Dennis Tuuri

Okay, my brother Mike has some in our household infamous spaghetti sauce. It’s infamous because there are members of my family who claimed that when we made it the dog wouldn’t even eat it. And there is myself who loved it. So I don’t know what that makes me. But spaghetti sauce—it’s I think probably it’s the type that you know, uh true Italians would probably enjoy quite a bit. I think spaghetti sauce is already always better the second time reheated.

And there are certain foods like that. The more you cook them, the better they get for my particular taste buds at least. And so what I want to do today is kind of serve up old spaghetti sauce for a little while here and in the first portion of the time together here over the word of God to talk about what we’ve talked about for the last three months. The first two heads of doctrine from the Canons of Dort and it’s going to be in a distilled fashion.

Now I think this is very important because what we’ve talked about—I’m sure much of what we’ve said or at least some of what we’ve said has been somewhat new at least as an emphasis in your understanding of scripture and maybe a real challenge to your views of the atonement or whatever. Or perhaps a challenge to understanding of those who teach different views from this might hold. It’s also important for ourselves to grow in the knowledge of what we just read about from 2 Corinthians 5 that God was in Christ reconciling us to him.

It’s also important because we do want to have this—we’re not just saved away from our past views of the world and the our past things that we did. We’re saved unto service to the king. We’re going to look, Lord willing, at Acts 2 a little bit at the end of the sermon to talk about evangelism as seen through the preaching of the Apostle Peter on the day of Pentecost. Now, we’re saved to something.

And I kind of like this room for this purpose. You’re not up here, so it doesn’t look the same from down there, but up here, the room is kind of long and kind of reminds me of those old medieval halls where the knights and would gather to be strengthened and to eat and to receive words of encouragement to go out and do battle if need be. And so we’ve just recited a psalm about going out and teaching our hands to war.

And we want to look at ourselves every Lord’s day as not coming particularly to an infirmary. There is that aspect to it. The Lord Jesus Christ does nourish and sustain us particularly through the administration of the sacrament of communion. But this is also an armory. This is a place where we come to get armed and equipped in our thoughts and our beliefs so we can go out into the world preaching this gospel.

We want our streets to be like the streets as of today here. When we go out and have conversation in the streets, so to speak, the parking lot here, it’s a different sort than when we go out into the world. But God would have us go out into that world with the idea of reforming that world and making it like our gathering today with the same kind of fellowship with the same kind of manners with the same kind of nurturing of each other in grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He would have us preach the gospel and he would have us call the elect to salvation and he would have us through the preaching of the gospel—he would accompany that word with his temporal judgments so that eventually the whole world manifests the glory of God and praise to God. So how do we do that big task? Well, you do it one person at a time or one family at a time and we do it by taking people into our living rooms.

We’re going to at family camp this year the emphasis is going to be on missions and evangelism. And there’s an excellent article in the Journal of Christian Reconstruction. Couple of articles on a symposium on evangelism. One spoke about family-based evangelism, another about household evangelism, bringing people into our homes, into our living rooms where we demonstrate what the Christian life is about.

So, as we disperse from here, it’s into neighborhoods and friends that we’re evangelizing. And we want to equip ourselves with the knowledge of God’s word. We want to take it to the living room. As I’ve said before, you get the point. So it’s important to review this in a distilled boiled down fashion so that you know how to do this. So you know what the scriptures teach about unconditional election and you know what the scriptures teach about the death of Christ and the redemption of men thereby.

See big doctrines but really they’re very major lines going throughout the scriptures. So I’ve said enough about that but I want to review then a little bit. First of all we started this then with the first head of doctrine which is divine election and reprobation. And we unconditional election—the capital U and TULIP there. TULIP is the acronym for the five points of Calvinism. They’re based in the Canons of Dort.

They begin in the Canons of Dort, not with T total depravity which we’ll move to next week, Lord willing. But they begin with the unconditional election of God. Important starting place, God’s election. We began our discussion of that with Romans 8:29 and 30. You should have that solidly banked away here in your memory. That citation and able to find it when people begin to talk to you about election and when you start to preach to them, proclaim to them what Christ has done—Romans 8:29 and 30 says there’s this golden chain of foreknowledge. Those whom he’s foreordained he’s predestined. The predestination is to appoint to be conformed to the image of the Son who is the firstborn among many. The preeminence of Jesus Christ is in the middle of this golden chain—yes it’s a benefit to the elect but ultimately it’s for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Moreover whom he did predestinate them he also called and whom he called he also justified and whom he justified he also glorified. There’s this progression for the elect and it begins with the forelove of God. The first link in the chain is not our choice. It’s not God intellectually knowing what we’ll do. It is his forelove to forno—to know means to love in this sense does that and repeat it in scripture. The golden chain is where we start and it’s an excellent place to begin our discussions with our friends to challenge if they’re Christians who have not come to a submission to this doctrine and it’s also part of the preaching of the gospel to proclaim these truths as we’ve seen in the past as well.

Secondly, we talked about then God’s overall sovereignty in all things. Our God is in the heavens. He doth whatever he hath pleased. Deuteronomy—Daniel chapter 4 is a good place to link away in your memory for this one. Verse 35 and following. We read all and this is Nebuchadnezzar. He’s been brought to humility by God. And what is his profession of faith as he comes to the Lord? Is it yes, I believe in Jesus and I want to have a better kingdom here and so I know it’ll help me if I add Jesus unto my kingdom?

No, he comes to a realization that all the nations of the earth, the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing. Daniel chapter 4—he that is God doeth whatsoever does according rather to his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. And none can stay his hand or say unto him, “What doest thou?” Nebuchadnezzar came to a full-blown appreciation not just of the sovereignty of God in salvation, but in everything that occurs in the context of the world, that God has ordained whatsoever comes to pass, and he does things for his purposes, and no man can stay his hand.

Nebuchadnezzar said that at the same time, my reason returned unto me. The irrationality, the madness of our culture and its death throes that we are in the midst of will be returned to sanity when the nation, when people, when our friends, when churches, when ministers, and when our neighborhoods once more return to the sanity of saying, “God is sovereign. God is sovereign in my salvation. God is sovereign in the affairs of men in all things.” Nebuchadnezzar’s reason returned unto him.

And for the glory of my kingdom, mine honor, and my brightness returned unto me. And my counselors and my lords sought unto me, and I was established in my kingdom, and excellent majesty was added unto me. Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and honor the God of heaven. All whose works are truth and his ways judgment and those that walk in pride he is able to abase and indeed he shall in time.

Now if we say that the church as an institution, as a group of people should go and exercise the responsibilities that God has given us in terms of the culture—of judgment begins with the house of God—that our kingdom so to speak for the Christian church will return when the Christian church as a whole (now not just isolated congregations here and there) when those who profess Christ are made also profess the sovereignty of God in salvation but in all things as well. So we talked about the golden chain and then we spoke about the sovereignty of God in all things and then in the third sermon dealing with unconditional election we dealt directly with the topic from Ephesians chapter 1.

Ephesians 1 like Romans 8:29 and 30, Daniel 4, or some other passage that you select relative to God’s sovereignty should be a place where you constantly turn in your discussions with your friends, with your family and in apologetic efforts with those outside of the faith or those who are in the faith and yet don’t acknowledge God’s sovereignty and election.

Ephesians chapter 1 beginning to end—the first portion particularly verse 3. Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us—not made blessing possible for us—but he has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world based on his forelove. He chose us. You see, he chose us not in the context of our time, not because we make a decision.

He chose us before the foundation of the world to the end that predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ in Romans 8:29 and Ephesians 1—that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. There’s this link between the love of God, the choosing of God, the death of Christ for particular people to the end that we might be holy and blameless before him in love. If a person doesn’t result in that end, his sins have not been atoned for.

He wasn’t called. He wasn’t chosen by God before the foundation of the world. Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will. Why all of this? For the good pleasure of God’s will. That’s his motivation. His will and the good pleasure of his will. And what is the end result of all this? To the praise of the glory of his grace wherein he hath made us acceptable in the beloved in whom we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of sins etc.

Ephesians 1. Everything we’ve said really for the last three months or two or three months on this, these two topics of the Canons are really bound up together in Ephesians chapter 1. We moved on from that consideration under the golden chain and God’s absolute sovereignty in all things and then specifically unconditional election to speak of the assurance to believers from Romans chapter 8 that because it’s not our choice that brought us into relationship with God—ultimately it is the choice of God of us—and because the golden chain is always intact that he brings us to glorification, and we can rest assured as we see the demonstration of God’s call in our life even though we’re sinful people still and we struggle with our Adamic nature nonetheless assurance is presented to us on the basis of a Calvinistic biblical Augustinian appreciation of what salvation is.

It is God’s sovereign choice of us. And that’s the basis for our assurance. Arminianism moves away not just from the sovereign choice of God of us. It also moves toward an establishment of the need of works on your part to keep you in relationship to God. The scriptures say, “No, you take away assurance when you preach that.” So, and then we moved on to talk about, as the Canons did, the reprobation taught in Romans chapter 9 and other places of scripture that God says he is created the wicked for the day of doom. And he says that there are people that are deliberately preached to in such a way that they will not hear and will not turn.

Now they have culpability. It also says that they stiffen their necks. They make fat their hearts. But it says also that God does those things. God causes some to be reprobate. But reprobation serves predestination and election. Ultimately the purpose of all this is the establishment of the elect of God as a people of praise in all the world.

We went from that to talk about the spiritual comfort to believing parents of children dying in infancy. And we talked about the establishment of God’s sign of his covenant. All these things are covenant realities in Genesis 17. The covenant is established and the covenant sign is to be given to those who are born into the covenantal authority of the family. And so upon the eighth day, circumcision in the Old Testament. Other rites of cleansing were applied to women as well in the Old Testament.

Infant daughters also were perceived as members covenantally of the covenant of grace. And so we have in Acts 2, we don’t need this in Acts 2:38 and 39, a repetition that we’re to consider our children in the context of the visible church of Christ as members of the church. We have it repeated to us because in the very establishment of the church in the New Testament in Acts 2:38 and 39, we have this repeated promise that the promise is unto you and to your children.

And I am, you know, I am convinced that if we take a look at Acts 2, what kind of people were admitted to the waters of baptism? What kind of people were enrolled in the church? There were people who accepted the baptism of infant children. People who accepted the idea that the covenant is based on family units and not strictly individuals—not just individuals, I should say. Well, this is important because it then tells us that our children who are born in infancy and who die in the context of infancy, we can have comfort about them.

We can’t have a fixed sure knowledge. We can have a covenantal comfort that God in his grace normally causes children to be born into believing households who are indeed themselves elect. And so we apply the covenant sign. We believe confidently that we shall see our children if they die in infancy. David in 2 Samuel 12:23. Son died on the seventh day before the covenant sign was given—circumcision on the eighth day.

And yet David was confident. He said I—he won’t return to me but I shall go to him. He knew that his son would go into eternity with him. He had that comfort. And we can give members of the church who have their children in the context of the covenant household of God and particularly those who submit to the sign of baptism this kind of comfort. And then we also talked about how in Galatians 3:27 there’s assurances given that if people have been baptized just as they were circumcised were to believe certain things about them.

Well, then we moved on to a discussion of atonement and we talked about atonement is an effectual substitutionary atonement yielding an actual salvation. Before we got to the position of rebutting those who would hold that God has atoned for all sins through the Lord Jesus Christ of all men, we looked at what the scriptures teach about the death of Christ and the particular things that are manifested through that death.

What doctrinal truths are linked to the death of the Lord Jesus Christ? And in the scriptures, there’s a great many things that are linked to the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. The atonement of sins is seen in relationship to the doctrine of propitiation. Propitiation means a change of state. God is angry with sinners. And the verses I’ve cited on your outline demonstrate that if Jesus has died for someone that he has also propitiated, made propitiation for them so that the father is now favorably disposed toward them.

He no longer is wrathful against those whom Christ died for. We see in Revelation 5:9 that redemption has been accomplished through the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. Purchasing, redeemed—redemption. A ransom has been paid for us based upon the guilt of our sins requiring payment. The Lord Jesus Christ has made redemption for those whom he’s died for. The Lord Jesus Christ has affected reconciliation with God the Father.

There’s an alienation of relationship and he brings reconciliation to those whom he died for. The verses are listed on the outline. The Lord Jesus Christ has affected justification for those for whom he has died. And the Lord Jesus Christ limits his intercession to those he has died for. As these verses on the outline depict. And finally, it says in Luke 19:10 that his name was to be called Jesus because he was going to save his people from their sins.

He came to save not to make salvation possible. So the scriptures teach that the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ, the death of the Lord Jesus Christ has produced an atonement, a reconciliation between God and the men for whom he has died for. Therefore, if we say that God has died for all men, that means all men have received propitiation, redemption, reconciliation, justification are being interceded for by Christ and are saved and hell disappears.

But we know that is contradictory to scripture. We know that the scriptures assert that those who reject the Lord Jesus Christ and die in their rejection and unbelief are consigned to eternal punishment in terms of the justice of God being meted out to them. And so as a result of this, we know that the scriptures teach a particular redemption. And atonement—not limited in its value but atonement limited in what it is to accomplish.

The effective purpose of it is a limited one because Jesus died for particular people. And we have listed some verses there that again these would be a good one—John 10:15 and 26—that Jesus said he died for his sheep. Matthew 1:21 he says he dies for his people. John 13:13, 15:13 he died for his friends. Acts 20:28, he has the church purchased through his blood. And in Ephesians 5, it is the bride specifically that he gave his life for.

So there are these specific verses that teach the Lord Jesus Christ died for a particular people. And as a result of that, this is an important truth for us and is important truth to then speak of in the context of our living rooms. And we’ve said that atonement is an absolutely inescapable concept. People are made in the image of God. And if they don’t accept the atonement of Christ as a full satisfaction and a release of their guilt for their sins, then they are driven to seek self atonement through a false imputation.

In the atonement, the Lord Jesus Christ imputes—the death of the Father imputes our death, our sins rather to the Lord Jesus. Okay? Covenantally imputes them and he becomes sin for us and we are then receive the imputation of his righteousness. Well, if you refuse to accept the imputation of your sin upon Christ, then what you end up doing, we’ve said, is to make false imputation to others.

It’s somebody else’s fault. You know, when everything goes wrong, somebody’s going to pay for this. And it’s true, somebody does have to pay for sin. When we speak of Christ’s atonement, that’s what he’s done. He’s affected our the satisfaction of our sins. But just because people reject Christ doesn’t mean to reject the need for atonement. In fact, they move then in terms of the need to make somebody else pay or to try to make themselves pay.

Either way doesn’t yield satisfaction. On the one hand, it’s making people pay outside of ourselves. It’s the environment’s fault. It’s the communist fault. It’s the conservative’s fault. It’s the Republicans. It’s the Democrats. It’s my parents. It’s my children. It’s my lack of financial gain. And ultimately, all false imputation of our difficulties to others is really seeking to impute the sin to God, right?

And it begins in the garden. It is our Adamic nature. Adam said, “It’s the woman you gave me.” And the woman said, “Hey, it’s not my fault either. It’s this creature. You know, I was deceived.” And they’re both blaming God for their own personal sin. And in the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ, we are brought to a position of taking full responsibility for our sins. Not saying that somehow it was somebody else’s fault.

We say it is our fault. It is my fault, my own fault, my own most grievous fault that I have sinned against God. Well, men who reject the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ end up with false imputation, calling for false sacrifice, make somebody else pay, kill somebody else to relieve my guilt, but it yields no satisfaction. The atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ brings us to satisfaction, but the false atonement does not.

And instead, what is produced is death and destruction and violent warfare because you’ve got a whole universe of people. Those who reject Christ, those who continue in their unbelief, all blaming somebody else for what happened to them, all trying to make somebody else pay, and the person they’re trying to make pay won’t do it. They’re going to try to make that person pay. And so we have wars and riots and conflicts and death is the result of that.

The Lord Jesus Christ in his wisdom with the proverbs tells us that all those that hate God love death. But it’s not just the false atonement that we spoke of. We said too that the Canons of Dort specifically rebut strange atonement. The atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ is a covenantal fact. It is required by the justice and mercy of God. Okay? His justice is as ultimate as his mercy is. And in that justice we can’t make payment for our sins and God sent the Lord Jesus Christ to affect that on the cross in order to meet the obligations we have according to his eternal covenant.

Now those who reject the specific atonement of Christ and that he actually made salvation guaranteed for the elect on the cross—those who reject that, they come up with other theories for what’s been accomplished. But it’s not salvation. We talked about the moral governance theory of the universe. Some people say, well, you know, God the Father is not to be seen as a God who requires satisfaction for something.

Rather, he’s a God who just needs to be the moral governor of the universe. And to do that, he needs to demonstrate his wrath against Jesus so you’ll look at it and reform your life and be a better person. That nothing happened on the death of the cross to actually affect the fulfillment of the terms of the covenant. And in fact, they say that what happened was we have a new kind of covenant now that all Jesus did is got rid of that old terrible law thing and what we have today is he makes it possible so that God can come up with new conditions for peace with him and those conditions are your faith. It’s not the keeping of the law by Christ—no, it’s your faith—now even though your faith is imperfect even though your faith isn’t pure and righteous and even though your works aren’t pure and righteous they say because Christ died that’s now the basis by which God is at peace with you is your faith.

Well, this is unbiblical. This rebuts the whole idea of what the atonement is all about and it ushers in a strange atonement. And then last week we talked about the implication of those two truths in the context of abortion. It leads right to it. It leads to it on the part of those who make false imputation because people blame children. They blame the population for the difficulties they have. They blame specific children for resulting in a turndown of their lifestyle or their guilt that they have that God gives to them for engaging in intercourse apart from marriage.

And in that false imputation, they call forth false sacrifice, not self-consciously in most cases, but that’s what they’re doing. Those who reject the atonement of Christ, the unatoned, leave a trail of death and blood, because they’re imputing their sins to someone else. And in the case of abortion to pre-born infants. Well, those who produce a strange atonement as opposed to a false, completely false—those in the context of the church who twist the doctrine of Christ’s atonement for making actual salvation guaranteed for the elect and who make it into this grace without relationship to God’s law and a mercy that doesn’t satisfy God’s justice.

They then move in the context of a false gospel and move away from what we did last week which is to call forth God’s wrath and God’s punishment upon evildoers. You see the atonement is God’s justification. Justification—it shows the degree to which he affirms his law. And when the church rejects the particular redemption taught in the scriptures by the Canons of Dort as the church of Orthodoxy has taught for 2,000 years.

It moves to a view of the atonement that rips out the mind of Christ and the heart of Christ relative to sin. You see, it winks the eye at everything. Well, Paul said that, you know, there is a sense in which God did overlook some things in the past, but now at the preaching of the gospel, the whole world is held accountable and God is going to come in judgment—he says both temporally in particular people’s lives and then in the end as well.

So God is in the context now of judging. And so those who reject limited atonement end up as well rejecting the heart of Christ toward sin. In the Psalms we read of Christ’s attitude toward those who sin in a rebellious high-handed way. And so what we did last week is required for the church to once more move toward and it will if it understands the concept of God’s law and justice being portrayed for us in the atonement.

Now I’ve tried to kind of wrap some of these things. Let me read you a quote from Cornelius Van der Gal from the Covenantal Gospel about this last point. He said the same thing happens when preaching is shifted in another way, namely that of general atonement. God loves you. So it is said. A gentle Jesus is then held up to the people. And in this way too, the heart is cut out of the gospel. For a long time already, psalms of revenge have had no place in the church.

It is as if the royal attributes of the Christ who subdues his enemies under his feet has been taken away. One lives by one’s favorite texts. But those who restrict the covenant to the elect, as well as those who teach a general atonement, the key continuity between old and new covenant is no longer visible. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law is then used to do away with the fact of covenant vengeance and in this way a gospel of peace is spread throughout the world which in fact creates or suggests a false peace.

If an abridged gospel is presented in which all is bright and beautiful then the respect for God’s word diminishes automatically. Insight into the consequences of the word concerning the broader matters of state, church and society suffers as a result. Many evangelicals quote unquote lack recognition of the fact they are following liberal theology at a distance. They have been taken in by the God is love gospel.

The fact that the holiness Pentecostal movement permeated the Roman Catholic Church and even attracted the attention of the World Council of Churches is proof that we are dealing with a form of contemporary syncretism. Syncretism is mixing two things together which is considered acceptable and not dangerous. You see—Van der Gal’s what he—that’s what we’ve seen in the American culture now for a hundred years.

It appears to be the outworking of a general atonement and a false deal of this particularly important truth of what the atonement was all about. And as a result, we have seen this Jesus as buttercup or nicer than Jesus movement in the context of the church. And what’s the end result? The end result was last week. The end result was Billy Graham asking God to bless Bill Clinton. And I, you know, Billy Graham—I think he’s a holy man.

He’s committed to God. I think he’s got a personal piety. It’s remarkable and commendable. But I saw Billy Graham on TV this last week and he said that the Pope and him agree on nearly everything. And he said that a particular rabbi is one of one of his closest spiritual advisors. Why? Because Billy Graham has rejected the orthodox view of the atonement. And it’s led him towards syncretism. It’s led him toward an ecumenicity that is not based on the scriptural view at all of submission to the word of God, but takes the very heart out of all of that.

And the next step—it’s Tony Campolo who preached at the AM church the prayer meeting supposedly for the president and the vice president and then I saw him and with Charlie Rose this last week as well. Campolo has moved away from the gospel. He said on Larry King—or not Larry King but—he Billy Graham was on with Larry King. Campolo was on with Charlie Rose. He said that he thinks that there are Christians—how did he say this?—that it’s not just Christians who have Christ. And he was talking about Muslims and Buddhists. And he didn’t want to go so far as to say it overtly, but he said very obviously to anybody that was watching that he thought those people even while maintaining a faith of Buddha or maintaining the Muslim religion can at the same time somehow have a comprehension of Christ that is saving to them. That’s what he said.

And so this is the end result of what you know it seems like an arcane doctrine today and well we don’t got to insist on limited atonement. It is absolutely critical for the outworking of the faith. Campolo thinks that Clinton’s doing a great job and in fact he was asked one more little thing before I move on. He in terms of this progression that Van der Gal points out—to then the whole social political implications of the gospel of Christ are taken away.

Campolo said if there’s one thing Bill Clinton needs to do in the second term, it’s to return to what he started to talk about in terms of healthcare and terms of the kind of health care reform that he began in the first term of his office which you know Campolo is calling for a state-run health system. Well, so you see the implications of this minor movement away at the first. The end result is a tremendous departure from the orthodox faith and from what God would have us do in the context of our world.

Okay, I want to address two things after having done this wrap-up. Now, these will be fairly quick. But first I want to address the question: what about evangelism because one of the canards—a canard is a published untruth—about those who espouse the Calvinistic view of atonement is they don’t care about evangelism. That simply isn’t true. The Canons of Dort—I have it printed on your outline—say in the second head death of Christ redemption of men thereby.

Moreover the promise of the gospel is that whosoever believes in Christ crucified shall not perish but have eternal life. This promise together with the command to repent and believe ought to be declared and published to all nations and to all persons promiscuously and without distinction to whom God out of his good pleasure sends the gospel. They had the same thing then in the 1600s thrown at them as we have thrown at us today that you don’t care about evangelism.

And they said, “No, wait a minute. The fact is we believe that this understanding of the orthodox faith, this promise that whosoever believes shall be indeed brought to complete salvation as well as the command for men to repent must be preached and should be preached.” So they affirmed the reformed commitment to evangelism that really was the backbone of the missionary movement of the 17th and 18th century.

We forget our history. But notice what this does not say. Now I’m going to talk about this more when we talk about the way the Holy Spirit moves, irresistible grace. We’ll talk about this again, but some people have used this very section to say that the fathers believe the scriptures taught the free offer of the gospel, a well-meant offer to every person to accept the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, notice what this says. And then we’ll look at Acts chapter 2 and Acts the account of God—Paul rather preaching at Mars Hill in a moment and we’ll see if this comports well with what we’re going to say here. But notice, you know, what this says and what it does not say. It says that the promise of the gospel—that whosoever believes in Christ shall not perish. That is a conditional promise. The point of that phrase is not we want to stress whosoever believes can come to Christ.

That’s not the point. The point of the phrase is that if you do believe that whosoever believes shall have eternal life. They shall not perish. The point is not that there’s this by that anyone can accept the gospel. That’s not the point being made. The point being made is that whosoever believes will indeed have eternal life. Now, why can they say that? Because they believed in an effectual atonement. They didn’t believe that it was up to you.

The kind of faith you have and then how you live your life that’ll determine whether you’re going to eternally perish or be saved. The very heart of evangelism, the promise that whosoever believes shall not perish but have everlasting life is only true—you can only make that statement ultimately if you believe in effectual particular redemption that Christ really guaranteed the salvation of the elect on the cross.

Took care of the whole thing. That has to be applied to you in the context of the Holy Spirit. We’ll talk about that in the next couple of weeks. But you see the point. We are so used to thinking of this stuff in a general atonement free will mindset that we misread the very words that are placed in front of us here or in other places of scripture. We’ll look at Acts 2 in just a moment. But let me continue first with just some points made from this statement of the Canons of Dort.

So first of all, it’s a conditional promise. And the promise is not so much the emphasis on the promise of God to bring us to salvation—whosoever believes—the emphasis not on go tell everybody whosoever believes. You see what I’m saying? Okay. Secondly, this is a promise, not an offer. Okay? It’s not an offer. The word offer is not used here. The word is that promises are given to those who believe. Third, recognize that they say that along with this promise, there is a command to repent and believe. It is a command, not an invitation. You see the difference?

God commands all men. Jesus Christ descends. That great song we’ve sung a few times over the last couple of months—our true homage to demand, not to invite us to come and worship today—to call us definitively, authoritatively to worship him. He commands us. He commands men everywhere to repent and believe, to turn from their evil actions, their actual sins, and also to turn from their unbelief.

Unbelief is culpable in the scriptures. Remember, we talked about Paul saying he had done things in first Timothy in ignorance, but it wasn’t that he was giving himself an excuse. He wasn’t imputing the sin to those who didn’t teach him correct or to God who didn’t show him the knowledge. He knew his ignorance was culpable. Romans 1 say that men know as much as they need to know. And when they don’t believe, it’s sin on their part.

Okay, it is culpable. So notice that this is a command, not an invitation. The command involves actions and the command involves belief. And notice that they say that this command and promise to those who do believe is to be declared and published to all nations. The idea is that it is to be heralded. It is to be proclaimed. It’s not to be pleaded for—that people would somehow please see that it’s so much better for you if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

That is not biblical evangelism according to the Canons of Dort. Then it says, to all persons promiscuously and without distinction. In other words, the gospel goes to the whole world. And don’t hold back the gospel because you don’t like a guy’s race or the color of his skin or the way he talks or what vocation he’s in, anything else. The gospel to be proclaimed and heralded to all men without distinction.

But listen to what it says then—to whom God out of his good pleasure sends the gospel. Even in the statement of the belief that we’ve got to evangelize, ultimately, it’s not our efforts that do this. It’s God and his good pleasure that sends the gospel out to some and not to others. Now in the book of Acts we read this—where Paul speaking at Mars Hill. He says at the times of the ignorance God winked at but now commands all men everywhere to repent.

This is evangelism. The Apostle Paul to pagans at Mars Hill at the Areopagus, okay? And his version of evangelism is he says that God now commands—doesn’t invite—all men everywhere not to have a nicer life, but rather to repent of their sins because he hath appointed a day, the Apostle Paul says, in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained, whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, and that he hath raised him from the dead.

He says that you must repent. You’re commanded to repent and he has—this is because he’s appointed a day in which he shall judge the world. And the certainty of that judgment is the certainty of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. He’s the man being spoken of here, of course. So Paul’s evangelism was based upon judgment, an affirmation of the justice of God and the judgment of God and therefore the law of God and affirmation of the biblical view of the atonement.

And it’s worked out in terms of evangelism. We see this same thing in Acts chapter 2. Look, turning your scriptures to Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2. Ye men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs which God did by him in the midst of you, as you yourselves also know. Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God.

Yet ye have taken and by wicked hands have crucified slain, whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that he should be beholden of it. Now, notice here that in Peter’s evangelism that he does to people that have the word, he tells them again that it is—he asserts the sovereign God. He says that it is that Jesus was delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God.

Ooh, that hidden deep stuff we’re not supposed to give people in evangelism. But that’s what Peter did. Peter sort of asserts the sovereignty of God even in the delivering up of his own son to death to make effectual salvation for the elect and he makes that statement but he also at the same time—by wicked hands—you’ve crucified taken. So he affirms the sovereignty of God but he affirms the responsibility of man and as a result the command—drop down to verse 36—therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus whom you have crucified both Lord and Christ.

Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” That’s biblical evangelism, telling people, “Judgment is coming. You are culpable. You have enough knowledge of God to know you’ve rejected him.” We can tell every person that, whether they’re Jewish, have read the scriptures, or what not. Romans 1 says that all men know enough and they hold down that truth in unrighteousness.

We could tell all people, you know, you’re culpable before God and God’s judging you and you repent or perish. That’s the biblical message and this is the effect it produces in those who are elect in Christ. What shall we do? And Peter says repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. The promise is unto you and to your children and to all that are far off even as many as the Lord our God shall call.

R.J. Rushdoony has an excellent chapter on evangelism in his book Salvation and Godly Rule. And he summarizes this in this way. First, men are declared to be sinners. That’s what biblical evangelism starts with. Men are declared to be sinners. They’re under God’s wrath and sentence of death. In varying forms, this judgment against man was plainly set forth so that men cried out, “What shall I do to be saved?” Second, God is man’s only savior through his incarnate Son, Jesus Christ, has in grace and mercy provided the way of escape.

The atonement and the resurrection are proclaimed as man’s only hope. Christ is the mediator of our salvation. Third, to be saved means more than the release of the condemned, although it is clearly that. It means baptism into Christ and his kingdom. It means obedience to his law, fellowship with his saints in the church, and a common service to the acknowledged king. We read Acts 2 and say, “Oh yeah, people just made a profession and that was it and they were became members and wasn’t any big deal.” No, a huge deal.

All kinds of doctrinal content is put into this message and they respond with an acknowledgement of their need to repent based on the sovereign God and yet their culpability and they respond by being baptized and enrolled in the institutional church and to the service to the Lord Jesus Christ into the one baptism—not multiple forms of baptism. Much content is put into this message. So the Canons of Dort asserting that there is this promise that whoever believes shall be saved and it goes along with the command to men to repent because judgment’s coming and that this is to be preached to all peoples is fulfilled here in Acts 2 and also later in the book of Acts by the Apostle Paul.

Peter and Paul both use that method of evangelism. Not so today. Let me quote again from R.J. Rushdoony and he’s talking about how what we have today in our culture is evangelism as salesmanship. We sell Jesus like we sell soap. We sell Jesus as an answer to people’s problems. He says modern evangelism is salesmanship. It is also blasphemy. It utilizes all the methods of modern selling to appeal to the buyer who is told that he needs Christ and how richer and happier his life will be with his decision to buy Christ.

And testimonial meetings lie