Christ, Our Eternal King
The third office of Christ is His kingly office. There are several things we need to learn about this office and work as King.
First, we need to know that there are two aspects to His kingly office: His rule over the wicked world and His rule over His people. The first is called the rule of His power, the second the rule of His grace.
By the rule of His power He sovereignly controls all the actions, thoughts and hearts of wicked men, using them for His purposes and kingdom. He exercised this power when He said with kingly authority to Judas, “That thou doest, do quickly” (John 13:27). He sent Judas to do his evil work in order that He might be crucified and shed His blood for the salvation of His people. He revealed the same power when He made those who captured Him in the garden go backward and fall to the ground (John 18:6) to show that He went willingly to the cross.
This kingly power is exercised against—and in spite of—the will of those over whom He rules. They rise up and take counsel together against Him (Ps. 2:1-3), but He laughs them to scorn (4) and uses them, even in their rebellion, for His own good pleasure.
By the rule of His grace He rules in the church and among His people. This rule He exercises with and through the will of His people. By His grace He changes their will and causes them to love and serve Him willingly. This aspect of His rule is beautifully described in Psalm 110:3, “Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power” (cf. Phil. 1:29).
The difference between these two aspects is most clearly seen in the fact that He rules the wicked with a rod of iron and with it He breaks them in pieces (Ps. 2:9). He rules His people with a shepherd’s staff, guiding them to peace (Ps. 23:4).
We must also remember that as King He does not only rule over His people. He also fights for them and leads them in battle. He is King—the conqueror and victor over all His enemies, the one who has overthrown the whole power and kingdom of darkness (Col. 2:15; Heb. 2:14; I John 3:8).
This victory He has already obtained. The victory is not “yet to be” won, but by His cross it is fully accomplished (John 12:31; Rev. 12:5-10). “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ” (Rev. 11:15). His is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever!
We must live in that victory and acknowledge Him as King by the rule of His grace in our hearts. Let us “kiss the Son,” whom God has set as king, “lest He be angry and we perish from the way” (Ps. 2:12). Rev. Ron Hanko
Winning Souls
“The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; and he that winneth souls is wise” (Prov. 11:30).
One of our readers was struck by the fact that the text quoted above refers to winning souls and wonders how we, as Reformed people, can explain this when we are critical of the Arminian emphasis on “winning souls.”
We must be absolutely sure, first of all, that we understand that this text has nothing to do with Arminian interpretation. The Arminian makes salvation dependent upon the choice of the human will, thus the one who “wins souls” is the one who persuades another to accept Jesus Christ as his personal Saviour. The “soul winner” is therefore the man to whom can be given the credit for saving someone.
This is contradictory of all Scripture, which teaches in innumerable places that salvation is solely the work of God. He alone can enter the totally depraved heart of man and so change that heart through the work of the Holy Spirit of Christ that the sinner comes to Christ.
What then does the text mean when it speaks of “winning” souls?
This idea is not foreign to Scripture. A similar passage is found in James 5:20: “Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.”
The important point to remember here is that, although only God can “win souls,” God is pleased to use means to do this. He uses the means of the preaching of the gospel to work faith. In fact, so true is this that no salvation is even possible apart from the preaching of the gospel. Paul makes this clear in Romans 10:13–14: “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?”
Just as God uses the preaching of the gospel to bring to conscious faith and salvation in Christ, so also does He use the personal witness and testimony of the saints to bring His own people under the preaching of the word so that they can be saved. This happens in two ways.
It may happen that a member of the church falls into sin. God is pleased to restore such a one to the fellowship of the church and the way of holiness by the personal witness and admonition of the sinner’s fellow saints. Paul speaks of this in Galatians 6:1: “Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.”
And this is what James refers to in James 5:20.
But God is also pleased to use the witness and testimony of His people to bring out of unbelief His own elect. We are called to be God’s witnesses in the wicked world in which we live. We are called to be witnesses both by our life and by our speech. God may very well be pleased to use this witness to bring someone to the church and under the preaching. And then, within the church, he is found salvation.
Our Heidelberg Catechism emphasizes this when it gives as one of the reasons why we must do good works: “that by our godly conversation others may be gained to Christ” (Q. & A. 86).
So important is this that no mission work of the church can ever be used by God to gather His elect unless both the calling and sending church and the group of believers brought together by the preaching are faithful witnesses to the truth they love and the grace of God which has saved them.
God is always pleased to use means. He uses the means of food to sustain our earthly life. Only God can give us our life in the world. And He brings it to an end when He has determined that to happen. But it remains a fact that if we deliberately starve ourselves, we will die. God is not mocked, and the means He gives are necessary and important.
So it is in the spiritual realm. God is pleased to use means to save His people. Some Reformed theologians, to emphasize this, have gone so far as to say, “God binds Himself to means.” He will not work apart from them.
And so He uses our witness to gather His church.
This is a great blessing and a great calling. It is a blessing because it is a privilege to witness to God’s truth. It is a calling because it is a part of our responsibility to live lives of gratitude to Him for the salvation He has freely given us in Christ. How can we who are saved by grace be silent?
Let us in word and deed be faithful witnesses to God’s great truth of sovereign grace in Christ.
And let us remember, “Actions speak louder than words!” Prof. Herman Hanko
To Whom Are the Promises of the Gospel Addressed? (2)
We continue to answer the question posed by one of our readers concerning an old article in the News (vol. I, no. 7). He writes, “I may be reading too much into it, but I notice that you do not read into Matthew 23:37 the free offer of the gospel, as I would. Indeed, on page 1, you write, ‘Are you weary because of your sins? To such Christ says, “Come unto me … and I will give you rest.’ Are you suggesting that there is a certain degree of weariness of sins before we may bid sinners fly to Christ? If so, what degree is that? Am I to single out in my congregation those who bear the marks of the elect and say that they only may freely receive Christ? Or do I bid them come to a Saviour who loved an unregenerate rich young ruler and was moved with compassion for the multitudes?”
We have pointed out the teaching of Scripture that the promises are only for the elect—particular promises. Particular election, particular atonement, particular grace and a particular promise all go together.
We emphatically reject the idea, however, that the promises of the gospel should be preached only to the elect or to those who first show some evidence of being elect, that is, “sensible sinners.” The whole gospel must be generally proclaimed.
It is impossible to preach “only to the elect.” No one can judge finally between one who has the marks of the elect and one who pretends to have them. If we try to apply the promises only to the elect we will inevitably be applying them to some who are hypocrites. Nor is this our business. The Spirit is the one who takes the promises of the word and applies them to those who are truly weary, thirsty and heavy laden. Our only business is to proclaim promises of Christ from the word as the means the Spirit uses.
In other words, it must be made clear in the preaching that the promises belong only to the weary and the thirsty, i.e., the elect, but this does not mean we single out persons. That is the work of the Holy Spirit—first to make men weary of sin, and then to apply to them the balm of Gilead. We proclaim the truth (including the promises), show that these promises are only for the elect, call men to repent and believe the promises and leave the rest to the Holy Spirit—either to use that proclamation and call for salvation of the elect or for the hardening and condemnation of the rest.
We reject, therefore, both the idea that the gospel is a “well-meant offer of salvation” to all hearers and the idea that the whole gospel can be preached only to the elect or to those who first give evidence of being elect.
In bidding men come to Christ, therefore, we do not bid them come to a Saviour who “loves all men but did not die for them or pray for them,” but we bid them come and tell them that “no one who comes will be cast out.” And we bid them come believing that the Holy Spirit will use that call to cause the elect to come. Thus even their coming will be the result of God’s grace and the saving operations of the Holy Spirit.
To tell all that God “loves everyone and wants to save them all” only breeds confusion and hardens the sinner in his unbelief. Why should he believe and repent if God loves him anyway? Why should he take the threat of judgment seriously when he is constantly assured that God does not want anyone to perish and is trying to save everyone? Why should he repent and believe if God is trying to save him? If God cannot save him, who can? Rev. Ron Hanko
