[Christ’s Tears over Jerusalem].—The tears of our Lord over the city of Jerusalem are a clear demonstration against the Calvinistic doctrine of election. It is said, “When He was come near, He beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes” (Luke xix. 41, 42). When a woman weeps it is not an infrequent phenomenon. Her nerves are more finely strung than man’s, and a touching tale or sympathetic story brings the tears to her eyes and sobs from her lips. When men weep it indicates deep emotion; and when Christ looked upon the city, His soul was moved with compassion, and He wept. He knew what had been done for the guilty inhabitants—how God had borne with them—and the doom that, like the sword of Damocles, hung over them, and His tender heart found relief in tears. In the presence of this weeping Redeemer can we entertain the Calvinistic notion that He could easily have saved the people, if He had only wished it? He wished to gather them as a hen doth her chickens under her wings, but they would not come. Were there not another passage in the Bible than the one just referred to (Matthew xxiii. 37), it is sufficient to dispose of the theory that God uses irresistible grace in saving men. He had used the most powerful motives to bring them to himself, but they would not come.
[John Wesley], in writing on Predestination, says,—“Let it be observed that this doctrine represents our blessed Lord Jesus Christ, the righteous, the only-begotten Son of the Father, full of grace and truth, as an hypocrite, a deceiver of the people, a man void of common sincerity. For it cannot be denied that He everywhere speaks as if He was willing that all men should be saved. Therefore, to say that He was not willing that all men should be saved, is to represent Him as a mere hypocrite and dissembler. It cannot be denied that the gracious words which came out of His mouth are full of invitations to all sinners. To say, then, He did not intend to save all sinners, is to represent Him as a gross deceiver of the people. You cannot deny that He says, ‘Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy laden.’ If, then, you say He calls those that cannot come, those whom He knows to be unable to come, those whom He can make able to come but will not; how is it possible to describe greater insincerity? You represent Him as mocking His helpless creatures, by offering what He never intends to give. You describe Him as saying one thing and meaning another, as pretending the love which He had not. Him in whose mouth was no guile, you make full of deceit, void of common sincerity; then, especially when drawing nigh the city He wept over it, and said, ‘O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, and ye would not.’ Now, if ye say they would but He would not, you represent Him (which who could hear) as weeping crocodile’s tears; weeping over the prey which himself had doomed to destruction” (Ser. 128).
Consider the last commission of Christ. Before our Lord left the world He said to His apostles, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature.” Good news was thus to be proclaimed to every human being. If the commission meant anything it meant this, that God was honestly and earnestly desirous of saving every one. And this is in beautiful harmony with the exhortation in Isaiah: “Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth” (Isa. xlv. 22). It is also in keeping with the words of Jesus recorded by John: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John iii. 16); and with what the apostle Peter says, that “God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter iii. 9); and with what the apostle Paul says, that God “will have all men to be saved” (1 Tim. ii. 4). But whilst the commission to preach the good news is in harmony with these express statements, it is out of joint and incongruous with the Calvinistic doctrine of election, that God wishes only a few of the human family saved.
Consider the [Holy Spirit’s Invitation.] In Revelation xxii. 17, it is written: “And the Spirit and the bride say, come. And let him that heareth say, come. And let him that is athirst come, and whosoever will let him take the water of life freely.” Whilst we are so constituted that we cannot believe a proposition the terms of which we do not understand, and whilst there is much that is inscrutable in the Spirit’s work, yet the passage just quoted clearly means, if it means anything, that the Holy Spirit invites all to come and drink of the life-giving water. We cannot doubt His sincerity. When all are invited to drink, it is implied that there is water for all, and that it is free to all, and that they have power to drink. We may not ask one to drink at an empty fountain without being guilty of the sheerest mockery; and neither may we ask the wounded and disabled man, who cannot walk a step, to come and drink, without being guilty of the same. This invitation of the Spirit, then, is inconsistent with the Calvinistic notion that His converting grace is limited. Says the late [Dr. John Guthrie], “Was it antecedently to be supposed that a Divine Father who loves all, and so loved as to give His own and only-begotten for our ransom, and that the Divine Son, who as lovingly gave Himself, would send the Divine Spirit mediatorially to reveal and interpret both, who should not operate in the world on the same principle of impartiality and universality? What philosophy and theology thus dictate, Scripture confirms. Christ promised His disciples an interpreting and applying Spirit, who should convince the world. Prophets predicted, and Pentecost proved, that God was pouring out His Spirit on all flesh. These influences were, in their largest incidents, soul-saving; through being moral, they were resistible. Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost, said Stephen, and the Holy Ghost himself saith to-day, Oh that ye would hear His voice; which He would not do if faith came by another sort of influence which He only could give, and which He did not mean to give till to-morrow, or next year, or not at all! In that last and most gracious of Gospel invitations, which the incarnate Himself utters in Rev. xxii. 17, among other inviters, the Spirit says, come! and says it to all; which surely, as He is the Spirit of truth, He would not do, if not a soul could come till He himself put forth an influence which He had predetermined to bestow only on a select and favoured number. The ugly limitation will not do. The work and heart of the loving Spirit are, and must be, as large as those of the Father and the Son, whom He came to reveal.” (Discourses, Ser. X.)
The objections thus tendered to the Calvinistic theory of election are sufficient separately, and much more so collectively, to condemn the dogma. We impute no motives to the honoured men who hold the doctrine. They are doubtless as sincere in their belief as we are in ours. It did seem to us, at one time, that God could convert men if He wished it; but the dictum of Chillingworth—“the Bible and the Bible alone is the religion of Protestants,” overturned that idea. The words of Jesus, “How often would I have gathered thy children together, . . . but ye would not,” showed that Jesus was wishful to save the people; but His wish was not realised, because they “would not.” And the Bible and philosophy are in harmony. We could easily conceive, that were certain individuals to be taken by almighty effort from one sphere, and placed in another, they would be converted. Christ confirms this idea. He said, “Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works which have been done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes” ([Mat. xi. 21]). But as God loves all equally with the love of compassion, this exercise of miracle in one case would lead to the exercise of miracle in another. And what would this involve? It would simply lead to the overturning of God’s moral providence, which is based upon, and carried on in conjunction with, the highest wisdom. Parents may often be found sacrificing their wisdom to their love, but it is not so with God. All His attributes are in harmony. Justice is not sacrificed to love, nor love to justice. There is thus, in the Divine character, a firm and unchanging basis for the most profound veneration and the most intense affection.
Regarding the particular illustration of the people of Sodom, Tyre, and Sidon, and why Christ had not done mighty works there, Dr. Morison has remarked, “It was not befitting our Saviour to become incarnate at all times, or even at two different epochs in the history of the world. And when He did appear at a particular epoch in time, ‘the fulness of the time,’ it was absolutely necessary that He should live and work miracles, not everywhere, but in some one limited area or locality” (Com. on Mat., ad loc.)
THE SCRIPTURAL VIEW OF EVANGELICAL ELECTION.
Although there is much confusion of thought regarding election viewing it from a Calvinistic standpoint, the word itself is simple enough, as is the doctrine when viewed in the light of Scripture.