Common Grace (Volume 2): God's Gifts for a Fallen World

By James Bratt and Abraham Kuyper

Common Grace is often considered Abraham Kuyper's crowning work, an exploration of how God expresses grace even to the unsaved. Kuyper firmly believed that though many people in the world will remain unconverted, God's grace is still shown to the world as a whole. The second volume of Common Grace contains Kuyper's doctrinal exploration of the impact and implications of this aspect of Reformed theology.

Never before published in English, this translation of Common Grace is now available as part of a 12-volume series of Kuyper's most important writings on public theology. Created in partnership with the Kuyper Translation Society and the Acton Institute, the Abraham Kuyper Collected Works in Public Theology will deepen and enrich the church's understanding of public theology in today's world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lexham Press
• Release date: Apr 17, 2019
• ISBN: 9781577996958

Abraham Kuyper

Abraham Kuyper (1937-1920) was a prominent Dutch Calvinist theologian, politician, educator, and writer. His thinking has influenced the Neo-Calvinist movement in the United States and Canada. Many of his writings, including Pro Rege, have never been translated into English.

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CHAPTER ONE

THE PURPOSE OF THIS DOCTRINAL INQUIRY

What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?

PSALM 8:4

§ 1 Our first series studied the rise of common grace and traced its course until Bethlehem, on the basis of holy Scripture. Our second series then sought to determine the meaning common grace has already gained from the first to the second coming of Christ—which still lies in the future. It further examined what, according to the apocalypse of the New Testament, common grace will mean for the end itself and for what comes after the end. Together both series thus constituted a bird’s-eye view of the course of common grace in the history of our race and of our world, from the fall until the restoration—or, if you will, from paradise to the parousia. This is a process that crosses centuries; its course is necessarily divided into two parts by the first coming of Christ.

It is now necessary for us to examine common grace doctrinally so that it can be better understood as a mystery, and so that it can be understood in relation to other doctrines or dogmas.

To orient our readers, we must immediately point out that dogma possesses not only an aspect that points toward heavenly things, but also an aspect that is turned toward what is earthly. Each dogma or doctrine springs from the root of religion, such that any point in any dogma that we no longer sense as relevant to our religion withers in our consciousness and fades from our faith. We see this in the history of the doctrine of angels. Originally this doctrine was woven into everyone’s religious consciousness, because all people realized that angels had to be taken into account in their own religion and for the life of their own souls. But since the world of angels became entirely divorced from many people’s own religious consciousness, and because it retained no other significance than that of a piece of heavenly life that dissolved before us in poetry, this doctrine ceased to be part of the content of people’s faith. Thus, doctrine or dogma always has an aspect that is directed upward and an aspect that is directed downward. This is true such that our Belgic Confession does not hesitate to declare concerning the dogma of the holy Trinity, All this we know as well from the testimonies of Holy Writ as from their operations, and chiefly by those we feel in ourselves.¹ Here it is stated plainly that the doctrine of the Trinity also has an aspect that is turned toward us and that explains a portion of the life of our own soul. And when we consult the Heidelberg Catechism, we find that the confession of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit connects in an even narrower sense with three moments in our personal existence: the confession of God the Father with our creation, the confession of God the Son with our redemption, and that of the Holy Spirit with our sanctification.² Furthermore, Lord’s Days 1–33 speak of faith under this threefold division, and only then follows the discussion of the law and of prayer.

§ 2 That this must be so, and cannot be otherwise, lies in the nature of religion. In religion there are two things—God and man. The right communion of man with his God lies in religion. For now we leave aside the question of the various relationships in religion that concern knowing God, trusting God, submitting oneself to God, fearing him, loving and honoring him, and being his child in all these things. For our present purpose, it is enough if it is recognized that everything not relevant to religion falls outside dogma. If people realize that religion is always aimed on the one hand toward God and on the other hand toward man, then every doctrine must also always be viewed from these two aspects.

Regarding the side turned toward man, in the manifestation and life of man, on the one hand, we are dealing with what falls under our observation and can therefore be determined without the help of dogma; but on the other hand, we also are dealing with a hidden aspect of man and of human life. Relative to that, we can adopt only three positions: (1) agnosticism, (2) hypothesis, or (3) revelation. Agnosticism—that is, the system of not knowing—acknowledges that there are enigmas in man and that man walks amid riddles, but it forgoes the attempt to allow light to shine on those riddles. The agnostic acknowledges that there is a mystery but he lets it be a mystery and considers every attempt to unlock it to be pointless and hopeless.

The man of hypotheses judges differently. He likewise begins by determining that in man and in his life we are faced with a mystery, but he also claims that we certainly have the means at our disposal to penetrate that mystery: the manifestation of man’s being and life in the visible world. He investigates these manifestations. For him, those are what is known. From the known data he now seeks to arrive at the solution of the unknown. He does this by assuming suppositions or hypotheses and investigating whether the assumptions would explain the unknown—if what he assumes is true. If he does not succeed, he rejects the supposition and takes refuge in another hypothesis. On the other hand, if he considers his assumption to be able to explain the unknown, then he declares that he has found the key to the mystery and announces his hypothesis as the result of science. In this way the system of materialism found acceptance for a while, and with much ado it was peddled as science. But at present people, even in unbelieving circles, have almost universally come to the conviction that the hypothesis of materialism is foolish.

The third way, finally, is that of dogma or doctrine, and is taken by those who, just like the preceding two types of persons, acknowledge the existence of mystery within man and within human life; but these people confess that light can fall upon this mystery only if God lets light fall upon it. For that reason, since God gave us his revelation, we sin if we posit with the agnostic that there is no light, since this would be a repudiation and ungrateful denial of God’s love that comes to our aid. But we sin equally if—like the man with the hypothesis—we deliberately close our eyes to this God-given light and sit in our own artificial light, peering at what we do not understand anyway, and by closing the shutters keep out the light that God wants to let shine through our windows. A man walks a straight path only if, gratefully accepting the light God has given, he accepts as dogma or doctrine what God has revealed to us in his Word concerning this human mystery.

§ 3 If we ask which mystery the dogma of common grace sheds its indispensable light upon in man and in human life, it will not be difficult to perceive it clearly and plainly. We observe two powers in man and in human life: on the one hand the power of sin, and on the other hand the power of what is good and beautiful. If we follow the course of sin in our own heart and in the life of the world, then all is dark and somber, ashen-gray and deathlike, and ultimately leads to death in its manifold forms. Then there can remain no room for anything in man and in human life that is good and lovely. If, on the other hand, we leave sin out of consideration for a moment and look at all kinds of refreshing things in man and in human life that enthrall us, then human life still offers us so much that is lovely and so much that fascinates us and strikes us as beneficent, that we could almost ask ourselves if the whole notion of the depravity of our nature through sin does not rest on legend and illusion.

We encounter contradictory phenomena here. At times we become pessimists and see the world appear before us in devilish form, such that there is nothing good in it. At other times, however, we become optimists and feel delighted by the abundant display of noble sentiment, robust resilience, and earnest intent that we observe in life around us. This contradiction can weaken us. We almost reach the point where we despair because of sin and assent to the ex profundis of wailing humanity, but then life fascinates and charms us so much that we might begin to see sin as a force virtually conquered, and concurring with the panegyric of humanism, might burn our incense to humanity. As we alternate between the two notions and dispositions of the soul, we discern more and more that we stand before an enigma. If we follow the one route, we end up being contradicted by the facts of the good and lovely in humankind and in human history. But if we take the relative good as our point of departure and try to follow our route from there, we similarly end up being contradicted as we encounter the dreadful manifestation of sin. Therefore neither the one nor the other leitmotif proves to be correct. We grope about, and we feel that there must be a third something since both routes lead us in the wrong direction. We detect the presence of that third something, but we do not see it and do not know it. And so that third something becomes for us the mystery that lies hidden here.

§ 4 This mystery becomes even more obscure and enigmatic for us when we take into account the grace that struggles against sin. We confess that this grace is not from man but from God. We acknowledge that this grace operates only through faith and that therefore a separation enters life between those who want this faith and those who go counter to this faith. From this perspective the fact is simply that believers and unbelievers stand over against one another in the world. We will forgo for the moment a more precise distinction. We take belief and unbelief in the most general sense. There are those who believe in Christ, and there are those who do not believe in Christ at all. This causes life to be divided into two streams: those who believe, and those who want something else, intend something else, and strive after something else. And if we belong to those who believe, no matter what charitable sense toward our fellow human beings inspires us, we come into conflict—involuntarily and without seeking it—with those others. We face conflict in the domestic, social, political, and—even more strongly—in the ecclesiastical sphere. But in our understanding, a higher jurisdiction stands above the dispute with unbelievers. Our faith claims to be indispensable in overcoming sin and making an honorable life possible. And now comes the unbelieving person who with evidence shows us how particularly in our circles, all kinds of sin are still active, whereas in the circle of the unbelievers all kinds of good and attractive manifestations of a nobler approach to life can be observed. That is why the unbeliever cannot understand the indispensability and effectiveness of our faith, and why we in turn begin to doubt the reality of the distinction between faith and unbelief. If within our group that has faith, there is so much to complain about, and so much in the unbeliever’s group to be commended apart from faith, what then remains of the validity of the distinction that divides all of life? This continues on a personal level, as often as we catch ourselves sinning in spite of our faith, and conversely are so often put to shame by the elevated, noble sensibilities in the man without faith.

Here again, therefore, an unknown force is in play. We are convinced from history and the experience of our own soul that a world-conquering power is hidden in faith. Nevertheless, in life the relationship between believers and unbelievers does not correspond to the conclusion we would draw from this power of faith. On the other hand, we know from both history and self-knowledge what evil power lies in sin—including the sin of unbelief. And yet, also herein the outcome again and again does not correspond to the conclusion we were compelled to draw. There must therefore be a third something that interferes here. We can detect but not explain this third something. And from that angle as well, we stumble upon a mystery for whose unveiling we keep calling.

§ 5 This same mystery appears even more starkly in the contrast between the kingdom of grace as embodied in Christ’s church, and the kingdom of nature as manifested in the life of the world. Here again we take the concepts church and world in their most general sense. But under whatever form we take this distinction and contrast, it would follow from our confession that the light would radiate from our church and the shroud of darkness would hang over the world. That which is pure, holy, pleasant, and harmonious should be sparkling in our church in an eye-catching manner. By contrast, the shroud of the impure, sinful, and less noble should be hanging over the world. Yet the facts are not in agreement with this. Already in the days of the apostles there were instances of terrible sin in the church of Christ, and in century after century the life of the church has supplied something that gave legitimate cause for complaint. By contrast, in the life of the world so much has developed that is interesting, so much that is beautiful, and so much that is attractive that we sometimes have felt a struggle well up in us to turn away from the church and to seek our place in the life of the world. The sharp line of demarcation our confession drew between church and world turned out to be unable to withstand the test. And we saw how in order to escape from this disappointment, the one person simply retreated into his church, refused to hear about the world, and—to avoid being hindered by this disappointment—ultimately became a spiritualist; whereas the other person, in order to cast off any notion of narrow-mindedness, became in effect a child of the world and either let go of his church or made his church worldly.

Here again we have the same struggle. On the one hand, we have the fact of history and the confession of our own heart that the church is the salvation of the world. And on the other hand, we have the facts before our eyes that the church remains so far below its own standard, while the life of the world appears to supply so much more than what apparently could be expected from it. Here again, there must be a third something that can provide an explanation of this apparent contradiction. This is a mystery we encounter without it being immediately unveiled for us.

§ 6 When giving direction to our own life and steering our own life’s course, we run into the same uncertainty. If our human nature is depraved to such a great extent and the world so far sunk under the curse that from that world and from our nature in that world nothing can come that can survive when weighed in the scales of the holy; and if, by contrast, the gospel is the only salt that prevents decay; and if the church of Christ is the sole creation of God that bears the mark of eternal permanence—is it not then reasonable that we withdraw our talent, our vigor, our time, our efforts from that world and direct them wholly toward the church and the gospel? Yet this is not possible. A rare individual may be able to find his life’s work as a preacher in this country or as a missionary sent out among pagans or Muslims. Another who is independently wealthy may direct all his vigor toward philanthropic work. But what is impossible in any case is that all members of the church could devote their earthly existence entirely to spiritual matters. Each mother already has an entirely different calling in the home. This includes the requirements of day-to-day living, food preparation, taking care of clothing and entertainment, as well as the upbringing of children and preparing them for life in civil society. And besides, where would the thousands who have no money but must earn their own bread and their family’s bread find that bread if they did nothing throughout their entire life but be directly occupied in the kingdom of Jesus? Paul himself functioned as apostle in the evening after having sat with canvas on his lap working in the tentmaker’s shop in the morning and afternoon. This means that for the vast majority of believers in Jesus, the larger portion of their strength and time is spent in labor—and not in the kingdom but in the world. And it means that they can take delight in activity of a holy character primarily only on Sunday and then only in the morning and evening hours.

This also does not correspond to the contrasting valuation of life in Christ’s church and life in the world. If the life of the world flows away toward perdition and into nothingness, and if only the life of Christ’s church possesses the mark and guarantee of eternal permanence, how then can the world give a child of God satisfaction? And how can he be in harmony with his life conviction if he actually devotes nine-tenths of his life to what passes away and has no purpose, and is left with at most one-tenth for that which has value for his heart? According to his confession it should be different; according to the demands of life it cannot be any other way. Here again a third something must play a role that modifies this implication of his faith. And he does sense and notice that third something, but he cannot bring it to light. It is and remains a mystery to him.

§ 7 We could continue pointing out the same contradiction in virtually every area of life, between on the one hand the consequence of what we confess, and on the other hand what we find before us in real life. We cannot deny these facts, nor can we surrender our confession—yet the two do not fit together. To be sure, if we weaken the concept of sin, blur the distinction between nature and grace, let church and world merge, and consider our work in the world and in the sacred realm as being identical in kind, then we do not encounter this problem. But what does this mean other than surrendering our confession, going over to the camp of the Moderns, and thus accepting the standard of the world as the standard?³ Or by closing our eyes to the profundity of things, we could also float along on the surface, half unthinkingly, and say that we don’t worry about these contradictions as long as we do not feel them and are not bothered by them. But what does this mean, other than that we fall asleep and close our eyes and escape from the riddles of life by not truly living? If we say, on the other hand, I hold fast to my confession, the contrast between grace and nature exists, sin is a force in life, and I do not close my eyes to the struggle this causes in our human life, but I stand with an observant, inquiring, and questioning eye and I search for the solution to the mystery that has me in its grip—then it is impossible for us not to have personally discerned that disturbing contradiction on each of the points we discussed.

Indeed, we would go still further. When the Moderns in this country thought for a time that they had wiggled out of the grip of these enigmas by erasing the boundary, they merely dreamed a beautiful dream from which all too soon they awoke to bitter disappointment. Even though they had surrendered the contrast between nature and grace, they nevertheless held on to the contrast between the sacred and the profane, between what is noble and what is ignoble. And behold, even in this weakened form, the revived contrast immediately confronted them again with similar enigmas, which have led to very diverse solutions in their own circle and which still continue to divide attitudes among them. This is what is brought about by sin, that terrible force against which they consider themselves honor-bound to do battle. But that very battle is inconceivable without the ranks and battle arrays surfacing again and again, where friend and foe become entangled. Initially their whole battle was against us. Now they have come to the point of realizing that they must look for their enemy elsewhere, and that in their efforts to overthrow the enemy they have to come back to much of what we held and to the things in us that they were contending against.

CHAPTER TWO

THE PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED

He turns rivers into a desert, springs of water into thirsty ground, a fruitful land into a salty waste, because of the evil of its inhabitants. He turns a desert into pools of water, a parched land into springs of water.

PSALM 107:33–35

§ 1 The battle between our understanding and the reality we sketched in our previous chapter, based on the life experience of many and drawn from life itself, could be formulated succinctly this way: the world turns out to be better than expected and the church worse than expected. Since we have been raised in a confession that, as generally understood, knows nothing of the world other than that it is bent on evil, and of the church little else than that it is the congregation of believers, we expect to encounter in the world sin upon sin, and to feel attracted in the church by an ideal, holy life of love. And a person who, expecting to find it so, goes out into the world at an adult age and has the good fortune of being allowed to find himself in more noble-minded worldly circles, after having heard of much censure and ecclesiastical vexation in church circles, will doubt the correctness of his confession; he will find the expression the world was better than expected, the church worse than expected to be a reflection of his own experience.

For the moment we deliberately leave aside the well-known fact that in quite a few other circles we find, even after our most somber imaginings, that the life of the world appears to be worse than we thought and that it sometimes allows a glimpse into the depths of Satan. Conversely, in the broad circle of the church we encounter silent, holy powers at work that are not merely to be compared with salt, but actually impede decay. For the moment our intent is only to make understandable how—both in the past and the present—the generally superficial public opinion has harbored the conviction that the world is better and the church worse than those from the Christian side have wanted people to believe in a theoretical sense. Public opinion, which since the advent of the printing press has bundled together its once-scattered forces, has become the force in the world from which the questions of life arise; to these questions it then seeks answers in terms of the then-dominant lifeview.

For the moment, therefore, we do not minimize in the least the contrast we have pointed out. We even put it deliberately in such a sharp, shrill form. Much can be leveled against this same contrast, but each of us continually encounters it somewhat in his own life and his own heart. And what we want to make concrete and understandable at this point is how a doctrine like that of common grace is not a speculative notion based on book learning. Rather, it reflects the attempt of Christ’s church to provide an answer in light of God’s Word, to an extremely important and indeed profound and complex problem—a problem with which every sensitive and reflective person is directly confronted at every moment in the world, in his church, in his surroundings, and in his own heart. Again and again we have the unavoidable sense of deadly sin that is everywhere, but present in such a way that the general condition is still not so bad. And on the other hand, we have the sense of a saving divine grace, but we see it in such a way that its fruit and effect disappoint us.

We are simply faced with this problem, with this dilemma, and it is not dismissed with the following statement that acknowledges something but not much—and in any case not enough—namely, that the world is bad and the church is good, but that the persons you encounter are sometimes better than their environment or worse than their doctrine. This is true, but it does not provide a solution, since those persons are also either children of the world or sons and daughters of the church. By isolating them individually from that world or that church, we cut the ties between persons and between generations, and we become incapable of presenting any worldview. That is, unless the worldview, by disconnecting everything into separate parts, is one that comes down to this: that everything depends only on the individual, and within that individual, everything depends on his free will. That would mean in point of fact that we have no worldview, but only the existence of endlessly divergent persons, or rather that we determine individualities for ourselves. With this partially true objection we would not advance a single step here. It does not change the facts of life. And as long as we hold fast to a confession that is directly contradicted by the endlessly recurring facts in life, one of two things has to happen: either we lose faith in our confession, or we hold fast to our confession but hang a veil in front of reality in order not to see it. Those who, with us, want neither the one nor the other but who hold fast to the confession and at the same time acknowledge that God’s providential ordination is manifested in reality, therefore refuse to resign themselves to that contrast. They feel themselves compelled to think more deeply about the confession and to investigate it, with the facts of reality before them, to see how the confession holds up in the face of these facts. This leads us directly to the doctrine of common grace, because it is precisely this forgotten and neglected chapter of our confession that presents the solution to this point.

§ 2 The following statements of the Three Forms of Unity of the Reformed churches are relevant here:

1. Belgic Confession, Art. 14:

"… And being thus become wicked, perverse, and corrupt in all his ways, he has lost all his excellent gifts which he had received from God, and retained only small remains thereof …"

2. Belgic Confession, Art. 15:

… Nor is [original sin] altogether abolished or wholly eradicated even by baptism; since sin always issues forth from this woeful source, as water from a fountain.

3. Canons of Dort, chapter 3/4, Art. 4:

"There remain, however, in man since the fall, the glimmerings of natural light, whereby he 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. But so far is this light of nature from being sufficient to bring him to a saving knowledge of God and to true conversion that he is incapable of using it aright even in things natural and civil."

4. Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 44, question and answer 114:

"Can those who are converted to God keep these Commandments perfectly?

No, but even the holiest men, while in this life, have only a small beginning of such obedience …"

5. Canons of Dort, chapter 5, Art. 4–8:

Article 4: Although the weakness of the flesh cannot prevail against the power of God, who confirms and preserves true believers in a state of grace, yet converts are not always so influenced and actuated by the Spirit of God as not in some particular instances sinfully to deviate from the guidance of divine grace, so as to be seduced by and to comply with the lusts of the flesh; they must, therefore, be constant in watching and prayer, that they may not be led into temptation. When these are neglected, they are not only liable to be drawn into great and heinous sins by the flesh, the world, and Satan, but sometimes by the righteous permission of God actually are drawn into these evils. This, the lamentable fall of David, Peter, and other saints described in Holy Scripture, demonstrates.

Article 5: By such enormous sins, however, they very highly offend God, incur a deadly guilt, grieve the Holy Spirit, interrupt the exercise of faith, very grievously wound their consciences, and sometimes for a while lose the sense of God’s favor, until, when they change their course by serious repentance, the light of God’s fatherly countenance again shines upon them.

Article 6: But God, who is rich in mercy, according to His unchangeable purpose of election, does not wholly withdraw the Holy Spirit from His own people even in their grievous falls; nor suffers them to proceed so far as to lose the grace of adoption and forfeit the state of justification, or to commit the sin unto death or against the Holy Spirit; nor does He permit them to be totally deserted, and to plunge themselves into everlasting destruction.

Article 7: For in the first place, in these falls He preserves in them the incorruptible seed of regeneration from perishing or being totally lost; and again, by His Word and Spirit He certainly and effectually renews them to repentance, to a sincere and godly sorrow for their sins, that they may seek and obtain remission in the blood of the Mediator, may again experience the favor of a reconciled God, through faith adore His mercies, and henceforward more diligently work out their own salvation with fear and trembling.

Article 8: Thus it is not in consequence of their own merits or strength, but of God’s free mercy, that they neither totally fall from faith and grace nor continue and perish finally in their backslidings; which, with respect to themselves is not only possible, but would undoubtedly happen; but with respect to God, it is utterly impossible, since His counsel cannot be changed nor His promise fail; neither can the call according to His purpose be revoked, nor the merit, intercession, and preservation of Christ be rendered ineffectual, nor the sealing of the Holy Spirit be frustrated or obliterated.

§ 3 These excerpts from our Forms of Unity show clearly that our confession acknowledges two things: (1) that in the sinner—that is, in fallen man—there still remain small traces of the original glory, still a certain light of nature; and (2) that sin continues to be at work in believers as well, until death, and that as a consequence of this they too can fall into serious sins.

Thus our confession not only speaks of the absolute contrast between faith and unbelief, and sin and holiness; our confession also explicitly indicates a specific cause—both on the part of the sinner and on the part of the believer—explaining why in fallen man a certain good survived, and in believers a certain evil still produces aftereffects. Once we have determined this, our attention is then arrested by the fact that we cannot say lightly that the confession of our churches is in conflict with the reality of life. Rather, the reverse must be said, that confession and reality fit perfectly together as long as we do not take a few pieces of it in isolation but take the confession as a whole.

The world is not as bad as expected thanks to the light of nature, which God keeps burning within the fallen sinner. And similarly, the church is not as good as expected because of the fact we confess, namely, that sin still continues to produce aftereffects in the believer so that even the holiest persons in this life can never manifest anything but a small beginning of the true good. The church has confessed this on the basis of the virtues of the Gentiles that are acknowledged in Scripture and on the basis of the profound sins of believers, such as the sins of David and Peter that are clearly attested in Scripture, specifically in Romans 2:14–15. There we read, For when Gentiles, who do not have the law [of Sinai], by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them.¹

Implicit in this significant statement is, first, that a Gentile, here meaning fallen man, has in his inner man a certain awareness of the good even when he lacks higher grace. Paul contrasts Jews and Gentiles here not in their national existence, but in the spiritual sense. For him, the Jews are the sinners who received higher grace, and the Gentiles are the fallen sinners who lack this higher grace. And whereas the Jews thought that they could elevate themselves above the Gentiles, Paul casts them down by pointing out to them their unfaithfulness, apostasy, and sinful existence. He elevates the Gentiles not because of what they are in themselves, but appealing to the common grace of God that is active in them. And this common grace manifests itself in the first place in this: they still have something written on their hearts. Not that the Jews did not have this. Originally they had this also; Jews and Gentiles are both fallen sinners, and it is in each of them as it is with all fallen sinners. But because the Jews looked down condescendingly upon the Gentiles, Paul brings the Gentiles to the forefront and says that the Gentiles are indeed fallen sinners, but God has not entirely withdrawn from the fallen sinner his original spiritual work in humanity. He has always left some divine handwriting on their hearts.

§ 4 We must remember, if we are to understand this correctly, that original righteousness also included this: man had the law of God clearly and perfectly in his own soul’s awareness. Neither Adam nor Eve had ever heard of the Ten Commandments. They had never had any instruction in the moral law. Nobody had given them the requirements of the law, and the only command they received externally was the prohibition against eating from the tree of knowledge. But this did not make them morally ignorant. On the contrary, they understood God’s will and law perfectly, because God had imprinted his holy will in their souls and written it on the tablets of their hearts. A healthy person breathes entirely according to the law of breathing, without ever having heard anything about that law, and only someone with a respiratory illness is bothered by it and calls in the learned expertise of a physician. So it was in this case as well. Adam had never learned to walk, but walked spontaneously, and in the same way Adam had never learned a moral law, but he possessed that law that was given in the awareness of his soul. Only sin caused a disturbance in this. Through sin this soul awareness became flawed. Thus the divine handwriting departed from the heart through sin. And in connection with this, the prophecy was given to Israel that one day man would no longer learn the law by external means, but God would once again write the law on his heart.

This apparently referred back to the covenant at Sinai. At the making of that covenant God had given his law, which was no longer clearly legible on the tablets of man’s heart, externally on tablets of stone, so that man had to learn that at divine instigation: externally, coming to him from the outside, instead of inwardly, coming from within himself. And thus Jeremiah 31:33–34, referring back to this, says, For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

§ 5 If we did not know anything more than this, we might first conclude that every trace of the divine handwriting was lost through sin and that nothing of it remained in the fallen sinner. But this is precisely what Paul argues against, stating that this is definitely not the case. He declares in so many words that in his day—that is, forty centuries after paradise—the Gentiles definitely still possessed a remnant of this divine handwriting in their soul: They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts. [Rom 2:15]. Note that it does not say that they have the law itself written on their hearts, but "the work of the law," as if to indicate a practical impulse rather than a clear, pure knowledge. But whatever criticism can be brought against this, it clearly states that there is still something of God’s original handwriting present in the fallen sinner’s heart. Largely erased and having become illegible in its details, this divine handwriting remains even in the fallen sinner, enough that we can see that it once stood there and still can discern something of what it originally said.

There is an obvious reason why this is contrasted with the condition of the soul of the Jew. A capable shop owner knows by heart how many of each article he has in stock and where every article is. But someone who has a large store and owns stockrooms and warehouses can no longer keep everything in his head and therefore keeps books. His books then show him in which stockroom this lot is held and in which one another lot is kept, and also how much of each article he still has in stock. Thus he gets used to relying more on his books than on his memory, and in the end his books have become his one indispensable possession. Something similar also necessarily occurred in Israel the more it was directed toward the external law. Originally, before Sinai, Israel also lived exclusively by moral awareness—that is, by the knowledge of God’s law that still remained imperfectly in their hearts. But when the Israelites received the law externally, and thus possessed the book of the law, the necessary consequence was that they placed more value on that law for their moral awareness, learned externally, than on the faint reflection of that law in their inner being. This very viewpoint of the Jews, therefore, also meant that they had moved from internal knowledge of the law more to external knowledge. In the case of the believing Jew this did not matter, because the Spirit of God interpreted the law spiritually for him and bound it upon his soul. But for the vast majority of Jews who lived outside the Spirit, this resulted in their descending in many respects below the level of the best of the Gentiles. And this is the reason that Paul—by in a certain sense elevating the best of the Gentiles above the vast majority of the Jews—says emphatically of the Gentiles in particular that they have the work of the law still written on their hearts.

§ 6 In the second place, it follows from Romans 2:13–15 that this remnant of the law in the heart of the fallen sinner is to some extent kept alive in that sinner by divine grace. Paul continues by saying that their conscience also bears witness—that is, their conscience bears witness to this remnant of the law and still says amen to it. The conscience and the law of God are thus differentiated. The conscience is not, as many say, the same as the law of God. On the contrary, the conscience bears witness with the law.

This shows us that conscience and law are two distinct things. Does not the phrase also bears witness imply that there is first one that witnesses and that the other also bears witness along with the first? The law is therefore the witness of God in the soul. And the conscience is man’s awareness that bears witness together with the witness of God. This is why there could be no conscience in Adam, because in Adam the law of God could not yet be distinguished from his own awareness; but conscience had to emerge in Adam immediately after his fall—namely, as soon as God’s law and the consciousness of his soul diverged. In the same way, conscience will fall silent in the state of glory as soon as all conflict between the law of God and the consciousness of the soul is taken away. This is the reason we never read about conscience with respect to Jesus, and still today we hear discussion about conscience much more in the unbelieving world than in the church. It is therefore remarkable that Paul deals here with the conscience only in relation to the Gentiles and not in connection with the Jews. He says of this conscience that it is neither resisting nor silent vis-à-vis the remnant of God’s law, but that it also testifies in support. And because this cannot come from sin, it follows that God not only left a remnant of his law in the heart of fallen man, but also works upon his conscience and forces him to say amen to that law in his consciousness.

§ 7 Third, it follows from Romans 2:13–15 that this work of common grace is not limited to the fallen sinner as an individual or as an isolated being, but also works upon man in society. Paul says that their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them—that is, declare them not guilty. This refers to two things. It refers first to the opinion they form of one another amongst themselves, and second, to the public administration of justice. More succinctly, it refers to the passing of judgment on one another, privately and publicly. This private and public rendering of judgment persisted in the world, even as it still continues today. We form an opinion about all kinds of people around us. We speak with others about third parties, and we reach favorable or unfavorable conclusions. On a larger scale the general public gets involved, and thus opinions and notions about people are formed; one person is praised and the other reproached. And in addition to this private rendering of judgment we have the judge who renders public judgment on accusations that are brought before him. Both private and public judgment presuppose a standard used for judging. The judge acts according to the criterion of good and evil as indicated in the penal code, and individual and public opinion judges on the basis of a certain sense of good and evil that speaks communally in the hearts of all. This would not be possible if God had not preserved certain general notions about justice and injustice, good and evil, in human society as well. And in that sense the apostle points out how these private and public urges to render judgment also show that God has not entirely abandoned the Gentiles but continues to work his grace among them as well.

§ 8 Fourth and finally, it follows from Romans 2:13–15 not only that this common grace allowed the continuation, preservation, and functioning of an awareness within the fallen sinner of what is honorable and dishonorable, of justice and injustice, of good and evil; it follows also that this common grace lends the fallen sinner strength to do what is good. Paul says, "when Gentiles, who do not have the law [of Sinai], by nature do what the law requires."² Thus they not only know but they also do the things of the law, and from the fact that they do them he draws the conclusion that they have knowledge of the law. Thus this doing even serves as the starting point of the apostle’s argument. If it is certain that even a child of God confesses to being incapable of thinking any good on his own, let alone doing it, then it necessarily follows that the Gentiles as well do this good not of themselves or their own strength, but only because common grace prompts and equips them to do this.

Therefore, the Reformed churches have said nothing in their Forms of Unity about the light of nature that they could not justify by holy Scripture. In fact, faced with the same phenomenon as we are (that the Gentiles so often are better than expected and the Jews so often worse than expected) Paul has provided us with the answer to this enigma of life by pointing us to common grace—the light of nature. This means nothing less than that God (1) left in the fallen sinner a continuing remnant of the divine handwriting of the law; (2) expresses this remnant upon the soul’s awareness so that the fallen sinner bears witness to that remnant of the law; (3) presses for the rendering of judgment in society that uses this remnant as standard; and (4) in many respects effects powers within sinners to accomplish the good.

This also explains why in those days the Gentiles could be better than expected, even as also in our day the people of the world so often are better than expected. And if we ask why back then, Israel, like the church today, could so often be worse than expected, we must read and reread Romans 7 and remember only that one pleading exclamation to see also the obverse of the enigma solved: Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? [Rom 7:24].

And if anyone should ask whether Paul judges the Gentiles too favorably, let it suffice to refer simply to Romans 1 where the terrible sinfulness of Gentile life is depicted in all its harshness; this should convince us that Paul certainly did not intend his statement concerning common grace to apply to Gentile life as such, but to the light that still shines in this sinful life.

But we will discuss this subject in a subsequent chapter.

CHAPTER THREE

THE PROBLEM FURTHER ELUCIDATED

But I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.

ROMANS 7:23

§ 1 In connection with our confession, we can point to four statements of holy Scripture that could solve the question of why people of the world are so often better than expected and believers in Christ are so often worse than expected.

The two statements that explain why people of the world are better than expected are, on the one hand, Romans 3:12, All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one; and on the other hand, Romans 2:14: Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires.

Over against these stand two other statements that make us understand the contrast between ideal and reality among the believers in Christ. On the one hand, there is the elevated tone of Romans 8:1 (KJV): Who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.¹ On the other hand, we have Romans 7:23: I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.

These four statements are purposely taken from the same epistle to the church at Rome to ensure that they do not stand in contrast accidentally as the result of a different line of argumentation or a different point of departure. After all, there cannot be divergent conceptions in one and the same letter. Besides, in the epistle to the Romans the statements to which we pointed closely follow one another in pairs. The one pair is from Romans 2 and 3, the other pair from Romans 7 and 8; the latter are separated by only three verses.

Certainly only what we quoted from Romans 2 and 3 is directly related to common grace. But in this doctrinal exposition, we must pay attention from the start to the fact that both phenomena—the restraining of the sinner so that sin does not run rampant in him, and the believer being still embodied in the flesh—to some extent run parallel. There are two principles at work: the principle of sin against God, and the principle of grace against sin. There are two kinds of life: a life proceeding from sin and a life proceeding from grace—or, if you will, on the one hand life from the natural, and on the other hand life from the supernatural. In the one, the seed of destruction is at work, in the other, the seed of God. There are, the Apostle John says, children of the devil and children of God, even as Jesus stated it: "Your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning [John 8:44]. Those thus are the children of the devil. Jesus states it as sharply as possible: You are of your father the devil."

But while we must hold on to this contrast as absolutely as we can, it does not manifest itself quite this pointedly. This is because both life principles are impeded in their manifestation. In the sinner, sin does not manifest itself as strongly because it is restrained by common grace; but similarly, the life of grace does not manifest itself quite as strongly because it is still impeded in its development by the body of death. Fundamentally they stand over against each other like black and white. But in reality so much white is mixed in with the black and so much black still swirls through the white that it sometimes looks as though both flow together in a grayish tint. This is not so, of course. Water may swirl at the mouth of a river, tasting neither sweet nor brackish. The water is a mixture of sweet and salty; nevertheless, when we go back to the source of each, in the stream that ran down the mountain we find water that slakes the thirst of our tongue, and water rolling in from the ocean that increases and worsens the thirst of the tongue. And so it is here. A person who bears the stamp of the world and a person who is a sheltered child of God may confuse us and cause us to lose sight of the distinction. Nevertheless, when we go along the stalk down to the root of both their lives, we immediately can see that their roots are different: the root of the child of God springs from grace; the root of the child of the world springs from his own self.

§ 2 Leaving the sheltering of God’s seed for the moment and limiting ourselves for the time being only to the restraining of sin by common grace, we must now emphasize that we make a mistake and go astray if we think that the restraining of sin takes place uniformly in everyone. On the contrary, just as there is endless variation of degree in the area of particular grace, so too there is immeasurable variation in the working of common grace. The difference is clearly demonstrated by the Queen of Sheba who travels to Jerusalem to hear Solomon’s wisdom [1 Kings 10], and the Rabshakeh who comes to revile the God of Israel at the walls of Zion [2 Kings 18–19]. In the present, on the one hand we are offended by brute sensuality, impudent pride, and criminal meanness in the world, while on the other hand we are attracted by noble sentiment and high ideals among the children of the world, often even to the point of shaming us. Comparing Romans 1 and 3 with Romans 2 clearly shows that holy Scripture intends this to be understood in no other way than as a result of common grace. In Romans 1 it says of the Gentiles that God has given them up to a debased mind and that they are sunk to the depths into unnatural and perverted sins. In Romans 3 it says that they all fall short of the glory of God, so that there is not one who does good. Romans 2, on the other hand, speaks of Gentiles who do what the law of God calls for—something imprinted on their hearts.

The divergent operation of common grace must therefore briefly be explained. With common grace there is never (as is self-evident) the operation of a pure, perfect, or saving good. Such a good must spring from true faith, be perfectly in conformity to the spiritual intent of God’s law, and have nothing else in view than God’s honor; this cannot be the case in the sinner apart from regeneration.² There is nothing in fallen man that can lead to salvation, not even under the strongest working of common grace. In that sense all sinners have become worthless, and no one does good, not even one [Rom 3:12]. This must stand clearly in the foreground if we are to avoid misunderstanding. Common grace never has any function other than temporarily mitigating and restraining human self-destruction through sin.

But with this proviso it is certain that this mitigating function is not the same for all, nor the same for each individual at every moment. We see on every side how among the persons of the world the one is moderate, modest, and virtuous, while the other is a troublemaker, has a twisted heart, and is corrupt in his actions. There are all kinds of differences; there are more than just noble-minded and virtuous people standing over against the base and vile natures. Between these two extremes we find an endless continuum of imperceptible gradations.

In this context we must note that the original creation ordinance continues in the sinful situation and under common grace. The creation ordinance teaches clearly that the children of man were not uniformly foreordained by God. With respect to their nature as human beings they are one, but in all other ways individuals are as dissimilar as two leaves on a tree—never perfectly identical. Everything shows variegation, differences in tints, differences in temperament and disposition, talents, and gifts. Men and women differ most strongly, but also within each gender the variations are immense, even apart from the differences in age and the distinctions in occupation and work. One person has more will, another more intellectual power. One is more artistically talented, another more suited to practical life. One has a more sanguine temperament, and another is more phlegmatic or choleric. And to this must be added the powerful difference in nature and nurture. We sometimes speak of first-, second-, and third-class individuals, and generally this is applicable, but to be accurate we should distinguish a whole scale of classes, ranging from the man who kicks at stones on the path to spirits as outstanding as Plato or Calvin.

This diversity is neither created nor destroyed by common grace. Rather, common grace works in very different ways depending on whether it manifests itself in a man of very modest aptitude or a man of very great aptitude. What arises from creation is not annihilated by sin but influences the form that sin adopts. Taken as male and female sinners, a man and a woman are not identical. A woman who sins is different from a man who sins. And thus sin will take a different form and follow a different course in the person with one talent than in the person with three or five talents; different in the sanguine person than in the choleric or phlegmatic person; different in the person of willpower than in the person of intellectual power; in short, as it permeates all the differences between individuals, sin will manifest itself in ever-different forms because of those differences.

§ 3 Therefore, the harp that common grace plays is not a harp with strings of uniform thickness and length; all strings are different. That is the first distinction. But through this first distinction runs a second one that depends on whether the strings are touched with more or less force and are held for a shorter or longer time. Thus there can be two people who both possess, by virtue of the creation ordinance, the greatest talents and rich genius; and yet common grace has such an entirely different effect on them so that one, precisely because of his great talent, becomes an uncontrolled villain, a feared devil. The other could become a blessing for our race through the nobility of his word and his high-minded striving. Or, on a more modest scale, there can be two people in the same city, both gifted with courage and ingenuity, but in such a way that the one uses his gifts to agitate the city through bold thefts whereas the other, who is his equal in talent, uses this same talent to track down and capture the thief. The talents of a capable police commissioner and a notorious thief will always display a strong affinity.

God’s sovereignty is therefore unmistakable in common grace. When one individual, carried by common grace, becomes a figure like Plato or Cicero, whereas another turns into a Cain or a Judas, it cannot be explained on the basis of the greater excellence of the former person. It can be explained only as God’s ordination. It is he—our God—who in his omnipotence lets his common grace work on all; without that common grace a sinner would immediately be eradicated. But he also, according to his ordination (which is inscrutable in this case), causes the gifts of creation to bear noble fruit in one person while letting those same gifts in another turn into instruments of wickedness. In this manner the excellence of the gift of creation works toward God’s honor and is a blessing for humanity, while at the same time the terrible character of sin is preached in living color.

§ 4 In the same manner common grace differs in its effect not only between individuals, but also between nations. This is also definitely related to the gifts of creation that have been bestowed on one nation in one way and on another nation in a different way—more to one and less to another. The constitution of the Babylonians stood far above that of the Elamites. The Greeks were superior to the Syrians and the Romans to the Carthaginians. And what