November 28, 2010
Phil Johnson vs. The Gospel
Phil Johnson is an associate of John MacArthur, and executive director of MacArthur’s ministry, Grace To You. He also has his own website, featuring some of his own essays, and writings by prominent Calvinists like Charles Spurgeon, and R.L. Dabney (Outside The Camp is also listed on his site, on the “Really Bad Theology” page, though inexplicably, not on the “Really, Really, Bad Theology page.) Johnson is also famous for his “Hall of Church History” page, but today I’m going to be looking at an article of his, entitled “The Nature of the Atonement”. In it, Johnson puts forth the following view of the Atonement:
If Christ’s dying means that the whole [sic], the judgment of the whole world is
postponed, than unregenerate people reap the blessings and the benefits of that
delay. They reap the benefits and the blessings of common grace through the
atonement. And if that’s the case than that is exactly what God designed. It
didn’t happen by accident. And for that very reason it is my position and the
position of most Calvinists throughout history that some benefits of the
atonement are universal and some benefits of the atonement are particular and
limited to the elect alone.
I have already written several posts on the view of Common Grace put forth by John MacArthur, but in the quotes I cited from MacArthur, he never linked the doctrine of Common Grace to the atoning death of Christ. Here, Johnson asserts that those for whom Christ did not die “reap the benefits and the blessings of common grace through the atonement”.
Those for whom Christ did not die certainly reap the benefit of God’s delayed judgement on the world, but is that a blessing? As I have already written:
Contrary to this nonsense, the Bible teaches that all the good things that God provides for people in this life are a blessing only to the elect (Rom 8:28-32). To the reprobate, they are only a curse (Psa 73:11-20, Pro 16:4-5, Jn 15:22). More importantly, the Bible teaches that all things God sends to his people, good and bad, are a blessing, a blessing that flows from the righteousness of Christ alone (Eph 1:3-6). … an infinitely holy God cannot bless sinful man without the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ. To insist that he can is to oppose the standard of absolute holiness that God reveals in the Gospel.
Like MacArthur, Johnson also teaches that Common Grace is evidence of God’s love toward all people, even those for whom Christ did not die:
Common grace is the grace that permits all sinners to
live and enjoy life under a temporary reprieve from just judgment and justice
even though they’re worthy of instant damnation. Common grace delays that.
Common grace is also the grace that pleads tenderly and earnestly with sinners
to repent and to be reconciled to God, even though they’re hearts are set against
Him. And according to Matthew 5:44-45, these common grace blessings are
tokens of God’s genuine love. Scripture does not hesitate to apply the
expression “love” here.
But inconsistently, Johnson goes on to write:
Now in what sense did Christ purchase
the Church? In Ephesians 5 Paul uses language that evokes the imagery of a
marriage price. Ephesians 5:25, “Husbands love your wives just as Christ also
loved the Church and gave Himself up for her.” Not for her enemies, but for
her. So Christ bought the Church with His own blood. For what reason,
Ephesians 5:26-27, “that He might sanctify her and having cleansed her by the
washing of water with the Word, that He might present to Himself the Church
and all her glory having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she should be
holy and blameless.”Those for whom Christ died He loves with the highest and purest kind of love.
It is a particular love. Its closest earthly parallel is the love of a husband for his
wife. And it’s a special love. It’s not dispensed indiscriminately to everyone
alike. It’s reserved only for the bride, this love. In fact what do we call a man
who shares conjugal love with his neighbor and does not reserve it exclusively
for his wife? We call him an adulterer. What would you call someone who
indiscriminately showed every woman the intense ardent affection men reserve
only for their wives? We would call him a philanderer. Christ’s love for His
Church is pure. It’s more tender, more personal, and an infinitely greater love
than the love of a husband for his wife.
This is utterly repulsive. While Johnson is speaking out of one side of his mouth about the precious love of Christ for his bride, and how it is only given to those for whom Christ died, out of the other side of his mouth Johnson is prattling about God’s universal love for all men without exception — exactly the kind of cheap love he opposes in the two paragraphs above. As I have written before:
The doctrine of God’s Universal Love is a lie that cheapens the love that he has for his beloved bride. Imagine a man who tells his wife that he certainly loves her, and is willing to lay down his life for her, but just happens to have a similar, though totally ineffective, love for all the women in the world. Should she be pleased with such a pathetic, offensive expression of marital love? Yet this is exactly the kind of love that people like MacArthur ascribe to Jesus Christ.
For more on this topic, please see the articles Common Grace?, and Christ Crucified: God’s Love Manifested, by Marc D. Carpenter.
Christopher Adams.
