“Shew me thy ways, O LORD;
teach me
thy paths.” (Psalm 25:4)
In this study, we will look at
the
biblical teaching regarding “common grace.”
What does this mean? As in previous
studies, we will look at definitions,
scriptures, lexical evidence, commentary
evidence and confessional support for the
purpose to glorify God in how we
live. May God be glorified always!
In this study, I have very few
comments. This study is an example of how I
approach a topic for ongoing biblical
research. I learned a long time ago that it
is profitable to write down your
personal Bible studies. Not only for your
own future reference but also to pass
them on to those whom are mentoring their
friends.
This study will focus on a
positive presentation
of “common grace.” In fairness, there are
learned Christian teachers who deny
that there is such a thing as “common
grace.”
For example, Herman Hoeksema, a
leading
Dutch Reformed theologian/pastor and
Professor David Engelsma both from the
Protestant Reformed Church deny there is
such a thing as “common grace.” In
fairness to these men of impeccable
character, at the end of this study, there
is a link to a debate on common grace that
reflects their point of view.
Common grace:
“The
grace
of God by which he gives people innumerable
blessings that are not part of
salvation.” “Those general operations of the
Holy Spirit whereby He, without
renewing the heart, exercises such a moral
influence on man through His general
or special revelation, that sin is
restrained, order is maintained in social
life, and civil righteousness is promoted.
Or, (b) those general blessings, such
as rain and sunshine, food and drink,
clothing and shelter, which God imparts
to all men indiscriminately where and in
what measure it seems good to Him.” *
Common
grace:
“Common Grace is the grace God
gives
to creation as a whole, to all unbelievers.
In this universal non-salvific form
of grace, God allows the sun to shine upon
both the righteous and the
unrighteous.He does not judge
unbelievers right away due to the work of
Christ on the cross by which people
are saved.God endures with them for the
sake of those who would believe.Unbelievers can be doctors,
engineers, parents, etc., and function
within God's domain and counsel. God shows
his goodness to all people when He
feeds them, allows them to work, experience
beauty, learn and have joy. It is
also common grace that “restrains” the wrath
of God until a later time.” **
From Scripture:
“The LORD is
good to all: and his tender mercies are over
all his works.” (Psalm 145:9)
The Pulpit
Commentary on Psalm 145:9
captures the idea of “common grace” when
seen that God does not the desire the
death of the wicked:
Verse 9. - The
Lord is good to all; and his tender mercies
are over all his works. “The Lord is good to
all;” he “maketh his sun to rise
on the evil and on the good, and send-eth
rain on the just and on the unjust”
(Matthew 5:45). He “wouldeth not the death
of a sinner, but rather that he may
turn from his wickedness and live,” And his
“tender mercies,” or “compassions,”
are not only over his human creatures, but
“over all his works” - all that he
has made - animals as well as men, "creeping
things," zoophytes, all
that can feel. (1)
“That ye may be
the children of your Father which is in
heaven: for
he maketh his
sun to rise on the evil and on the good,
and sendeth rain on the just and on
the unjust.” (Matthew 5:45)
From Matthew
Poole's Commentary on Matthew
5:45 also picks up on this when seen that
God’s gift is given to the just and
unjust alike:
As your
heavenly Father hath a common love, which he
extendeth to all mankind, in supplying their
necessities, with the light and
warmth of the sun, and with the rain; as
well as a special love and favour,
which he exerciseth only toward those that
are good, and members of Christ; so
ought you to have: though you are not
obliged to take your enemies into your
bosom, yet you ought to love them in their
order. And as your heavenly Father,
though he will one day have a satisfaction
from sinners, for the wrong done to
his majesty, unless they repent; yet, to
heap coals of fire on their heads,
gives them good things of common providence,
that he might not leave them
without witness, yea, and affords them the
outward means of grace for their
souls: so, although you are bound to seek
some satisfaction for God’s honour
and glory from flagitious sinners, and
though you may in an orderly course seek
a moderate satisfaction for the wrong done
to yourselves, yet you ought to love
them with a love consistent with these
things; that so you may imitate your
heavenly Father, and approve yourselves to
be his children. (2)
“And the times
of this ignorance God winked at; but now
commandeth all men everywhere to repent.”
(Acts 17:30)
“Let every soul
be subject unto the higher powers. For there
is no power but of God: the powers that be
are ordained of God. Whosoever
therefore resisteth the power resisteth the
ordinance of God: and they that
resist shall receive to themselves
damnation. For rulers are not a terror to
good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then
not be afraid of the power? Do that
which is good and thou shalt have praise of
the same: For he is the minister of
God to thee for good. But if thou do that
which is evil, be afraid; for he
beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the
minister of God, a revenger to
execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.”
(Romans 13:1-4)
Common Grace
from the Dictionary
of Latin and Greek
Theological Terms:
gratia
communis:
common grace i.e., a non-saving, universal
grace according to which God in his
goodness bestows his favor upon all creation
in the general blessings of
physical sustenance and moral influence for
the good.Thus, rain falls on the just and the
unjust
and all men have the law engraved on their
hearts.Gratia
communis is therefore contrasted by
the Reformed with particular or special
grace (gratia
particularis sive specialis,
q.v.). (3)
John Calvin
on Common Grace from Psalm 145:9:
“Jehovah is
good to all, etc. The truth here stated is
of
wider application than the former, for the
declaration of David is to the
effect, that not only does God, with
fatherly indulgence and clemency, forgive
sin, but is good to all without
discrimination, as he makes his sun to rise
upon the good and upon the wicked.
Forgiveness of sin is a treasure from which
the wicked are excluded, but their sin and
depravity does not prevent God from
showering down his goodness upon them, which
they appropriate without being at
all sensible of it. Meanwhile believers, and
they only, know what it is to
enjoy a reconciled God, as elsewhere it is
said — “Come ye to him, and be ye
enlightened, and your faces shall not be
ashamed; taste and see that the Lord
is good.”(Psalm 34:5, 8.) When it is added
that the mercy of God extends to all
his works, this ought not to be considered
as contrary to reason, or obscure.
Our sins having involved the whole world in
the curse of God, there is
everywhere an opportunity for the exercise
of God’s mercy, even in helping the
brute creation.” (4)
John Knox on
Common Grace:
“After these
common mercies, I say, whereof the reprobate
are often partakers, he openeth the treasure
of his rich mercies, which are
kept in Christ Jesus for his Elect … Such as
willingly delight not in blindness
may clearly see that the Holy Ghost maketh a
plain difference betwixt the
graces and mercies which are common to all,
and that sovereign mercy which is
immutably reserved to the chosen children.”
(5)
Louis Berkhof
on Common Grace:
“The
origin of the doctrine of
common grace was occasioned by the fact that
there is in the world, alongside
of the course of the Christian life with all
its blessings, a natural course of
life, which is not redemptive and yet
exhibits many traces of the true, the
good, and the beautiful. The question arose,
how can we explain the
comparatively orderly life in the world,
seeing that the whole world lies under
the curse of sin? How is it that the earth
yields precious fruit in rich
abundance and does not simply bring forth
thorns and thistles? How we can we
account for it that sinful man still retains
some knowledge of God, of natural
things, and of the difference between good
and evil, and shows some regard for
virtue and for good outward behavior? What
explanation can be given for the
special gifts and talents that with which
the natural man is endowed, and of
the development of science and art by those
who are entirely devoid of the new
life that is in Christ Jesus? How can we
explain the religious aspirations of
men everywhere, even of those who did not
come in touch with the Christian
religion? How can the unregenerate still
speak truth, do good to others, and
lead outwardly virtuous lives?” (6)
Charles Hodge
on Common Grace:
“That
there is a divine influence
of the Spirit granted to all men, is plain
both from Scripture and from
experience… to the general influence of the
Spirit (or to common grace) we owe,
- 1. All the decorum, order, refinement, and
virtue existing among men 2. To
the same divine agent is due specially that
general fear of God, and the
religious feeling which prevail among men,
3. The Scriptures refer to this
general influence of the Spirit those
religious experiences, varied in
character and degree, which so often occur
where genuine conversion or
regeneration does not attend or follow.” (7)
Common Grace
from the Dictionary
of
Theological Terms:
A
term use to describe the
goodness of God to a sin-cursed world, not
including salvation. By His common
grace, God places a restraint upon sin and
its natural results and upon the
immediate execution of wrath against
sinners.
It is
not merely negative. It
includes the bestowal of favour and blessing
of a general nature, but not of
that special kind which leads to salvation.
Thus, Prof. John Murray defined
common grace as “Every favour of whatsoever
kind and degree, falling short of
salvation, which this undeserving and
sin-cursed world enjoys at the hand of
God.” (8)
Chapter 10 of
the Westminster Confession of Faith:
Section
4.) Others not elected,
although they may be called by the ministry
of the Word, (1) and may have some common
operations of the Spirit,
(2) yet they never truly come unto Christ,
and therefore cannot be saved: (3)
much less can men, not professing the
Christian religion be saved in any other
way whatsoever, be they never so diligent to
frame their lives according to the
light of nature, and the laws of that
religion they do profess; (4) and, to
assert and maintain that they may, is very
pernicious, and to be detested. (5)
(1)
Mt 22:14. (2) Mt 7:22; Mt
13:20, 21; Heb. 6:4 ,5. (3) John 6:64, 65,
66; John 8:24. (4) Ac 4:12; John
14:6; Eph. 2:12; John 4:22; John 17:3. (5) 2
John 9, 10, 11; 1Cor. 16:22; Gal.
1:6, 7, 8
While
not using the term “common
grace,” the Confession of Faith uses the
term, “common operations,” which is
virtually
synonymous.
Common
Grace by James Montgomery Boice:
[How
do]
millions of men and women respond to the
true and even greater benevolence of
God? All are recipients of what theologians
call “common grace,” the provision
of God for all persons; yet they fail to
acknowledge it or allow it to
accomplish the ends for which God dispenses
such benevolence. Romans 2:4 speaks
of this: “Do you show contempt for the
riches of his [that is, God's] kindness,
tolerance and patience, not realizing that
God's kindness leads you toward
repentance?”
If
you are
not a follower of Jesus Christ, you are in
the same position as Joseph's
brothers at this point in the story (see
Genesis 43:15-34). You have sinned
against your elder brother, the Lord Jesus
Christ, by denying his claims and
refusing his proper lordship over your life.
He has used means to awaken you to
your need and bring you to an open
confession of sin. But you have gone only so
far as God's tactics have forced you to go;
even though he has been most loving
and gracious toward you, you have not
acknowledged his hand in these benefits.
I
want you
to awaken to God's goodness. I want you to
see that all you are and all you
have are a result of God's common grace to
you.
Let
me
explain it from God's perspective. God does
not owe you anything. He does not
even owe you a chance at salvation. When
Adam and Eve first sinned against him
in Eden, God could have judged them harshly
and have sent them to hell at once;
and if he had done that, He would have been
absolutely just in his actions.
Adam and Eve would have received nothing
more than their proper desserts. If,
acting in a different fashion, God had
instead allowed them to live and produce
offspring until there were literally
millions of their descendants spread out
over the entire earth to occupy it and
pollute it by their abundant acts of
idolatry, theft, fornication, hatred, greed,
and other forms of sin, and then
had brushed them all into eternal torment,
God would nevertheless still have
been just. No one could fault him. The
righteous angels in heaven would still
be able to cry out, as they do even today,
"Holy, holy, holy is the LORD
Almighty; the whole earth is full of his
glory" (Isaiah 6:3).
God
owes
us nothing. Yet, as we well know, God did
not immediately banish Adam and Eve
to hell, nor did he later suddenly consign
the masses of mankind to torment. On
the contrary, though there is a judgment to
come, God has continually poured
out his blessings on men and women.
You
have
received such blessings. Donald Grey
Barnhouse writes correctly, “You are not a
believer in Christ and yet you are still out
of hell. That is the grace of God.
You are not in hell, but you are on earth in
good health and prosperity. That
is the common grace of God. The vast
majority of those who read these words are
living in comfortable homes or apartments.
That is common grace. You are not
fleeing as refugees along the highways of a
country desolated by war. That is
common grace. You come home from your job
and your child runs to meet you in
good health and spirits. That is common
grace. You are able to put your hand in
your pocket and give the child a quarter or
a half dollar for an allowance. It
is common grace that you have such
abundance. You go into your house and sit
down to a good meal. That is common grace.
On the day that you read these words
there are more than a billion and a half
members of the human race who will go
to sleep without enough to satisfy their
hunger, The fact that you have enough
is common grace. You do not deserve it. And
if you think that you do deserve
anything at all from God beyond the wrath
which you have so richly earned, you
merely show your ignorance of spiritual
principles.”
Romans
2:4
puts the matter of God's common grace to you
and others as a question: “Do you
show contempt for the riches of his
kindness, tolerance and patience?” The
answer is, of course, you do--unless you
have repented of your sin and turned
back toward God through faith in Jesus
Christ. By nature human beings are
ungrateful. By nature you show “contempt”
for God's kindness. Yet it is
precisely this kindness that God is using to
bring you to repentance.
I
quote
Barnhouse again: “To despise the riches of
God's grace is the blackest of all
sins. It far outweighs the sins that are a
violation of righteousness. Fallen man
has a fallen nature. That is why the Lord
seemed to overlook the outbreaks of
the flesh, knowing man's frame and
remembering that he is but dust (Psalm
103:14). You who boast, perhaps, that you
are not guilty of the great fleshly
sins should realize that the despising of
God's goodness is a sin that far
transcends an act that might be called a
crime under human law.
“Why
is
God so good toward the lost? He declares
that the purpose of the riches of his
goodness, forbearance and longsuffering is
to lead man to repentance; and he
further declares that man does not know the
object of God's goodness. Is this
not a further picture of the state of man by
nature? Can it not be seen that
the dark ignorance of unbelief has brought a
further fruit of ignorance of the
grace of God? You are in good health? Why
does God permit it? The answer is
that he wants you to turn to him and
acknowledge his goodness and accept the
riches that he has for you. You have other
blessings that come from the common
grace of God. The purpose of such riches is
to cause you to turn about-face and
come to Him for further blessing.” (Donald
Grey Barnhouse, “God's
Wrath,” The Book of the Revelation,
vol. 2 Eerdmans, Grand Rapids 1953)
God's
Love
Commended
I
have
spoken of “common grace” in the sense that
God's genuine affection has been
poured out upon all persons regardless of
who they are or what wrongs they may
have done. As Jesus said, God “causes his
sun to rise on the evil and the good,
and sends rain on the righteous and the
unrighteous” (Matt. 5:45). Common
grace? Yes! But in another sense, it is not
at all common. It is most uncommon.
It is extraordinary, and it leads us to the
most uncommon or extraordinary love
of all. We find it in Romans 5:6-8: “At just
the right time, when we were still
powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very
rarely will anyone die for a
righteous man, though for a good man someone
might possibly dare to die. But
God demonstrates his own love for us in
this: While we were still sinners,
Christ died for us.”
It is
“while
we were still sinners” that God has done
everything for us. Here is love at its
fullest. It is while we were still sinners
and, in fact, oblivious both to the
extent of our sin and to the uncommon
kindness of God toward us in all things that
God sent his own son, the Lord Jesus Christ,
to die for us.
Moreover,
God
goes to the unheard of length of commending
his love to us by this fact.
The word commend (KJV; “demonstrate,” NIV)
is used in two ways in the New
Testament. It sometimes means “to establish,
prove or make certain.” In this
sense the death of Christ certainly “proves”
God's love for us, the meaning the
NIV translators have favored. But “prove” is
a cold word. It has the
temperature of algebraic axioms and
corollaries. It seems remote. The other use
of “commend” is “to recommend or set forth
in such a manner that the matter
appeals to the heart.” This surely is the
fullness of the meaning here. The
death of Jesus Christ proves the reality and
demonstrates the nature of God's
unfathomable love. But more than that, it
commends it to us in such a manner
that we will repent of our sin--which left
unrepented of keeps us from God--and
instead leads us to embrace Jesus Christ as
our own personal Savior.
Have
you
done that? If not, notice that the word
"commend" (“demonstrate”) is
in the present tense (“commends” or
“demonstrates”) rather than in the past
tense (“commended” or "demonstrated"). That
is, it is not merely a
past happening that today may be forgotten.
It is a present reality, as much a
force today as it has ever been. It is
today--right now--that God is commending
his deep and genuine love to you by Jesus'
death.
Today
you
and I may look back at Joseph's brothers and
fault them for their ignorance of
Joseph's identity and their slowness to
repudiate past sin. But if we try, we
can find at least some partial excuses for
them. Their sin was long past. There
was nothing they could do to change its
consequences. As far as their
recognition of Joseph was concerned, how
could they possibly guess that this
powerful Egyptian was the despised brother
they had last seen as he was led off
as a teenager into slavery?
There
are
no such excuses for us. We know there is
God; the Bible says that only fools
deny it (Ps. 14:1). We know that all we are
and have come from God's hand; the
Bible says, "Every good and perfect gift is
from above, coming down from
the Father of the heavenly lights, who does
not change like shifting
shadows" (James 1:17). When we stop to think
about it, we even know that God
sent the Lord Jesus Christ to save us by
giving his life in our place. But do
we acknowledge this? We do not--unless God
awakens our consciences and turns us
from our manifest ingratitude.
That
is
what you must allow God to do for you--if
you have not turned from sin
previously. You must allow him to turn you
to faith in your older brother, the
Lord Jesus Christ, who has loved and
continues to love you perfectly. (9)
Comments in closing:
Anything
that
God does in revealing His will to man can be
called common grace.
Revealing anything to man is gracious. Any
providential action whereby blessings
come to the just and unjust alike is common
grace. The opposite of grace would
be judgment and wrath. It is a blessing to
the unjust that a famine ends, a
nation is spared from war, murders and
thieves are brought to judgment rather
than rape and pillage. That the unjust are
not immediately consumed, is God’s
grace. Many sinners, rather than experience
calamity, produce works of art,
contribute to science in which both the just
and unjust are blessed.
“Blessed art thou, O LORD:
teach me
thy statutes.” (Psalm 119:12)
“Study to shew thyself approved
unto
God, a workman that needeth not to be
ashamed, rightly dividing the word of
truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15)
Notes:
1.H.
D. M. Spence and Joseph S. Exell, The
Pulpit Commentary, Psalms, Vol. 8,
(Grand Rapids, Michigan, Eerdmans
Publishing Company reprint 1978), p.371.
2.Matthew Poole, Matthew Poole's Commentary on the
Holy Bible, Vol. 3, (Peabody,
Massachusetts,
Hendrickson Publishers, 1985), p. 26.
3.Richard A. Muller, Dictionary
of Latin and Greek Theological
Terms, (Grand Rapids, Michigan, Baker
Academic, paperback 1995), p. 130.
4.John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentary, Psalms,
vol. 6, (Grand Rapids, Michigan, Baker
Book House, reprinted 1979), p. 276.
5.Ed David Laing, The Works of John Knox, (vol.
5, Wodrow Society, Edinburgh, 1856), On
Predestination, p. 87.
6.Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology, (Grand
Rapids, Michigan, William B. Eerdmans
Publishing Co., 1968), p. 432.
8.Alan Cairns, Dictionary of Theological Terms,
(Emerald House Group, Ambassador
Productions, LTD), p. 93.
9.James
Montgomery Boice, (Quotation from Genesis: An Expositional
Commentary, Zondervan, Grand Rapids,
1987)
“To God, only wise, be glory
through
Jesus Christ forever. Amen.” (Romans 16:27)
and “heirs according to the
promise.” (Galatians 3:28, 29)
Mr. Kettler has previously
published
articles in the Chalcedon
Report and Contra
Mundum. He and his wife Marea
attend the Westminster, CO, RPCNA Church. He
served as an ordained ruling elder
in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. He
worked in and retired from a fortune
five hundred company in corporate America
after forty years. He runs two blogs
sites and is the author of the book
defending the Reformed Faith against
attacks, titled: The
Religion That
Started in a Hat. Available at:
www.TheReligionThatStartedInAHat.com
For more study:
* For a great source of
theological
definitions go to Rebecca writes at Rebecca
Writes
http://www.rebecca-writes.com/theological-terms-in-ao/
The
Myth of Common Grace by Garrett P. Johnson
http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=28
Transcription of A Debate on
Common
Grace 9/12/ 03 distributed by the Evangelism
Society of Southeast Protestant
Reformed Church Grand Rapids, Michigan