|
SECOND HEAD OF DOCTRINE
CHRIST'S DEATH AND MAN'S REDEMPTION THROUGH IT
|
ARTICLE
1
|
THE PUNISHMENT WHICH GOD'S JUSTICE
REQUIRES
|
|
Ex 34:6,7
Rom 5:16
Gal 3:10
|
God is not
only supremely merciful but also supremely just. And as He Himself
has revealed in His Word, His justice requires that our sins, committed
against His infinite majesty, should be punished not only in this
age but also in the age to come, both in body and soul. We cannot
escape these punishments unless satisfaction is made to the justice
of God. |
| |
ARTICLE
2
|
THE SATISFACTION MADE BY CHRIST
|
|
Jn 3:16
Rom 5:8
2 Cor 5:21
Gal 3:13
|
We ourselves,
however, cannot make this satisfaction and cannot free ourselves
from God's wrath. God, therefore, in His infinite mercy has given
His only-begotten Son as our Surety. For us or in our place He was
made sin and a curse on the cross so that He might make satisfaction
on our behalf. |
| |
ARTICLE
3
|
THE INFINITE VALUE OF CHRIST'S DEATH
|
|
Heb 9:26,28
Heb 10:14
1 Jn 2:2
|
This death
of the Son of God is the only and most perfect sacrifice and satisfaction
for sins, of infinite value and worth, abundantly sufficient to
expiate the sins of the whole world. |
| |
ARTICLE
4
|
WHY HIS DEATH HAS INFINITE VALUE
|
|
Heb 4:15
Heb 7:26
1 Jn 4:9
Mt 27:46
|
This death
is of such great value and worth because the person who submitted
to it is not only a true and perfectly holy man, but also the only-begotten
Son of God, of the same eternal and infinite essence with the Father
and the Holy Spirit, for these qualifications were necessary for
our Saviour. Further, this death is of such great value and worth
because it was accompanied by a sense of the wrath and curse of
God which we by our sins had deserved. |
| |
ARTICLE
5
|
THE UNIVERSAL PROCLAMATION OF THE
GOSPEL
|
|
Jn 3:16
1 Cor 1:23
Mt 28:19
Acts 2:38
Acts 16:31
|
The promise
of the gospel is that whoever believes in Christ crucified shall
not perish but have eternal life. This promise ought to be announced
and proclaimed universally and without discrimination to all peoples
and to all men, to whom God in His good pleasure sends the gospel,
together with the command to repent and believe. |
| |
ARTICLE
6
|
WHY SOME DO NOT BELIEVE
|
|
Mt 22:14
Ps 95:11
Heb 4:6
|
That, however,
many who have been called by the gospel neither repent nor believe
in Christ but perish in unbelief does not happen because of any
defect or insufficiency in the sacrifice of Christ offered on the
cross, but through their own fault. |
| |
ARTICLE
7
|
WHY OTHERS DO BELIEVE
|
|
2 Cor 5:18
Eph 2:8,9
|
But to those
who truly believe and by the death of Christ are freed from their
sins and saved from perdition, this benefit comes only through God's
grace, given to them from eternity in Christ. God owes this grace
to no one. |
| |
ARTICLE
8
|
THE EFFICACY OF THE DEATH OF CHRIST
|
|
Jn 17:9
Eph 5:25 to 27
Lk 22:20
Heb 8:6
Rev 5:9
1 Jn 1:7
Jn 10:28
Eph 5:27
|
For this
was the most free counsel of God the Father, that the life-giving
and saving efficacy of the most precious death of His Son should
extend to all the elect. It was His most gracious will and intent
to give to them alone justifying faith and thereby to bring them
unfailingly to salvation. This means: God willed that Christ through
the blood of the cross (by which He confirmed the new covenant)
should effectually redeem out of every people, tribe, nation, and
tongue all those, and those only, who from eternity were chosen
to salvation and were given to Him by the Father. God further willed
that Christ should give to them faith, which, together with other
saving gifts of the Holy Spirit, He acquired for them by His death;
that He should cleanse them by His blood from all sins, both original
and actual, both those committed after faith and before faith; and
that He should guard them faithfully to the end and at last present
them to Himself in splendour without any spot or wrinkle. |
| |
ARTICLE
9
|
THE FULFILMENT OF GOD'S COUNSEL
|
|
Mt 16:18
Jn 11:52
1 Kings 19:18
Eph 5:25
|
This counsel,
proceeding from eternal love for the elect, has from the beginning
of the world to the present time been powerfully fulfilled, and
will also continue to be fulfilled, though the gates of hell vainly
try to frustrate it. In due time the elect will be gathered together
into one, and there will always be a church of believers, founded
on the blood of Christ. This church shall steadfastly love and faithfully
serve Him as her Saviour (who as bridegroom for His bride laid down
His life for her on the cross) and celebrate His praises here and
through all eternity. |
| |
REJECTION
OF ERRORS
Having explained the true doctrine
of the death of Christ and the redemption of man by this death,
Synod rejects the following errors:
|
1. Error:
|
God the
Father has ordained His Son to the death of the cross without a
specific and definite decree to save any. What Christ obtained by
His death might have been necessary, profitable, and valuable, and
might remain in all its parts complete, perfect, and intact, even
though the redemption He acquired had actually never been applied
to any person.
|
Refutation:
|
This doctrine
is offensive to the wisdom of the Father and the merits of Jesus
Christ and is contrary to Scripture. For our Saviour says: I
lay down My life for the sheep, and I know them, Jn 10:15,
27. And the prophet Isaiah says concerning the Saviour: When
He makes Himself an offering for sin, He shall see His offspring,
He shall prolong His days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in
His hand, Is 53:10. Finally, this error contradicts the article
of faith concerning the catholic Christian church. |
| |
2. Error:
|
It was not
the purpose of Christ's death that He should confirm the new covenant
of grace by His blood, but only that He should acquire for the Father
the mere right to establish once more with man such a covenant as
He might please, whether of grace or of works.
|
Refutation:
|
This militates
against Scripture, which teaches that Christ has become the Surety
and Mediator of a better, that is, a new covenant, and that a will
takes effect only at death, Heb 7:22, 9:15, 17. |
| |
3. Error:
|
By His satisfaction
Christ did not really merit for anyone either salvation itself or
faith by which this satisfaction of Christ to salvation is effectually
made one's own. He acquired for the Father only the authority or
the perfect will to deal again with man, and to prescribe new conditions
as He might desire. It depends, however, on the free will of man
to fulfil these conditions. Therefore it was possible that either
no one or all men would fulfil them.
|
Refutation:
|
Those who
teach this error think contemptuously of the death of Christ, do
not at all acknowledge its most important fruit or benefit, and
bring back out of hell the Pelagian error. |
| |
4. Error:
|
The new
covenant of grace which God the Father, through the mediation of
the death of Christ, made with man, does not consist herein that
we are justified before God and saved by faith, inasmuch as it accepts
the merit of Christ. It consists in the fact that God has revoked
the demand of perfect obedience of the law and regards faith as
such and the obedience of faith, though imperfect, as the perfect
obedience of the law. He graciously deems it worthy of the reward
of eternal life.
|
Refutation:
|
This doctrine
contradicts Scripture: They are justified by His grace as a gift,
through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward
as an expiation by His blood, to be received by faith, Rom 3:24,
25. Those who teach this error proclaim, as did the ungodly Socinus,
a new and strange justification of man before God, against the consensus
of the whole church. |
| |
5. Error:
|
All men
have been accepted into the state of reconciliation and into the
grace of the covenant, so that no one is liable to condemnation
on account of original sin, and no one shall be condemned because
of it, but all are free from the guilt of original sin.
|
Refutation:
|
This opinion
is in conflict with Scripture, which teaches that we are by nature
children of wrath, Eph 2:3. |
| |
6. Error:
|
As far as
God is concerned, He wished to bestow equally upon all people the
benefits acquired by the death of Christ; however, some obtain the
pardon of sin and eternal life and others do not. This distinction
depends on their own free will, which applies itself to the grace
that is offered indifferently, and not on the special gift of mercy
which so powerfully works in them that they rather than others apply
this grace to themselves.
|
Refutation:
|
Those who
teach this, misuse the difference between the acquisition and the
application of salvation and confuse the minds of imprudent and
inexperienced people. While they pretend to present this distinction
in a sound sense, they seek to instil into the minds of people the
pernicious poison of Pelagianism. |
| |
7. Error:
|
Christ could
not die, did not need to die, and did not die for those whom God
loved in the highest degree and elected to eternal life, since these
do not need the death of Christ.
|
Refutation:
|
This doctrine
contradicts the apostle, who declares: The Son of God loved me
and gave Himself for me, Gal 2:20. Likewise: Who shall bring
any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies; who is
to condemn? It is Christ Jesus who died, Rom 8:33, 34, namely,
for them. And the Saviour assures us: I lay down My life for
the sheep, Jn 10:15. And: This is My commandment, that you
love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than
this, that a man lay down his life for his friends, Jn 15:12,
13. |
| |
|
|
