From RBS Tabletalk, the blog of Reformed Baptist Seminary.
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Having defined “particular redemption” (Part 1) and looked at its ramifications for our understanding of Christ and his work (Part 2) as well as evangelism and missions (Part 3), I want to highlight two more practical implications of particular redemption in the final blog in this series.
1. The Doctrine of Particular Redemption Safeguards the Message of Evangelism
Preaching the gospel or witnessing to sinners is not going around to unconverted men and telling them that Christ died for them in particular. That was not the message that the Apostles preached to the unconverted in the book of Acts. Read the evangelistic messages in the book of Acts and not once do the Apostles say to unconverted men, “Christ died for you.” They preached Christ crucified, raised and exalted to the right hand of the Father, and they call upon sinners to repent and to put their trust in Him for salvation. But they never tell unconverted men that Christ died specifically for you and we can’t do that for the simple reason that we can’t know that, unless or until they repent. Yet some people think that the essence of the message of the gospel to lost men is, “Christ died for you.” They say that’s the message we are to proclaim to the lost. But never once is the gospel proclaimed to the lost in that way in the entire N.T.
Now, am I saying that we should never point lost sinners to the cross? Of course not, that’s exactly what we must do, but we must do so in a Biblical manner. Am I trying to say that we should never preach about the love of God, or that God has no love for all men indiscriminately? No, I’m simply pointing out that the gospel proclaimed to sinners in the N.T. is not “Christ died for you.” We are not to go to an unconverted man and say, “I’ve come to tell you that Christ has loved you from eternity with an everlasting love, and He came to give His life specifically for you and if you’ll only believe that Christ loves you so much as to do that all will be well” as though that’s the message. No, in fact it’s preaching like this to sinners that tend to lead to the kind of irreverent, cocky, unconcern, that we see so much of in our churches and in our nation. But the doctrine of particular redemption will guard us from such an imbalanced distorted message which ministers to a false security in sinners.
What am I authorized to proclaim to the unconverted? First, I am authorized to tell them the good news that God has sent His Son into the world to save sinners. Christ was crucified for sinners, raised from the dead and is exalted to the right hand of the Father as Lord of all. Second, I am to tell them that Christ is a perfect and all-sufficient savior for sinners like you, even the worst sinner on the way to hell. So we must tell them the truth about their sinnership, and the desperateness of their lost condition. And then we must point them to Christ in all of the glory of His saving work as a perfect, available, all-powerful Savior for sinners and as their only hope. Third, I am authorized to tell sinners that God has promised that all who know themselves to be a sinner, and who turn from their sin, and put their utter confidence in Christ alone shall be received into favor; and shall not perish but have everlasting life. All who repent and put their trust in Christ are promised all of the benefits that His death has secured for His people. Christ died for those who would believe, Christ died for those who do believe. Any sinner, whoever it is who will face the fact that He is lost and cannot save himself; will face the fact that only Christ can save Him and that Christ is a perfect Savior for sinners; and who will lay down His arms of rebellion against Him and look away to Him alone for deliverance, shall be saved. Finally, I must tell them that God doesn’t leave it at that. Having set Christ and salvation before you, He graciously pleads with you and invites you and indeed, out of sincere desire for your salvation, He commands you to turn to Christ in repentance and faith now without delay.
Let not conscience make you linger, nor of fitness fondly dream; all the fitness He requireth is to feel your need of Him.
Today is the day of salvation and there may not be another day. Hesitate no longer. “Turn, Turn from your evil way for why will you die”; and cast yourself upon the Lord Jesus Christ for mercy. Look to Him, cry to Him. Even if you feel that your heart is so hard that you can’t repent, or if you can’t seem to find out what it is to believe or bring yourself to do so, look to Christ, cling to Christ. Every grace that brings you nigh is in Him. Lie down at His feet as a helpless sinner and give Him no rest until you know that you have passed from death unto life. The Lord Jesus has never and will never, turn away any sinner who truly comes to Him for mercy. He is mighty to save. But if you refuse God’s gracious offer of mercy and thereby trample under foot the precious blood of the Lord Jesus, the very fact that you have heard this gospel will only aggravate the intensity of your misery on the Day of Judgment when God casts you into hell.
So this is a summary of the message that we are to preach to lost sinners. The message is not, “Jesus died for you, now all you need to do is believe that and let Jesus into your heart.”
2. The Doctrine of Particular Redemption Contributes to a Proper Biblical Understanding of the Nature of Saving Faith.
Just as the message of the gospel to the unconverted is not Christ died for you, likewise, contrary to what some believe, saving faith is not believing that Christ died for you. The idea has become common in evangelical Christianity that the essence of being saved is to believe that Christ died for me. If I can be persuaded that is true, and be persuaded to acknowledge and testify to it, I am saved. But a person might persuade himself that Jesus died for him, and yet never actually be brought to the place of repentance and self-abandoning trust in Christ. You see, if the doctrine of general atonement is true, then it is simply a matter of fact that Christ died for every single person in the world without exception. Therefore, it would be entirely possible to persuade a person to believe that “truth” and have them acknowledge, “Yes, I believe that Christ died for me” and yet that belief and acknowledgement be nothing but a mental acceptance of “facts” totally devoid of repentance and trust in Christ. A man might be persuaded to believe that “fact” in just the same way that he might be persuaded to believe that the Bible taught that the one God exists in three persons. But that is not saving faith.
The doctrine of particular redemption makes that very clear. It makes it clear that no man can know whether Christ died particularly for him or not in saving way, unless, or until, he actually comes to Christ in repentance and faith. And faith is not merely the acceptance of certain facts as true. Saving faith is self-abandoning trust in Christ to save me from my sin as my only hope. The sinner who trusts in Christ for salvation is bound to surrender and rely unreservedly upon the sovereign mercy of God in Christ as His only hope and the certainty that Christ died specifically for me is a matter of assurance that can only be mine upon conversion.
I close these blogs with a quote from Charles Spurgeon commenting on this. He said:
I have sometimes thought when I have heard addresses from some revival brethren who kept on saying, ‘believe, believe, believe’, that I should like to have known for myself what it were to believe in order to our salvation. There is I fear a great deal of vagueness and crudeness about this matter. I have heard it often asserted that if you believe that Jesus Christ died for you then you will be saved. My dear hearer, do not be deluded by such an idea. You may believe that Jesus Christ died for you, and may believe what is not true; you may believe that which will bring you no sort of good whatsoever. That is not saving faith. The man who has saving faith afterward attains to the conviction that Christ died for him, but it is not of the essence of saving faith. Do not get that into your head or it will ruin you. Do not say, “I believe that Jesus Christ died for me”, and because of that feel you are saved. I pray you to remember that the genuine faith that saves the soul has for its main element trust, absolute rest of the whole soul on the Lord Jesus Christ to save me, whether He died in particular or in special to save me or not, and relying, as I am, wholly and alone on Him, I am saved. Afterward I come to perceive that I have a special interest in the Savior’s blood; but if I think I have perceived that before I have believed in Christ, then I have inverted the Scriptural order of things, and I have taken as a fruit of my faith that which is only to be obtained by rights, by the man who absolutely trusts in Christ and Christ alone to save.1
Jeffery Smith
Pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church, Coconut Creek, FL
Professor of Reformed Baptist Seminary, Easley, SC
