commandments, they will live (also see Rom 2:6-8). So in answer to the question, yes a good person who has done good all their life would merit eternal life. The Scripture declares, however, that there is no one on earth who fits that description (Rom 3:9-18). There is no one who does not sin when measured against the holiness and majesty of God. That means you ... and that means me ... yes, all of us have utterly failed to follow the law God has given us. Only Jesus Christ alone has obeyed all of God's commands and earned a place at the right hand of God (Hebrews 4:15). You see, it is always important to look at context, for after Jesus tells the rich young ruler, "If you want to enter life, obey the commandments", He then goes on to explain but "With man this is impossible..." (Matt 19:26) So it is very important to note that Jesus teaches that the first prerequisite of eternal life in God, is when by God's grace, we recognize our utter impotence to save ourselves by human effort due to our moral corruption. This slavery we have to our rebellion renders it impossible to obey God's commands. In fact Jesus saved his greatest criticism of people on earth for the Pharisees because they believed and trusted in their own righteousness and moral ability to please God.

So what is Jesus saying here because this is really important? He is saying that in God's economy both moral and immoral people are equally alienated from God. God is equally offended by both. This may be counter-intuitive but moral people are lost because of their "goodness". Why? It is often the case that goodness keeps people from God. In fact many people avoid Jesus by avoiding sin because they are trying to become their own saviors ... attempting to justify themselves. But the gospel is neither moralism nor relativism and so it is equally offensive to the moral and the irreligious. So Christ calls us to repent of both our good and bad works, for we have no righteousness of our own.

If you look to your moral performance as the basis of your relationship with God, then you commit idolatry because inwardly you are setting up self as a false savior which could never be good enough to please God. If we are trusting in being politically active, generous, compassionate, a good parent, a good spouse, or trusting in our moral uprightness or our service to others then we trust in these as our "Saviors". Human beings look everywhere for significance and worth and if we do not trust God provides this in Christ we will fill that void by our own futile attempts. Dr. Tim Keller once wisely said, "Every sin is rooted in the inordinate lust for something which comes because we are trusting in that thing rather than in Christ for our righteousness or salvation. At the moment we sin it is because we are looking to something to give us what only Jesus can give us. Beneath any particular sin is the general sin of rejecting Christ-salvation and indulging in self-salvation."

Christianity differs from all other religions because the gospel is news we declare about what God has done for us. It is not advice on how to live for him. Jesus came to inform us that every human idea about how to reach God is wrong and He shattered every human category. In the gospel "I am accepted through Christ, therefore I obey" while every other religion operates on the principle of "I obey, therefore I am accepted." The principle of 'religion' is the deep default mode of the human heart. Our hearts are never empty because we are always trying to fill it with something that comforts or justifiies us.

As an example of Jesus dislike of people who trusted in their own morality, Jesus said, "If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, 'We see,' your guilt remains." (John 9:41) Those who think God will accept us based on goodness actually understand only part of the truth. Yes, God loves what is good. But since He also loves the truth, we must confess that, in light of God's holy law, we are not good and have woefully failed to do what is pleasing to God, replacing God with worthless self-pleasing idol substitutes, and so we justly deserve to be punished for it. Those who think they have done enough to please God have not understood or considered the seriousness of their condition. 

John Calvin once said, "Man is never sufficiently touched and affected by the awareness of his lowly state until he has compared himself with God's majesty." In light of the holiness of God all persons, even the best of us, would become undone. This was the case even with the holiest of the saints of the Bible. When it pleased God to reveal himself to them, they fell at his feet as though dead. God created us to enjoy and glorify Him, but humans voluntarily rebelled against God falling into the bondage of the self-centeredness of sin and cannot help themselves out of it.

So the point of the exclusiveness of Christianity is not to show the rest of the unbelieving world that Christians are better or more moral than others. Christians are not better. Rather, the purpose is to communicate that we all share the same alienated condition as human beings and so we bring the gospel as beggars pointing other beggars to the only bread. Jesus does not point to some innate goodness in yourself. You have none. I have none. He is a Savior who comes from the outside to save those who acknowledge themselves sinners in need of a Savior.

To understand this more clearly we must not rely on our opinions. Rather we should simply listen as we let God speak. Let us look and see what Jesus states is the means for obtaining eternal life. First, Jesus makes clear that all the law and the prophets are summarized in just two commandments.

"And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the prophets." (Matthew 22:35-40)

Next, God makes it clear that in order to gain entrance into His favor one must not fail to obey and keep all of God's law. For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. (James 2:10).

"And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" He said to him, "What is written in the Law? How do you read it?" And he answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself." And he said to him, "You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live." (Luke 10:25-28)

But how often have you done this? As I read this and answer honestly, I can only confess that not for a moment do I love God with all my heart nor do I love my neighbor as myself. Each day along with the "good" there is the constant reality of pride, self-righteousness, hypocrisy, lust, hatred, covetousness, jealousy, envy and more. The Scripture says, For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous ( that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.

(Ephesians 5:5-6 ESV) or all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, "Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them." (Galatians 3:10 ESV) And the curse described here for violating God's law is eternal. See Matthew 25:41-46. I must admit, that in light of this, in light of God's perfect standard I am undone.

Why? Because God's holy standard is not graded on a curve but calls us to perfectly obey his law in word and deed. So if you look at God's law, and you are honest, you will become increasingly aware that you fall woefully short of having kept any of it. For the purpose of God's law to us is not so that we would see our ability, but that it would reveal our inability, "for through the law comes knowledge of sin." (Rom 3:20).

"But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when Gods righteous judgment will be revealed. He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury." (Romans 2:5-8) "...when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed."(2 Thessalonians 1:7-9)'

Thankfully God has provided a means apart from his law, lest none of us would have hope. But before you see your need for that you need to recognize your hopeless condition in light of God's standard which is moral perfection for you in light of his holy law. So we implore you on behalf of Christ, take the time to examine yourself; have you ever honored yourself above others, been proud, selfish, put yourself before God, coveted, lusted, lied, envied, stolen, worshipped false gods, hated others, fornicated? If you have committed any of these sins, even in your heart, then, according to the true testimony of Scripture, then judge yourself truly: the just punishment for your sins is to be cast into the lake of fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

"Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.(1 Corinthians 6:9-10)

"...for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death." (Revelation 21:7-8)
Again, the purpose of showing these passages to you is not for me to look down on you from some higher moral ground ... no, I am right there with you. For all persons who call themselves Christians have been guilty of of the same. So if you have committed any of the above sins, you are not alone. But it is necessary that your true condition before God is revealed and acknowledged, that no one (not you, not me) is capable of keeping God's law through their own effort. There is not a just man on earth who has never sinned for none is righteous, not even one. If by reading God's law you see that you see you are guilty of breaking it, then this is very good. God is working in you.

But now we have a very serious dilemma. If all who do not keep the law of God are to receive just punishment, then the entire human race has no hope of doing anything to please God and we are all without hope of helping ourselves. We are morally unfit for the task. There is no way to free ourselves from this cursed bondage so that we might live. Who will help us?

God resolved the dilemma by coming to earth Himself in the person of Jesus Christ who lived the life we should have lived and died the death we deserve. "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." (2 Cor 5:21) Jesus humbled himself to become a human being, suffered for sinners the stripes we deserve. He endured on behalf of all his people who would call on his name.

If you are a sinner who acknowledges that you justly deserve the wrath of God save for Christ's mercy ... if you place your trust in Jesus alone who died for sinners and whom God rose from the dead, then God counts His perfectly righteous life as your own. Having no righteousness of your own by sheer grace, he grants to you the perfectly righteous life of Jesus, who justly bore the full wrath of God for your sin. So if you have renounced all self-sufficiency and flee to Him knowing you need mercy, then He not only forgives your sins but adopts you as his very own child. To those who believe, Jesus has redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.

"But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it” the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith."

What we learn from all this is that, apart from Him, we can do nothing. If the Spirit of Christ has opened your heart to place faith in Jesus Christ we must acknowledge that salvation is all of the Lord, not of yourselves. "But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!" So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God." (Galatians 4:3-7)

What about faith? Where does one get it? Are some more wise? Do some persons choose Christ because they are more sensitive to spiritual things than others? no. Jesus taught that no one can believe in Him unless it is granted through the gracious work of the Holy Spirit (John 6:63-54) and all persons so granted will believe (John 6:37). therefore the Bible plainly teaches that faith is the gift of God. God requires all persons to believe the gospel. It is his command, but since no one by nature is inclined to do so, God has mercy on those He came to save.

To Summarize:

Man was created to glorify God & Enjoy Him forever

"Worthy are you, our Lord and our God to receive glory and honor and power, for You created all things." (Rev 4:11) "Do all to the glory of God" (1 Cor 10:31)

Man has failed to glorify God & is under His just condemnation

"For all have sinned..." (Rom 3:23) The wages of sin is death (Rom 6:23) "These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction" (2 Thes 1:9)

Jesus fully bore the wrath and suffered the punishment sinners deserve

Not wishing that sinners perish forever, God determined to save a people for Himself in the Eternal Son who became a man and lived the life we should have lived and died the death we justly deserve. God loves sinners and sent His Son to be the wrath absorbing sacrifice for their sin (1 John 4:10; John 6:37) he "...gave His life as a ransom for many" (Mk 10:45) & "rose again" from the dead (2 Cor 5:15) on their behalf.

All who, by the grace of God, turn to Jesus in repent submissive faith are forgiven 

& begin a life-changing, eternally satisfying relationship with God! "Repent and believe the gospel (Mk 1:5) "In Your presnece is fullness of Joy (Ps 16:11)

God So Loved the World by Dr. Sinclair Ferguson

Message 6, God So Loved the World:  God’s work of redemption involves more than the salvation of a handful of souls. In this session, Dr. Sinclair Ferguson will explore the breadth of the promises of the gospel. He will explain how Scripture moves from the glorious truth of the redemption of our souls to the promise that all the elect from every tongue and tribe will be saved. This message will also look to the redemption of the groaning creation, reminding us that the end of the world is not destruction but re-creation. - from Ligonier.org

The Ordinary Christian Life by Michael Horton

"In providence, God’s ordinary way of working should surprise us with wonder. What could be more ordinary than the birth of a child? We do not have to call it a miracle to be astonished at God’s handiwork. Even God’s normal way of working is stupendous. Though the prophets and Apostles were called to an extraordinary office, they were ordinary people who communicated God’s Word in ordinary language." - MIchael Horton READ HERE - The Ordinary Christian Life by Michael Horton Ligonier.org.

Today on Point of View, Kerby welcomes Dr. Michael Horton, author and professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary, to discuss his book, "Ordinary." 


Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World MP3 CD – Audiobook, MP3 Audio, Unabridged by Michael Horton (Author), Chris Ciulla (Reader) - Get it HERE.

Life happens in the ordinary, not the radical. Discover a sustainable faith in a world that calls you to the next best thing.

Radical. Crazy. Transformative and restless. Every word we read these days seems to suggest there’s a “next-best-thing,” if only we would change our comfortable, compromising lives. In fact, the greatest fear most Christians have is boredom—the sense that they are missing out on the radical life Jesus promised. One thing is certain. No one wants to be “ordinary.”

Yet pastor and author Michael Horton believes that our attempts to measure our spiritual growth by our experiences, constantly seeking after the next big breakthrough, have left many Christians disillusioned and disappointed. There’s nothing wrong with an energetic faith; the danger is that we can burn ourselves out on restless anxieties and unrealistic expectations. What’s needed is not another program or a fresh approach to spiritual growth; it’s a renewed appreciation for the commonplace.

Far from a call to low expectations and passivity, Horton invites readers to recover their sense of joy in the ordinary. He provides a guide to a sustainable discipleship that happens over the long haul—not a quick fix that leaves readers empty with unfulfilled promises. Convicting and ultimately empowering, Ordinary is not a call to do less; it’s an invitation to experience the elusive joy of the ordinary Christian life.

THE TRIUNE CREATOR GOD OF THE UNIVERSE.

"Declared a great masterpiece on the Bible doctrine of the Trinity, this work shows how God has placed the stamp of this great truth on the structural universe. We have the Trinity, not merely illustrated, but demonstrated in time, space and matter."

YOUTUBEVID: The Trinity Revealed in the Creation of the Universe.

Get a free PDF file of the book: The Secret of the Universe here: 
The Secret of the Universe "God, Man and Matter" by NATHAN R. WOOD - Pls Click HERE.

by Ph.D. Wood Nathan, Campbell Morgan MORE...

The doctrine of the Trinity states that in the one essence of the Godhead there eternally coexists three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, of equal power and glory, and they are equally worshipped by Christians throughout all ages.

Is there any analogy in the physical world of the doctrine of the Trinity? In his book The Secret of the Universe, Dr. Nathan Wood points out that if God is a trinitarian being who is the Creator of the world, then we should expect that He would leave trinitarian fingerprints upon His creation. The amazing thing is that we live in this trinitarian universe and generally never see the fingerprints at all. So we are left to find little tiny supposed illustrations, like water, ice, and gas—or maybe an egg with its yolk, its white, and its shell—none of which is an illustration of the Trinity.

But there are analogies in the natural world. In fact, we live in a trinitarian universe. Ask a scientist what the universe is composed of, and he will tell you that it is made up of space, time and matter; these three and  no more. No universe exists which does not have all three.  Furthermore, we see that each of these is, in its turn, trinitarian. Space is always comprised of height, length, and width. We imagine a two-dimensional figure in our minds, but it is impossible to produce it in the physical universe. Even a line on a piece of paper has three  dimensions.

Or consider the matter of time. Time always exists of past, present and future; these three and no more. Furthermore, we might note that from our perspective, time can be all past. Someday when we come to the end of time we will look back and it will all be past. At the beginning of time it was all future. We may take the existentialist’s position from the present moment and say that all time is present; there is no tomorrow, only today. And so we see that time is also triune.

The same is true of matter. According to the scientific definition, matter consists of energy in motion producing phenomena, and always these three.

So instead of looking for some isolated little illustration somewhere to describe the Trinity, we find that the entire framework of the universe in which we live is Trinitarian. It bears the unmistakable fingerprints of the Triune God.
​
Read entire sermon here: UNDERSTANDING THE TRINITY

Dispensationalism and Covenant Theology.

Youtube Vid: Ligonier Q&A - R.C. Sproul, R.C. Sproul Jr, Steve Lawson, Robert Godfrey, Sinclair Ferguson



This video is a discussion on various theological subjects with apologist and philosopher R.C. Sproul, theologian R.C. Sproul Jr, historian Robert Godfrey, and pastors Steve Lawson and Sinclair Ferguson.

THE INSEPARABLE BOND BETWEEN COVENANT AND PREDESTINATION

COCCEIUS AND BARTH

Maarten Wisse

1. Introduction

Twentieth-century interest in federal theology in general and in Cocceius’ theology in particular was primarily motivated by the intention to compensate for the post-Reformation Reformed interest in the doctrine of predestination by the notion of the covenant. The alleged role of predestination as the “Zentraldogma” gave so-called “Reformed orthodoxy” the image of a harsh, rationalist, fatalistic system.1 In this context, a strand of Reformed theology in which the loving fellowship between God and believers played a crucial role was more than welcome, fitting as it was into the typically twentieth-century interest in thinking God as love.2 Thus, twentieth-century research on Cocceius interpreted his theology as biblical rather than scholastic, historical rather than rationalist, experiential rather than abstract.3 Willem J. van Asselt is the present day expert on Cocceius.4 He always resisted the oversimplified appropriations of Cocceius’ thought, arguing that it is an anachronistic misreading of Cocceius’ work if one contrasts it too much with the mainstream Reformed scholasticism of his contemporaries.5

          Still, van Asselt shares much of the twentieth-century worries about the particularist aspects of Reformed theology. Two anecdotes may be invoked to illustrate this. Once, I heard van Asselt reinterpret the traditional Dutch Reformed opening (votum) of a Church service. He paraphrased “Who will never abandon the works of his own hands,”6 as “Who will never abandon the work he has begun in each of us.” What if his great seventeenth-century hero Johannes Cocceius had heard him, who, as we will see, argues against this “heresy” to much length in the Summa doctrinae! Also, when I was a student and expressed my worries about the consequences of predestination thought to van Asselt, he always replied with a quote from one of his teachers, the Dutch systematic theologian Arnold van Ruler: “The gospel skims across the border of universalism.”7 Although van Asselt has been eager to criticize a number of Karl Barth’s readings of the Reformed scholastics, when confronted with the riddle of predestination, he often expressed his sympathy with Barth’s universalisation of Reformed soteriology. Given the combination of van Asselt’s expertise on Cocceius on the one hand, and his appreciation for a Barthian solution to the problem of predestination on the other, it seems appropriate to me to devote my contribution to this Festschrift to the question of the relationship between predestination and covenant theology in Cocceius and Barth. On the one hand, my contribution presupposes and builds on van Asselt’s Cocceius scholarship, his translation of Cocceius’ Summa doctrinae and the two monographs. On the other hand, it poses a friendly critique of van Asselt’s sympathy with a Barthian universalisation of Reformed soteriology. Before I turn to Cocceius, I introduce the twentieth-century objections to Cocceius’ theology in a bit more detail by outlining Karl Barth’s critique of federal theology. After having introduced the reception of Cocceius in Barth, I will follow the main steps of the development of the doctrine of the covenant in Cocceius’ Summa doctrinae (SD below),8 and confront Cocceius’ view of the relation between covenant and predestination with Barth’s universalisation of election.

        To issue a warning beforehand, I do not intend to develop a full-scale theological defense of the traditional Reformed doctrine of predestination. Until recently, I myself accepted most of the common worries concerning a theology of predestination. The present essay is the result of a reassessment of these worries. These worries have not gone, but I have now got an eye for some distinctive aspects of a traditional Reformed soteriology that I had not noticed before. Thus, this contribution is intended to challenge the now commonplace Barthian view of election as obviously theologically superior to everything that the Reformed fathers had to offer.9 Instead, I aim to show that the theological presuppositions and implications of Barth’s view precluded him from taking some crucial soteriological notions properly into account in the way the Reformed fathers like Cocceius were able to do. At the same time, by way of a historical argument, my contribution confirms van Asselt’s portrait of Cocceius as an “ordinary orthodox Reformed theologian ” rather than a “precursor of the Enlightenment” or “corrector of Reformed predestinarianism,” as traditional scholarship had it. In fact, I hope to put forward some of the good reasons Cocceius thought to have to be as harsh a predestinarian thinker as his Reformed contemporaries, reasons that, to my conviction, have retained a good deal of their validity over against the allegedly superior innovations of post-Barthian twentieth-century theology.

2. Cocceius and the Barthian Tradition

        In one of the footnotes to his magnum opus, The Federal Theology of Johannes Cocceius, van Asselt characterizes Barth’s occupation with Cocceius as follows:

In any case, Barth was occupied with Cocceius over the whole span of his life—Cocceius caused this twentieth-century church father many a sleepless night! Often visitors would find Barth reading Cocceius. Through his study of Cocceius the concept of the covenant became perpetually and permanently conspicuous for Barth.10

Barth had three of Cocceius’ works in his personal library.11 In addition, his attention was drawn to Cocceius through his reading of Schrenk’s book on federal theology.12 Barth’s evaluation of Cocceius’ doctrine of the abrogations depends almost entirely on Schrenk, given that he probably did not have access to Cocceius’ main work on this topic, the SD.13

In the Church Dogmatics, there is an extensive discussion of federal theology in general, and Cocceius in particular, at pages 61–70 of volume IV/1.14 In this excursus, Barth is very critical of federal theology as a whole. It will be helpful to quote Barth’s general criticism of federal theology at length, because it gives a good impression of the main issue at stake in Barth’s relationship to federal theology:

But the more embracing and central and exact this apprehension becomes in the main period of the Federal theology, the more insistently the ques-tion imposes itself from what standpoint this occurrence is really regarded and represented as such. What happens when the work, the Word of God, is first isolated and then reconnected, according to the teaching of pragmatic theology, with a whole series of events which are purposefully strung out but which belong together? Does this really correspond to the state of affairs as it is prescribed for theology in Scripture? Can we historicise the activity and revelation of God? . . . They saw excellently that the Bible tells us about an event. But they did not see that in all its forms this narrative has the character of testimony, proclamation, evangel, and that it has as its content and subject only a single event, which in every form of the attestation, although they all relate to a whole, is the single and complete decision on the part of God which as such calls for a single and complete decision on the part of man. . . . The Federal theologians did not notice that for all the exclusiveness with which they read the Scriptures, in this analysis and synthesis of the occurrence between God and man they were going beyond Scripture and missing its real content. . . . As becomes increasingly plain in the sketches of  the Federal theologians, the atonement accomplished in Jesus Christ ceases to be the history of the covenant, to which (in all the different forms of expectation and recollection) the whole Bible bears witness and in face of which theology must take up and maintain its standpoint, and it becomes a biblical history, a state in the greater context of world-history, before which, and after which, there are other similar stages.15

Most striking in this quotation is the overcritical attack on what Barth calls the “historicizing” of theology that federal theology develops. Even if Barth’s own theology is commonly presented as a Copernican revolution in thinking about the relationship between God and history, this quotation makes clear that the historicizing in Barth’s theology is of a very special kind, namely a historicizing in the sense of the identification of God with the human person Jesus Christ. If we had to believe  Barth, only a theology of the strictly Christological character that he favours can do justice to the richness and complexity of the biblical message! This is indeed the great divide between federal theology on the one hand, and Barth on the other. Barth holds that theologies must be based on and consist of only one thing: either Christ, as he claims his own theology does, or sinful human nature, as he claims all theologies accepting some form of natural theology do.16 As van Asselt has pointed out, it is one of the central tenets of federal theology to think in pairs, duplexities, as the English translator of his dissertation calls them.17
        In spite of the vigorous critique that Barth exercises in his excursus on federal theology, there is much more positive influence of Cocceius on Barth than Barth himself wants us to believe. In fact, throughout the volumes of the CD, Barth is increasingly using covenantal conceptuality to develop his theology. This starts in volume II/1, where Barth introduces the notion of the covenant (as Gemeinschaft) in his doctrine of God.18 According to Barth, God, by definition, is a God who chooses himself to be a God in relation with human beings. This notion of the covenant is then running through his doctrine of election and the divine commandments in volume II/2,19 and it plays a central role in the doctrine of creation in volume III. In volume IV, then, reconciliation takes the form of the restoration of the covenant.20
         In a way, Barth’s dogmatics can certainly be said to be a covenantal theology. It is even appropriate to speak of a radicalization of federal theology in Barth. Where Cocceius still sees the notion of the covenant between God and human beings as characteristic of God’s works, not of God’s being, at most metaphorically, this is different in Barth. Barth sees the covenant as the one single definitive act of God’s being in Jesus Christ. Exactly this is what accounts for the difference between Barth’s Christological monism—although the term is overly pejorative— and the duplex—not dualist as I hope to show—character of traditional federal thought. For Barth, God’s relationship with human beings is definitive of God’s being. In this sense, Barth holds that the covenant of God is always a two-sided covenant, as God decided to be never without a relationship to a human being—Jesus Christ. Still, Barth upholds the one-sided origin of the covenant through an emphasis on God’s free choice to be the way God is.
          Hence, the “twentieth-century church father” cannot but vigorously criticize a theology that speaks with two words rather than one. This is especially true of two duplexities that are characteristic of federal theology: first, the duplexity of the covenants of works and grace and, second, the duplexity of the pactum salutis and the foedus gratiae.
          As to the first duplexity, Barth’s conviction that God is God in Jesus Christ makes it impossible for him to account for some sort of relationship between God and human beings that is not a relationship mediated by grace in Jesus Christ. For Barth, the idea of there being such a relationship suggests that we as human beings have some sort of natural power to know God independently of God’s free decision to reveal himself to us. If such a relationship not mediated by Christ is then also the first, the original and the natural relationship between God and human beings, even more natural than that through which God decided to be the one decisive relationship with human beings, Barth can only see that as an attempt to create one’s own god out of one’s sinful mind.21 As to the second duplexity, the duplexity of the pactum salutis and the foedus gratiae, Barth’s conviction that God is by definition God in Jesus Christ makes it impossible for him to account for a level of decision in God that is different from God’s definitive decision to be God with us in Jesus Christ. For Barth, allowing for a pactum salutis will inevitably lead to a dualism in God.22

3. Cocceius on Pactum Salutis and Foedus Gratiae

The Covenant in General

In this essay, I will assess Barth’s twentieth-century critique of the second abovementioned duplexity that is central to Cocceius’ theology, the duplexity of the pactum salutis and the foedus gratiae. We start our analysis with Cocceius’ definition of a covenant in general: 

The covenant of God with a human being is different from the covenant that human beings have among each other. A covenant between human beings, namely, is based on mutual well doing, whereas God makes a covenant based on his welldoing only. The covenant of God is nothing but the divine declaration concerning the way of receiving the love of God, and of acquiring the union and communion with him. If a human being makes use of this way, he is in a relationship of friendship with God, or put differently: God is his creator and his God in a special way.23

One should notice that this is a definition of every covenant that God has with human beings, no more, no less. As Cocceius points out, it is not a definition of any covenant we can think of, because inter-human covenants are different, as in inter-human covenants, both partners formulate conditions and promises constitutive of the covenant. In a God-human covenant, God’s declaration alone is constitutive of the nature of the covenant.
          So far, Barth and Cocceius are still on par. For Barth, it is very important to stress that God is never dependent on the existence or actions of human beings. Human beings only exist in the covenant with God by virtue of God’s initiative in creation and revelation.
         For Cocceius, this is as much the case as for Barth, although it is significant that for Cocceius, this is still only the definition of the covenant in general. That is, although both concrete covenants (of works and of grace) between God and human beings are characterized by this definition, concrete covenants have some specific features that this definition does not contain. This is already hinting at the difference with Barth. In a sense, for Barth, the general definition is a sufficient description of what God is for us in Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ, God offers us a way in which we can enter into a relationship of love and friendship with God. Human beings are called to respond to this offer in faith and obedience. This offering of a way in which we can enter into a relationship of love and friendship with God is constituted by God’s act of reconciliation in Jesus Christ, in which God, acknowledging that we will and cannot live in this friendship with God, responded to this call in the ultimate way, suffering for us at the cross.24 As we will see, in Cocceius, the consequences of sin make it impossible to account for the specificity of the covenant of grace in terms of a mere offer of grace to which we are called to respond.
          Cocceius needs the distinction between a covenant in general and specific covenants for two reasons: First, concerning the covenant of works, Cocceius needs a specific covenant because the promise and the conditions of the covenant of works are essential to the nature of this covenant. Second, concerning the covenant of grace—more on that below—Cocceius needs a specific covenant because the abrogation of the covenant of works is of such a radical kind that a covenant in terms of an obligation to be fulfilled on the part of human beings does not suffice. After sin, human beings lack the ability to fulfil the obligations of a covenant that asks something of them, if it not also “gives what it asks”— Augustine.

The Covenant of Grace

The first concrete form that the covenant between God and human beings takes is the covenant of works, but we skip the covenant of works and its first abrogation in the fall for the moment. We will come back to it in due course, and proceed to Cocceius’ definition of the covenant of grace:

The covenant of grace is an agreement between God and a sinful human being, in which, [first], God declares his free benevolence to give justice and an inheritance to a certain seed in the Mediator through faith, to the glory of his grace, [second], God invites through a commandment of repentence and faith—or put differently: the repentence the beginning of which is faith in the Mediator—, and through a promise, to give justice to those who believe in him, [and third] the human being joins in the agreed matters through cordial faith, resulting in peace and friendship and the right to expect the inheritance with a good conscience.25

          The most important difference between the general definition of a covenant and the specific definition of the covenant of grace is the first part of the latter—the declaration. In the first part of the definition, there is no mention of a covenant between God and human beings, but of God’s unconditional decree to save certain people through the mediatory work of Jesus Christ: “God declares his free benevolence to give justice and the inheritance of the covenant to a certain seed, to the glorification of his grace.” Thus, in the definition, the decree is combined with the invitation and the human response to the invitation, without the relationship between the decree, the invitation, and the response being clarified.26

What is the background of this? The background is the first abrogation of the covenant of works mentioned in the previous chapter of Cocceius’ Summa Doctrinae: sin. According to the Reformed tradition that Cocceius is following here, the power of sin is such that it makes a natural human response to God’s invitation to the covenant of grace impossible. If the covenant of grace is a mere proclamation of the work of Christ for all humanity, leaving it to the responsibility of human beings to accept this message in faith or not, no human being would be saved, the Reformed fathers hold. Therefore, not a mere general proclamation of a common message is needed, but also the actual liberation from the bondage of sin. This, then, is the reason why the covenant of grace as an invitation to the love of God in Jesus Christ can only take effect if it is rooted in a testament. This testament is the declaration of a pact between the divine Persons of the Trinity that guarantees the actual salvation of certain people, whether these people accept it or not.27

Returning to Barth, this view of the implications of sin means that his charge of natural theology in Reformed orthodoxy is unjustified. Given that sin makes it impossible to know God without God’s actual intervention in the life of human beings, there is no room for a human attempt to reach God through the powers of one’s own autonomous existence, as Barth fears. Hence, there are other ways to avoid the dangers of an autonomous capturing of God than Barth’s option of formulating the whole of Christian doctrine in Christological terms. It may even turn out that the traditional Reformed distinction between pre-fallen and fallen humanity provides a better way of avoiding this trap than Barth’s Christological dogmatics. This, however, depends on the specific strand in Barth’s thought that one pursues. Following one line, there is ultimately only one true ontological state of human beings, that is the state of being in relation to God through Jesus Christ. Ultimately, human beings are what they are in Jesus Christ even if they do not know or ignore it. Faith is not a change of an ontological state. It is not a becoming of a new being in Christ. It is just realizing what we have been all the time! This implies the risk of “naturalizing grace” by accepting one’s relation to God in Christ as a standing condition. It is something we can count on, whether we reckon with it or not. Of course we need the revelation of God in Christ to know in what state we are, but whatever we do in that state, the result is the same. Barth, however, following another—I would say: opposing— strand of his thought, would deny the possibility of “ontologizing” the Christological foundation of his dogmatics. Being human in and through Jesus Christ is never something one can count on, as it is always a concrete gift of grace with a strict “here and now” character. Taking our relationship with God in Christ for granted, Barth would say, is precisely the proof of sin, as it takes us away from the dependence on God’s free gift of grace.

Traditional Reformed orthodoxy accounts for the dependency on grace in a different—I would say: more consistent—way. Here the ontological state of fallen humanity is really distinct from the state before the fall, and after the gift of grace. The gift of grace must be understood as the beginning of the gradual restoration of one’s true humanity to its pre-fallen state. In the state of the fall, the original image of God is not entirely lost, but access to salvation requires a true ontological change of what it means to be a human being.

The Pactum Salutis

Ontological change, however, is a delicate issue, as it is easily associated with coercion and determinism. It was not without reasons that twentieth-century theology dropped the notion. Reformed theology developed the duplexity of a “covenant from eternity,” the pactum salutis, in order to provide the covenant of grace with a completely secure foundation on the one hand, and maintain a sufficient degree of human freedom on the other. Let us see how Cocceius develops it and how he relates it to the covenant of grace.
         The first thing significant to note about chapter V, the chapter in which Cocceius extensively discusses the pactum salutis, is the title: “A Further Explanation of the Foregoing.”28 This title is significant, as it shows that Cocceius saw the pactum salutis not so much as a covenant distinct from the covenant of grace, but rather as the eternal foundation of the covenant of grace.29
         The internal coherence of the pactum salutis and the foedus gratiae is confirmed by the opening of chapter V of the SD, which is simply the continuation of the previous line of argument:

However, in this divine testament [as discussed in the previous chapter, MW], there is a pact that makes up its firmness. This pact, namely, is not a pact with a fallen human being, but with the Mediator. This pact is the will of the Father giving his Son to be a Head and Redemptor of the  foreknown people, and it is the will of the Son, setting himself up to take care of this salvation. This will has the nature of an agreement insofar as, in this ineffable economy of salvation, the Father is considered as the one who stipulates the obedience of the Son to death, and as a reward for his obedience, promises him a kingdom and a spiritual seed, and it is an agreement insofar as the Son is considered as the one who sets himself up to do the will of God, demanding the salvation of the people that were given to him out of the world or, more clearly stated, claim his rights from the other party.30

         Several aspects of this quotation are worth noticing. First, the issue of the strength (firmitas) of the testament. Why is the pactum salutis needed to safeguard the firmness of the testament, and more generally, of the covenant of grace? Should not God’s promise of salvation to all who believe be firm enough? As we will see in more detail below, not so for Cocceius. If the testament were only God’s promise of salvation to those who believe, there would be no guarantee that the testament would arrive at its destination at all. If the covenant were only an invitation on God’s side, the sinner’s case would be hopeless, as the sinner would be unable to fulfil the condition of access to the goods of the covenant. Therefore, the covenant of grace, if it is to be a real answer to the demand of human sinfulness, must include not only the invitation to the friendship of God, but also the fulfillment of the condition of faith. This is only possible if all conditions of the covenant of grace are met in the trinitarian God, in the trinitarian pact. Therefore, secondly, it is unavoidable that the covenant of grace as a whole, as regards its nature as a testament, remains restricted to the elect, those “given to the Son by the Father.”
         Finally, it is significant that Cocceius speaks of the “ineffable economy of grace.” The characterization of the pactum salutis as “ineffable ” qualifies all contractual speech between the divine Persons, as Cocceius explains in § 92:

Indeed, the will of the Father and the Son are the same, and not diverse, because they are one. Still, insofar as the Father is not the Son, nor the Son is the Father, this will is appropriated by each of both distinctly and according to their own mode, to the one as sending and giving, to the other as sent and given. Thus, this greatest mystery becomes known (which had to become known to confirm our faith concerning our salvation and to direct [this faith] to God), in what way we are justified and saved by God, in what way God is, who both judges and vouches for us, and is judged in that way, who absolves and intercedes, who sends and is being sent.31

        Cocceius’ insistence on the inexpressibility is significant vis-à-vis Barth’s critique of the pactum salutis as a sort of contract between two divine subjects, a view of the Trinity which is obviously incompatible with Barth’s view of the trinitarian persons as modes of being.32 While Barth refers to the Reformed tradition in support of his conception of the trinitarian persons,33 the possibility of a pact between the trinitarian persons in Cocceius makes clear how Barth’s conception differs from the tradition. Whereas Barth’s modes of being in God are three rationally conceived functions of a single subject, the traditional Reformed view still conceives of the relationship between the one being of God in three Persons as, well indeed: an ineffable relationship.34 In this ineffable relationship, indeed three more or less subject-like persons can be distinguished, who at the same time, however, form an inexpressible unity, both in themselves and in their works. 

        Obviously, Cocceius’ conviction that the covenant of grace must include a pact between the Father and the Son, has also significant ramifications for his view of the work of Christ. In § 104 the question is raised for whom Christ has become Sponsor: for the elect only. However, Cocceius is very careful with the use of predestination language. He is always keen on explaining the soteriological context in which the conclusion of limited atonement becomes unavoidable:

First of all, it is clear that, for whom he has vouched, for them he has also succeeded, he has been their merit, their sins have been put on him and they have been condemned in him, he has sacrificed himself for them and has prayed for them; in addition, it is clear that those for which he died, also died [in him]: that those are the same that have been justified and saved through him. These things, namely, are of the same effect and extent. . . . Since Scripture denies in the strongest wordings that the guarantee of Christ concerns all and each, no one excepted, and since it has thus far been a generally accepted dogma in the Church that Christ, as it has been said, did not die for all without exception according to the efficacy [of his death], it can easily and safely be concluded (although it concerns a great mystery), that Christ was no guarantee for all without exception, or for those who are not saved.35

An extensive argument follows against the Arminians and Socinians, who extended the benefit of Christ’s work to all people. What is at stake in this argument time and again, is the content of what it means to say that Christ died for someone. If, Cocceius argues, the scope of the atonement in Christ is extended to all people, the material content of what it means that Christ died for someone will change, and in Cocceius’ view, it will loose its force. Thus, in § 113:

In no way should the phrase from Scripture be weakened that Christ has died for sinners. This means much more than just that he has died to the benefit of humans, insofar as at least is not meant that benefit that there is in the attainment of salvation, but in some other benefit, such as that they are called, or that they are led to the knowledge of truth.36

 And again in § 163:

There are others who reduce the merit of Christ, such as 1. Those who state that Christ has died no more for those who are saved, as for those who perish. Although they seem to extend the merit of Christ, in fact they reduce it in such a way, that nothing remains of what he has merited. Indeed they speak of the grace that is necessary and sufficient to believe and to acquire reconciliation. But what is this [grace]? Is it the calling? Impossible, for many are not called.37

So, if we bring this back to the discussion with Barth: for Cocceius, the duplexity in the covenant of grace, that is the duplexity of the firmness of the inter-trinitarian pact on the one hand, and the dynamics of invitation and faith in time on the other, is absolutely necessary. If we, like Barth, speak of only one decision in God, we will loose one of the two elements: We will either loose the firmness, fruitfulness and effectivity of God’s work of salvation, ending up in a theology in which God is in some way dependent on human responsibility for salvation to come about (Pelagianism/Arminianism), or we loose the dynamics of God’s interaction with human beings in the preaching of the gospel, ending up in hard universalism (unconditional salvation for all, regardless what their response is).38 The problem of Barth’s position is that he refuses to choose one of the two options.

The Covenant of Grace as Communicative Act

So far, we have seen that for Cocceius, the covenant of grace needs to be grounded in the pactum salutis—among other reasons—in order to provide the covenant with the robustness required by the disastrous effects of sin. This is the first central tenet on which the Reformed soteriology is built. Reformed theology would not be characterized by duplexity, though, if there were not a second central notion constituting it. As much as Reformed theology is concerned to maintain the firmness of salvation, it is concerned to maintain the nature of salvation as a communicative act. God saves by the Word, by proclaiming salvation in Christ to human beings in the preaching of the gospel. Partaking in salvation is a matter of a human act of response to the preaching of the gospel.
          But can these two notions live together in a peaceful way? The charge of the Barthian tradition is that they cannot. In Barth’s view, the Reformed view of Christ as the mirror of election cannot be consistently thought together with a doctrine of double predestination, in which God decides on the ultimate destination of human beings in an arbitrary way. This is one of the main grounds for Barth’s reduction of the doctrine of election to a communicative act: Election is the “Sum of the gospel.”39 According to Barth, the covenant between God and human beings can only be a communicative act if there is no “secret decree” behind it. Cocceius is of the exactly opposite opinion. He believes that the communicative nature of the covenant of grace can only be truly safeguarded if it is rooted in the pactum salutis as God’s ultimate decision on the destination of human beings that remains independent of the communicative structure of the gospel. It needs to be independent of this communicative structure because its firmness requires that it remains independent of human consent.

        The key passage in which Cocceius explains the inner logic of this position is this:

This is of utmost importance to the foundation of faith and evangelical consolation. And because God approves every truth that flows from his counsel, one can rightly say that it is his will that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him, has everlasting life. Although, namely, these ALL are ONLY those given to Christ, and in God there is no universal counsel without a determination of subject, or again, a decree to bless without the explicit mentioning of a certain seed, nevertheless, through his approving will, he wants to be universally true that which follows and is implied by his special and definite counsel. . . . Through such a conditional commandment and promise, salvation is offered to all those called, i.e. it is proposed to them without any deceit; thus, it is clear that there is no reason to suggest some sort of desire or incomplete will or the like that God would be unworthy of, so that we uphold God’s integrity and sincerity.40

This passage may require some explanation. Let me start at the end. Cocceius’ emphasis on God’s integrity and sincerity can be technically phrased as his conviction that the combination of a doctrine of predestination (including limited atonement) with the free offer of Christ in the gospel to all who hear it, is entirely consistent. No compromise of the content of God’s eternal decree in the preaching of the gospel is required, nor is the offer of Christ in the gospel to all in any sense an insincere offer, a mere play to guarantee the responsibility of the nonelect. 
         Cocceius provides the solution in the above mentioned key passage: what God decides to work out from eternity is an unconditional promise, taking the form of “God will do so and so whatever happens.” At the same time, however, this decree to do so and so appears in the preaching of the gospel in a conditional manner: “All those who believe in Jesus Christ will be saved.” The latter is entirely consistent with the former, as all those who believe in Jesus Christ will indeed be saved, the eternal decree providing the certainty that those who receive the regenerating grace of God, will indeed believe in Jesus Christ. Thus, the eternal decree of God in no way interferes with the free offer of Christ in the gospel, because the believer-to-be does not in any sense need access to the eternal decree in order to be allowed access to Jesus Christ offered in the gospel. The Reformed theologians remain perfectly able to quote Isa 55:1/Rev 22:17: “[W]hoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life.”41
        Furthermore, the act of faith in Christ is and remains the sole point of access to salvation. It is important to see that this is a crucial point of agreement between the Reformed orthodox theologians and the Arminians. Being saved is really about doing something, acting upon the gospel proclaimed. The Reformed object against the Arminians’ unclarity about the origin of the act of faith, i.e., the question whether and in what sense grace is necessary to make the act of faith possible, but they do not dispute the character of faith as an act of response to Christ offered in the gospel.42 If we put it in a popular way: What the Reformed orthodox would have against the mass meetings of Billy Graham is not the emphasis on making a decision for Christ. There is much of such emphasis on making a decision in Reformed practical literature, the Anglo-American Puritan tradition in particular. What the Reformed tradition might have against a Billy Graham meeting is the suggestion that one’s being able to make the right decision depends on oneself rather than God alone. You may choose, but in choosing, the only thing you can say is: “We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19).
         Of course, the conditional nature of the promise of salvation to all who believe qualifies the object of the belief. What one has to believe is not so much the fact that one is saved, but that those who believe will be saved. This has important consequences for the question of assurance of faith:

Question: is everyone in common obliged to believe that Christ has died for them? Answer: This is exactly the consolation that is the fruit of justice; it pertains only to those who have a dismayed conscience, and to those souls that hunger and thirst after justice. . . . Nobody may dare to arrogate this consolation to himself who has not been converted to God by true faith of his heart, i.e. who not hungers and thirsts after justice, and [bears] fruits of that to the glory of God. Someone who has not taken refuge in Christ, to put it concisely, who did not begin to love him as the ruler of salvation.43

The position of the traditional Reformed theologians becomes all the more clear when we confront it with Barth’s view. Barth’s single decree of God to be God in Jesus Christ is motivated by his attempt to think God exclusively as God with us, as God in relation to human beings.44 In addition, the attempt to think God as God in Christ exclusively is motivated by Barth’s aim to dynamize the allegedly static understanding of God in the tradition.45 Barth’s aim is to bring history, the contingent encounter between God and human beings in the here and now, to the center of the theological discourse. Thus, for him, the doctrine of election can be nothing but a form of communication, the sum of the gospel.
         However, as there is only room for one decree in God,46 and the communicative message of the gospel cannot be the announcement of those elected from eternity, Barth is forced to accept universalism.47 Thus, the message of the gospel can be nothing but an announcement of a state of affairs, namely the state of being reconciled with God. Although in Barth, God is defined by his being God in Christ in time, the dynamics of God in time is in fact a dynamics of a single moment, namely the being of God as being God in Christ.48 The event of the preaching of the gospel and the human response to it is a mere recognition —both on the part of the preacher and on the part of the believer— of the one single act of God’s being in Christ. There is no additional soteriological level in which the restoration of the divine-human relationship between God and the believer is taken into account. Put in trinitarian terms: there is no separate level of the Spirit in the economy of salvation.49 While motivated by a concern to build the relationship between God and human beings into the very being of God, Barth ended with a static account of this relationship, a relationship in which a reciprocal action between God and the believer cannot truly be taken into account.50


FOOTNOTES:
1 For the view of the doctrine of predestination as a .Zentraldogma,. see Willem J. van Asselt, ed., Inleiding in de gereformeerde scholastiek (Zoetermeer: Boekencentrum, 1998), 18.30. Willem van Asselt has been one of the key critics of this so-called .old school.-interpretation of Reformed scholasticism.

2 See Kevin J. Vanhoozer, .Introduction: The Love of God . Its Place, Meaning and Function in Systematic Theology,. in Nothing Greater, Nothing Better: Theological Essays on the Love of God, ed. idem (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 1.29.
For two full-scale works on God as love, see Vincent Brümmer, The Model of Love: A Study in Philosophical Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); Markus Mühling, Gott ist Liebe: Studien zum Verständnis der Liebe als Modell des trinitarischen Redens von Gott, Marburger theologische Studien 58, 2nd ed. (Marburg:Elwert, 2005).

3 Willem J. van Asselt, The Federal Theology of Johannes Cocceius (1603.1669), trans. from the Dutch by R. A. Blacketer, Studies in the History of Christian Thought 100 (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 2.16.

4 Among his main works on Cocceius are a complete Dutch translation of Cocceius . Summa doctrinae: Johannes Coccejus, De Leer van het Verbond en het Testament van God, trans. from the Latin by W. J. van Asselt and H. G. Renger (Kampen: De Groot Goudriaan, 1990) and, in addition to numerous articles, two monographs: a more biographical one in Dutch (Willem J. van Asselt, Johannes Coccejus: Portret van een zeventiende-eeuws theoloog op oude en nieuwe wegen, Kerkhistorische monografieën 6 (Heerenveen: Groen, 1997)), and the thoroughly revised English translation of his dissertation: van Asselt, Federal Theology.

5 Van Asselt, Federal Theology, 94.105.

6 A traditional Dutch Reformed church service opens with the following phrase: .Our help is in the name of the Lord, who has made heaven and earth, who will never abandon the works of his hands,..a combination of Pss 124:8 and 138:8.

7 In Dutch: .Het evangelie scheert langs de rand van de alverzoening.. More on van Ruler in English: Allan J. Janssen, Kingdom, Office, and Church: A Study of A. A. van Ruler.s Doctrine of Ecclesiastical Office, The Historical Series of the Reformed Church in America (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006).

8 The English translations of the quotations from the Summa doctrinae have been prepared in close cooperation with drs. Jan Boom, who wrote his Master.s thesis under the supervision of van Asselt on a Dutch translation of Aquinas. and Cocceius. commentary on Lamentations 1. References to de SD are by chapter and paragraph number.

9 Bruce McCormack, .Grace and Being: The Role of God.s Gracious Election in Karl Barth.s Theological Ontology,. in The Cambridge companion to Karl Barth, ed. John Webster (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 97.

10 Van Asselt, Federal Theology, 9. 

11 Van Asselt, Johannes Coccejus, 107.

12 G. Schrenk, Gottesreich und Bund im älteren Protestantismus, vornehmlich bei Johannes Coccejus (Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 1923).

13 There is no single reference to Cocceius. own works in the excursus on federal theology. In volume II/2, where Barth appeals to Cocceius for his identification of election and the covenant (See van Asselt, Federal Theology, 199.201 and van Asselt, Johannes Coccejus, 222.225), he refers to the Summa Theologiae only: CD II/2, 85, 102, 114.5, 308; KD II/2, 91, 109, 122.3, 338.

14 CD IV/1, 54.66.

15 CD IV/1, 56.57. KD IV/1, 58.59: .Aber je umfassender, prinzipieller und genauer diese Zusammenschau [vom Alten und Neuen Testament] in der Blütezeit der Föderaltheologie wird, desto mehr drängt sich die Frage auf: von welchem Standort aus dieses Geschehen nun eigentlich in Blick genommen und als solches dargestelt
sein möchte? Was geschieht da, wo das Werk, das Wort Gottes auseinandergelegt und dann wieder pragmatisch-theologisch verknüpft wird zu einer Serie von sinnvoll aneinandergereihten und ineinander greifenden Ereignissen? Entspricht das wirklich der der Theologie in der Schrift vorgegebenen Sache? Kann man Gottes handlung und Offenbarung historisieren? . . . Daß die Bibel von einem Geschehen berichtet, das haben sie vortrefflich verstanden, nicht aber, daß dieser Bericht in allen seinen Gestalten den Charakter von Zeugnis, Verkündigung und Botschaft und zu seinem Inhalt und Gegenstand ein einziges Geschehen hat, das je in dieser und dieser Gestalt seiner Bezeugung, indem doch jede von ihnen sich auf seine Ganzheit bezieht, die eine, ganze Entscheidung Gottes ist, die als solche nach der einen ganzen Entscheidung des Menschen ruft. . . . Die Föderaltheologen haben nicht bemerkt, daß sie zuerst mit ihrer Analyse und dann mit ihrer Synthese des Geschehens zwischen Gott und Mensch bei aller Aufgeschlossenheit, in der sie die Schrift gelesen haben, an der wirklichen Schrift vorbeilasen und an ihrem Inhalt vorbeisahen. . . . Ihm wird . . . die in Jesus Christus geschehene Versöhnung aus der Bundesgeschichte . . . zu einer biblischen Geschichte, zu einer Etappe in einem größeren Zusammenhang von Geschichte, vor der und nach der es auch noch andere solche Etappen Gibt..

16 On the Christological character of dogmatics, see CD I/2, 122.3; KD I/2, 134. 5. On the refutation of the knowledge of God from nature, see CD II/1, 63.127; KD II/1, 68.141.

17 Van Asselt, Federal Theology, 303ff.

18 CD II/1, 272.296; KD II/1, 306.334

19 CD II/2, 3.33; KD II/2, 1.35.

20 CD IV/1, 1.78; KD IV/1, 1.82.21 CD IV/1, 56, 61.63; KD IV/1, 59, 64.66.

22 CD II/2, 94.116; KD II/2, 101.124.

23 SD, I, 5: .Foedus Dei cum homine aliter se habet ac hominum inter ipsos. Homines enim de mutuis beneficiis: Deus de suis foedus facit. Est enim Dei foedus nihil aliud, quam divina declaratio de ratione percipiendi amoris Dei, & unione ac
communione ipsius potiendi. Qua ratione si homo utatur, in amicitia Dei est, sive, Creator ipsius est & Deus ipsius peculiari ratione..

24 As we will see below, here is the big tension in Barth.s conception. On the one hand, God calls us to respond. Faith is  exactly this response. On the other hand, only God can respond to this call and does so in Jesus Christ, basically fulfilling the condition of the covenant for all human beings once and for all.

25 SD IV, 76: .Foedus gratiae est conventio inter Deum & hominem peccatorem, Deo declarante liberum beneplacitum suum de justitia & haereditate certo semini danda in Mediatore per fidem, ad gloriam gratiae ipsius, & per mandatum resipiscentiae
ac fidei sive resipiscentiae, cujus initium est fides in Mediatorem, ac per promissionem justitiae credentibus in illo dandae invitante, homine autem per fidem cordis astipulante contracta, ad pacem & amicitiam & jus expectandae haereditatis in bona conscientia...emphasis mine. There are a number of subtle differences between van Asselt.s translations of this definition and ours. Boom and I have read the definition as built around the three verbs .declarare,. .invitare,. and .astipulare..

26 Van Asselt has always insisted on the differences between the decree, the pactum salutis, the testament and the covenant of grace: van Asselt, Federal Theology, 219.226, 239.247. Still, from a systematic point of view, it is important to see that
within the definition of the covenant of grace, reference is made to that which makes this covenant possible, that is the eternal decree. This is not to suggest that the covenant of grace (or parts of it) coincide with the eternal decree. Rather, I would say thatin the covenant of grace, the declaration of the eternal decree (in close relationship to the pactum salutis), takes the form of a testament.

27 Cf. van Asselt.s translation of the definition of the covenant of grace, who translates .conventio inter Deum & hominem peccatorem. as .an agreement between God and sinful humanity.: van Asselt, Federal Theology, p. 41. This is incorrect, as the rest of the definition shows. According to Cocceius, the covenant is only made between God and the believer.

28 SD V, 88: .Uberior praemissorum explicatio..

29 As such, it also appears in the STh where, contrary to the SD, the pactum salutis precedes the foedus gratiae. In the STh, the pactum salutis denotes the eternal counsel of salvation at the basis of the trinitarian work of salvation in time. The foedus gratiae then, denotes the fulfillment of God.s counsel of salvation in a pact of friendship and peace between God and the believer. STh XLI, 1.4.

30 SD V, 88: .Inest tamen in hoc Testamento divino Pactum, quo nititur ejus firmitas.Pactum scil. non cum homine lapso, sed cum Mediatore. Scilicet voluntas Patris filium dantis caput & lutrwth&j  redemptorem populi praecogniti, & voluntas Filii, sese ad hanc salutem procurandam sistentis, habet rationem conventionis, dum secundum ineffabilem illam oeconomiam negocii salutis notrae consideratur Pater stipulans obedientiam Filii usque ad mortem, & pro ea ipsi regnum & semen spirituale repromittens: filius autem se sistens, ad faciendam voluntatem Dei, & à Patre salutem populi sibi è mundo dati restipulans, sive, ut claritis loquar, altrinsecus petens.. 31 SD V, 92: .Patris quidem & Filii voluntas eadem est, non diversa, quia & unum
sunt; sed, quatenus Pater non est Filius, neque Filius Pater, eadem voluntas distincte & suo modo utrique appropriatur, scilicet alteri ut donanti & mittenti, alteri ut dato & misso. Ita mysterium illud maximum (quod fidei nostrae de salute nostra confirmandae & in Deum dirigendae causa patescere debebat) patescit, quomodo in Deo justificemus & salvemur, quomodo Deus sit & qui judicat & qui spondet, atque ita judicatur; qui absolvit & qui intercedit; qui mittit & qui mittitur..

32 CD IV/1, 64.65; KD IV/1, 68.69. See also van Asselt, Federal Theology, 233. 236. For some nuances concerning the use of the trinitarian persons as .modes of being,. see: Iain Taylor, .In Defence of Karl Barth.s Doctrine of the Trinity,. International Journal of Systematic Theology 5 (2003): 33.46.

33 See also CD I/1, 407.415; KD I/1, 374.381.

34 For a systematic account of the view of the Trinity as ineffable, drawing on Augustine.s theology, see: Maarten Wisse, ..Ego sum qui sum.: Die trinitarische Essenz Gottes nach Augustins De Trinitate,. in Entzogenheit in Gott: Beiträge zur
Rede von der Verborgenheit der Trinität, ed. M. Mühling and M. Wendte, Ars Disputandi Supplement Series 2 (Utrecht: Ars Disputandi, 2005), URL: http://adss.library.uu.nl, 63.76; idem, .De uniciteit van God en de relationaliteit van de mens: De relevantie van Augustinus voor de hedendaagse theologie,. Nederlands Theologisch Tijdschrift 60:4 (2006): 310.328.

35 SD V, 108: .Et primo quidem illud evidens est, pro quibus spopondit, illis & impetravisse, illis meritum esse, illorum peccata in ipsum injecta suisse, & in ipso condemnata esse, pro illis se obtulisse, pro illis orasse; &, pro quibus mortuus est, illos mortuos esse: eosdemque justificari & salvari per ipsum. Haec enim paris efficaciae & ejusdem sunt latitudinis. . . . Quum igitur Scripturae apertissimis verbis negent, illam sponsionem Christi ad omnes pertinere & singulos, nullo excepto, fueritque hactenus in Ecclesia receptissimum dogma, Christum (ut loquuntur) secundum efficaciam non esse mortuum pro omnibus hominibus sine exceptione: & facile & tutum est (licet in remagni mysterii) definite, Christum non spopondisse pro omnibus sine exceptione, sive etiam pro illis, qui non salvantur..

36 SD V, 113: .Minimè enervanda est phrasis Scripturae, qua dicitur Christus pro hominibus mortuus. Plus illud significat, quam mortuus utilitate hominum, siquidem non utilitatem illam, quae est in assecutione salutis, sed utilitatem quamvis intelligas;ut est, quod vocantur, quod ad agnitionem veritatis adducuntur . . ..

37 SD V, 163: .Sunt alii, qui imminuunt, videlicet 1. Qui statuunt Christum non magis pro iis, qui salvantur, quam pro iis, qui pereunt, mortuum esse. Quanquam enim videantur extendere meritum christi, reipsa tamen id adeò imminuunt, ut omnino nihl ipsi relinquant, quod meritus sit. Dicunt quidem . . . Gratiam ad credendum & reconciliationem consequendum necessariam & sufficientem. Quid illa? An vocatio? Non potest. Plurimi enim non vocantur..

38 I distinguish between .hard. and .soft. universalism. .Hard universalism. is a view of salvation in which all will be saved, regardless of what their response is (the so-called apokatastasis pantoon). .Soft universalism. is a view in which God romises salvation to all, but makes it dependent on human decision whether it is actually realized (popularly phrased: Arminianism).

39 CD II/2, 12.34; KD II/2, 11.35.

40 SD VI, 184: .Maximique id ipsum momenti est ad fundandam fidem & consolationem Evangelicam. Et, quia Deus approbat omnem veritatem, quae ex consilio ipsus fluit, rectè dicitur voluntas ipsius esse, ut omnu, qui videt filium & credit in ipsum,
habeat vitam aeternam. quanquam enim hi O M N E S sint S O L I dati Christo, & Deus non habeat consilium universale sine determinatione subjecti, sive propositum benedicendi citra vocationem seminis; tamen Voluntate approbante hoc vult universaliter esse verum, quod ex speciali & definito ipsius consilio fluit & consequitur. . . . Per tale mandatum & promissionem conditionatam omnibus vocatis salus offertur, h. e. proponitur sine omni illusione; ut patet neque necesse est singere desiderium sive voluntatem incompletam & alia istiusmodi Deo indecora, ut tueamur ipsius integritatem & sinceritatem..

41 See the earlier argument for this point in: Maarten Wisse, ..Zij laat alles zoals het is.: De actualiteit van de scholastieke methode,. in van Asselt, ed., Inleiding, 163.173.

42 It must be said that there are some exceptions to this rule, compensating for the negative consequences the emphasis on faith as an act might have in pastoral practice. This compensation is particularly provided by the concept of faith as a habit. See Maarten Wisse, .Habitus fidei: An Essay on the History of a Concept,. Scottish Journal of Theology 56:2 (2003): 172.189.

43 SD VI, 180: .Quaeritur, An omnibus omnino imperetur credere, Christum esse pro se mortuum? Resp. Hanc ipsam esse consolationem, quae est fructus justitiae; & non pertinere nisi ad conscientias contritas & animas esurientes & sitientes justitiae. . . . Hanc consolationem nemo sibi debet arrogare, qui non vera animi fide conversus est ad Deum; h. e. qui non sitit & esurit justitiam & fructus ejus ad gloriam Dei; qui non confugit ad Christum, &, ut uno verbo dicam, qui non ipsum incepit amare, ut principem salutis,. Here, Cocceius is fully on par with Voetius: De scholastieke Voetius: Een luisteroefening aan de hand van Voetius. Disputationes Selectae, ed. W. J. van Asselt and E. Dekker (Zoetermeer: Boekencentrum, 1995), 98.100.

44 CD IV/1, 1.22; KD IV/1, 1.22. Of course this is not to deny Barth.s emphasis on the freedom of God to be God with us.

45 CD II/1, 257.271; KD II/1, 288.305.

46 What I mean by .one. decree here is: one level of decision in God.over against the two in traditional Reformed orthodoxy. This is not to overlook Barth.s doctrine of reprobation. It is only to suggest that in Barth, the doctrine of reprobation is a
function of the doctrine of election, and thus does not introduce a distinct level of decision in God.

47 I am aware of the discussion concerning Barth.s universalism. Berkouwer.s discussion provides a good overview: G. C. Berkouwer, The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956), chapter X.

48 On this point, see especially the essays on time and eternity: CD I/2, 45.121, and III/1, 42.93; KD I/2, 50.133, and III/1, 4.103.

49 In a sense, Barth.s critique of Cocceius as having no room for the Spirit in the pactum salutis is a typical case of the pot calling the cattle black! Cf. van Asselt, Federal Theology, 233.236.

50 I would like to thank, in chronological order, Prof. Dr. Christoph Schwöbel, the members of Prof. Schwöbel.s Doktorandenkolloquium at Tübingen, Dr. Bert Loonstra, Prof. Dr. Gijsbert van den Brink, Prof. Dr. Richard A. Muller, and Prof. Dr. Marcel Sarot for their comments on an earlier version of this paper. The research for this article was funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and the Flemish Organisation for Scientific Research (FWO-V).