We must address the question: "How can God sincerely offer grace to those whom He has not elected? What are the grounds for the preaching of a general, sincere and unconditional offer of grace?"

The first ground is: God's command! God has commanded us to preach the Gospel. This command we must obey, even though we cannot make it agree with the doctrine that all nations are not elect We must only obey God.

This causes Dr. John Owen to say: "The preachers of the Gospel in their own churches, totally ignorant of the purpose and the secret decrees of God, and also being forbidden to delve into these things, according to Deut. 29:29, may justly admonish every man to believe and assure them of salvation, if they do so, leaving it up to the decrees of God to whom He shall grant faith, and for whom Christ died." (Death of Christ, page 298)

The second ground for a true offer of grace to the greatest of sinners is the all-sufficiency of the sacrifice of Christ. We saw that it is God's charge to preach the Gospel to all hearers. But can this be done sincerely? Has Christ not died only for His elect? This can be done because preaching does not proceed from God's secret decree, but from His revealed will, and from the all-sufficiency of the sacrifice of Christ.

God does not deceive men when He kindly invites and beseeches the sinner, and promises him that "whosoever believeth in Christ should not perish but have everlasting life.''

The sacrifice of Christ is abundantly sufficient to atone for the sins of the whole world. If God had so willed, there would have been sufficient power in the sacrifice of Christ for the whole world.

Election is a secret that only God knows and fathoms. The all-sufficiency and power of the sacrifice of Christ is a matter that is abundantly revealed in Scripture. In Christ there is sufficient for the greatest of sinners.

With an eye upon that, Dr. Owen says: "This is a sufficient basis and ground for all those general instructions to preach the Gospel to all people, namely, the all-sufficiency of Christ, that we have described." (Death of Christ, p. 297)

The Reformers did not need to teach a doctrine of general atonement in order to preach a sincere offer of grace. They based this preaching on the all-sufficiency there is in Christ for the greatest of sinners.

We believe with all orthodox the­ologians that in the preaching of the Gospel there is a general, sincere, unconditional offer of grace. This is not based on God's hidden decree, nor upon man's ability or repentance. This offer is general, that means it is directed to every hearer. That is why we read so often "whosoever." Calvin notes: "He uses a general expression, 'who­soever' both to invite all sinners with­out exception to partake of this life, and to take away every excuse from the unbelievers.'' (Commentary on John 3:16)

The offer is sincere. Think of the oath of God in Ezekiel 33:11: "As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live.''

The offer is unconditional. It speaks of "without money and without price.'' It calls, "Come as you are.'' Many want to teach a "conditional" offer of grace. Man must first fulfil the conditions, before they are considered ripe for the offer of the grace of God.

Such speaking caused Ralph Erskine to say, "Better to have no Gospel, than a conditional Gospel.'' Since man has fallen the doorstep of conditions is too high for the sinner. We must not (intentionally) confuse this with the Biblical truth that only the brokenhearted desire grace. We heartily con­fess that no one seeks Christ except he who by the Spirt of God has learned to feel the burden of his sin and lost condition. Repentance and faith are the means by which we obtain the promise of the Gospel, but they are not the basis upon which God offers His grace. To offer is not the same as to give in possession.

We want no offer on conditions! Then man is urged to seek a basis in himself for being accepted by God.

Boston says that this doctrine causes the hypocrites to grow in audacity, and it discourages the upright. A hypocrite soon assumes that his repentance is true, and thereupon with great audacity he will appropriate Christ and His grace. The upright, however, suspects His repentance and seeks for more sincere and deeper sorrow for sin, and be­comes discouraged and desperate under a preaching that offers grace upon conditions.

The Necessity of the Work of the Holy Spirit⤒🔗

How necessary it is that the offer of God's grace is preached to sinners! We do not preach the Gospel when we merely tell the way of salvation, and close with the pious wish that God may one day apply it to the heart. Paul did not preach in that way, nor the Reformers or the Puritans. They sought to move them, to admonish them, to beseech them and to allure them. They told their hearers to leave the paths of sin, and to flee to Christ for salvation.

They said, "Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men to believe." But they did not persuade men to accept Christ with an imagined faith. For the most stubborn sinner they had an offer of God's grace, but the sinner may not imagine that he already is a partaker of that which God prom­ised in the Gospel. The sinner could only become a partaker by repenting and believing. If they did not believe and remained unconverted, they would be condemned.

Men did not talk them into an imag­inary faith. I am now thinking of an evil that is spreading all around us, and the best name I can give it is "superficial faith.'' The call to believe the Gospel is then presented without the command to repent and believe. The necessity^-of the work of the Holy Spirit, if not denied, is certainly not mentioned.

Such say, "Away with those old-fashioned distinctions of external and internal call, of common and special grace. All we need is simply to believe and accept the Gospel." They have not the least trouble or struggle with faith any more.

I heartily believe in the free offer of grace of God, but also in the total depravity of man, so that he is unable and unwilling to come to Christ and to believe in Him.

The inability of man to accept the offer must also be preached, and that in such a way that his inability and his unwillingness to obey the Gospel is his sin!

Our congregations, our young people, must be convinced of the truth that they must repent and must believe, and at the same time that they cannot. I cannot, and still I must repent and believe. That must become the state of distress into which we must seek to bring the sinner.

By these truths the conviction is established that the Holy Spirit is nec­essary to work in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure. Thus the work of God attains the place of honor. Only the experience of the distress and the guilt of our impotence and unwillingness teaches us to cry aloud to God. Then the cry is heard: "Turn Thou us unto Thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned.''

Everything calls to us, "Salvation is not of me.'' There is no hope in the law of works, nor is there anything good in our mind, for all things condemn us. But still the way of the free, unmerited and gracious Gospel is open. That Gospel tells you and me, "O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself, but in Me is thy help!'

In Mark 16:15, 16 we read the charge that the Lord Jesus gave to His disciples before He ascended to heaven. He commanded them, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is bap­tized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned."

If we would describe this charge of Christ in our own words, we would say: "Go out into the world, and say to each man without exception that there is good news from God for sinners of Adam's posterity, namely, that Christ has come into the world to save sinners. Proclaim in My name that if in true faith they turn to Christ the Savior they shall be saved. Let them hear that everyone that believes, whoever he may be, whatever he has done, shall be saved from the righteous wrath he has deserved. But also in My name proclaim solemnly that everyone who rejects this message and perseveres in his sin and unbelief, shall be condemned forever."

After this description of the charge of Christ to His disciples, it is clear that the disciples had something to offer to the world. In the name of God they brought a general proclamation of pardon to the fallen posterity of Adam, who had deserved eternal death be­cause of their sin.

Just as I have attempted to describe the charge of Jesus to His disciples, so the Reformed theologians of the National Synod of Dordt in 1618-1619 also did and said, "Moreover, the prom­ise of the gospel is, that whosoever believeth in Christ crucified, shall not perish, but have everlasting 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" (Canons of Dordt II,5).

The Expression "Offer of Grace"←⤒🔗

Some people have made objections against the term "offer of grace." They would rather speak of declare or publish.

We find these words also in the Canons of Dordt quoted above. There is no objection against the use of these words, "declare" and "publish," if we use them as they are used in the five articles against the Remonstrants, and say that "this promise, together with the command to repent and believe ought to be declared and published to all persons promiscuously and without distinction to whom God of His good pleasure sends the gospel."

But that is what those who are so zealous for the words "declared and published" do not want to do. They say that the offer of grace is nothing but an announcement that there is salvation in Christ for certain sinners.

They forget one important aspect of preaching, namely, that we cannot remain noncommittal after hearing the message of God's grace. Besides the preaching which must be brought to all "without distinction," those who drew up the Canons of Dordt emphasized that this preaching must be done "together with the command to repent and believe." By making the preaching a simple pronouncement of the grace of God, we make it hollow.

Paul's preaching was more than an announcement that there was grace for sinners. He said to the men of Athens, "Now God commandeth all men everywhere to repent!"

And John says in 1 John 3:23, "And this is His commandment, that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ.''

This emphasis may never be lacking!

Our Reformed fathers saw no difference between the expressions "declare" or "offer.'' They use both words interchangeably for the same thing.

Thus we read in the Canons, Head 3-4, article 9: "It is not the fault of the gospel, nor of Christ, offered therein, nor of God, who calls all men by the gospel.''

Also the writers of the marginal notes (of the Dutch States Bible) regularly use the word "offer." It would not be difficult to find a hundred places where the word "offer" is used. I will give only one example: In Luke 19:44 the Lord Jesus says that God's judgment shall come upon Jerusalem, "because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation." The marginal notes explain this as follows: "in which the grace of God is now offered to you by the preaching of the gospel." Hence the time of thy visitation is the time in which the Lord visited Jerusalem with the offer of His grace. In the writings of Calvin, Beza, Hellenbroek, Brakel, Comrie, VanderGroe, and Kersten, we find the same manner of speaking about the gospel. We could confirm this with more quotations, but that is not the purpose of this article.

To say that an offer of grace is made to all hearers in the preaching of the gospel is a biblical and Reformed truth.

Why then do some have so many objections to the term "offer of grace?"

The cause is a wrong understanding of the doctrine of the offer of grace. They confuse it with general atone­ment, and they think that this offer implies that man is able to accept God's offer. They want the offer to be limited to those who are brokenhearted, seeking and desiring grace.

The Conflict about the Offer of Grace←⤒🔗

Especially in Scotland there was a conflict about the general, sincere, and unconditional offer of grace. In the beginning of the eighteenth century there was a serious discussion about the question: "What gives a guilty, hellworthy sinner the right to come to Christ to be saved and to be reconciled with God?"

There was one party that consisted mainly of neonomians and hyper-Calvinists, under the leadership of Rector Hadow, who taught that only convinced sinners had a right to come to Christ. They held that the only ground upon which a person could come to Christ consisted in inward qualifications, such as a broken heart and a hunger after righteousness.

There was another party, among whom were Thomas Boston, the Erskine brothers, and other less well-known theologians, who held that the general offer of the gospel, directed to all hearers without distinction, was the ground of one's right to come to Christ.

Hence the first party sought the ground in man; while Boston and his party made God's offer of grace to sinners of Adam's posterity the basis of their proclamation.

After the Secession of 1834 the same struggle arose in Holland. There was the so-called Drenth school of thought that held grace may only be offered to broken and contrite hearts; and a so-called Gelderland school of thought, which taught that an offer of grace and salvation in Christ is made in the name of God to all hearers.

Finally, the same question played a part in the sad rift in our own congre­gations. Already on April 13, 1950, Rev. A. Vergunst brought up at our denominational Synod that the instructor, Dr. Steenblok, taught his students that there is an offer of grace only to convinced sinners, and not to all who live under the preaching of the Word.

At first these problems could be resolved somewhat by the Curatorium's discussing the matter with Dr. Steenblok, but the difference remained, and permeated the atmosphere. The result was that Dr. Steenblok and a few ministers left our denomination in 1953. Since that time those that left us in 1953 keep on insisting that a general offer of grace is the same as the doctrine of general atonement, which states that Christ dies for all men. This confusion of speech became great because they did not keep the issues in the matter clear.

The Bases of the Offer of Grace←⤒🔗

How can a minister of the Gospel offer all his hearers the grace of God in the name of the Lord since they are not all elected? God has not purposed to save them all, and still He sincerely offers His grace to all, saying, "Look unto Me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else" (Is. 45:22).

This certainly seems to be a great difficulty. It even looks like a serious contradiction between what God has purposed in His secret decree and what He testifies and assures us in His Word.

The Arminian uses this contradiction to state: "God offers salvation to all, so all must have been elected." The general offer leads them to a general election and a general atonement. Christ died for all, and therefore God can offer salvation to all. Only the sinner who by the power of his will accepts and believes the offer, receives the benefit of Christ's atonement.

The hyper-Calvinist (one who goes beyond Calvin and the Reformed) states emphatically that God has elected some, and Christ died only for His elect. In this doctrinal statement they are biblical and Calvinistic. But then they draw the unbiblical and uncalvinistic conclusion that therefore grace in Christ is not offered to all hearers, but only to those who are already contrite because of their sins.

The Arminian abuses the offer of grace in still another manner. He states: God demands repentance and faith. The Lord would not demand it if man had not the ability to do so.

The hyper-Calvinist in turn replies: God does not demand faith of an unconverted person, for such a person cannot believe.

Fundamentally, both proceed from the basic principle: God only demands what man is able to do.