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May
Common Graciousness
Dear Friends,
We may all perhaps be familiar with the theological categories of God’s redeeming grace and common grace. The former encompasses the Lord’s eternal predestination of those whom He has chosen in Christ to be His adopted children and all that pertains to the accomplishment and application of their redemption that culminates in their reigning with Christ forever in glory. In distinction from such redeeming grace, the common grace of the Lord encompasses His upholding and governing of the world He has created, and especially His general benevolence toward both His people and those who are unregenerate. Sometimes this divine benevolence toward unbelievers can appear extravagant in the estimation of believers who are in a course of the loving sanctification of the Lord. We read about this in Psalm 73. The question that we should consider in view of the Lord’s common grace is: Are we, the children of our saving Father, to be like Him in this way of dealing with those who do not know the Lord? Should there be a common graciousness of believers toward unbelievers?
In answering this question we must search the Scriptures, as we do for all of our answers. The Word of God has considerable teaching that indicates that we, as those who have been redeemed and as part of our grateful response to our God for His great salvation, are obliged to be merciful and gracious toward all men.
The Scriptures clearly and repeatedly command the people of God to love Him (Dt. 6:5). They also command the Lord’s people to be kind to those who are strangers to the covenant of salvation (Lev. 19:34). Jesus with clarity and inescapable strength joined the love of God and the love of one’s neighbor together when He summarized the essence of the Ten Commandments. (Mt. 22:37-39). Our Lord warned His disciples against their having an unloving and unmerciful attitude toward other sinners when he told the parable of the unmerciful servant (Mt. 18:23-34). The Apostle Paul charges believers to do good to all men, especially to those of the household of faith (Gal. 6:10). He further directs the redeemed to owe no one anything but love (Rom. 13:8).
It may appear to us from the verses cited above that we who are in Christ should simply be kind and civil to unbelievers and even then only to those who are not too bad. However, Jesus makes clear that we are to love all men—not just to be civil toward them—and that this command especially includes those who are our enemies. He further connects our exercise of such common graciousness to our being children imitating our heavenly Father. Our Lord tells us plainly: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, in order that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and unrighteousness. (Mt. 5:44,45).
We find not only instruction but also examples of such common graciousness in Scripture. Paul was most respectful toward and with sincere love appealed to his persecuting fellow-Jews, as well as to such carnal and capricious Roman governors as Felix and Festus, and the Jewish puppet king Agrippa before whom he stood trial (Acts 13:16-41; 22:1-21; 24:10-21; 26:1-29).
The temptation we must resist here is that of our trying to tear asunder what our God has joined together, namely, our love for Him and our love for our neighbor. We might be drawn to those passages of the Word where the prophets and Jesus Himself castigate those who honor God with their lips but hate Him in their hearts, and fail to perceive that what they did under special inspiration of God’s Holy Spirit, does not give us warrant to imitate them. We might think that the special order of God to His people under Joshua to exterminate the Canaanites gives us warrant to despise, hate, and seek to destroy our unbelieving neighbors. We might also employ logic, rather than theology, to conclude that if the unregenerate are bound for hell, we may as well treat them like condemned souls now. All such attitudes and actions are misguided and will serve not to glorify our gracious God but rather to grieve Him. Our Father does not delight in any of His children indulging in missions in which they seek and destroy the sinner.
Our God infallibly knows and hates all Esaus of the world, and there will be a day of reckoning for them. But that day is not this day and we are not judges of other men. As the Son of Man came not to judge but rather to save the world, so we are bound by our Lord to love all men for as long as we live in this shadow land of our pilgrimage. It is the antipathy of true piety that we should hold others in contempt and treat them with cold neglect. Our Lord Himself demonstrated the supreme act of common graciousness when He referred to the apostate Judas as friend, even as Judas was betraying our Lord and facilitating His arrest (Mt. 26:50). Can we really imagine such a gracious Master countenancing His servants’ loveless, prayerless neglect of and animosity toward their enemies? If we truly know that He first loved us, then we shall love Him and others.
Yours growing in grace and love,
William Harrell
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Sunday
Morning Worship 10:30 AM
Evening Worship
6:30 PM
Wednesday
Christian Education
7:00 PM
Saturday
Congregational Prayer Meeting
7:00 PM |
