Who will argue with Owen about the atonement?

Few doctrines could be more important to the Christian than those concerning the cross of our Saviour. And since we know that it is only by Christ's work on the cross that we can be saved, it is especially important for us to consider the question asked by John Owen below in "The Death of Death in the Death of Christ." We must know the answer; did Christ die for:

1. all the sins of all men,
2. all the sins of some men, or
3. some sins of all men.

Let's sit at Owen's feet for a while to hear him bring the Scriptures to bear on this issue:

"Nay, but in dying for us Christ did not only aim at our good, but also directly died in our stead. The punishment due to our sin and the chastisement of our peace was upon him; which that it was the pains of hell, in their nature and being, in their weight and pressure, though not in tendence and continuance (it being impossible that he should be contained by death), who can deny and not be injurious to the justice of God, which will inevitably inflict those pains to eternity upon sinners? It is true, indeed, there is a relaxation of the law in respect of the persons suffering, God admitting of commutation; as in the old law, when in their sacrifices the life of the beast was accepted (in respect to the carnla part of the ordinances) for the life of the man. This is fully revealed, and we believe it; but for any change of the punishment, in respect of the nature of it, where is the least intimation of any alteration? We conclude, then, this second act of God, in laying the punishment on him for us, with that of the prophet, "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned each to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all," (Isa. 53:6): and add thereunto this observation, that it seems strange to me that Christ should undergo the pains of hell in their stead who lay in the pains of hell before he underwent those pains, and shall continue in them to eternity; for their worm dieth not, neither is their fire quenched." To which I may add this dilemma to our Universalists: - God imposed his wrath due unto, and Christ underwent the pains of hell for, either all the sins of all men, or all the sins some men, or some sins of all men. If the last, some sins of all men, then have all men some sins to answer for, and so shall no man be saved; for if God enter into judgment with us, though it were with all mankind for one sin, no flesh should be justified in his sight: "If the LORD should mark iniquities, who should stand?" (Ps. 130:3; cf. Jas. 2:10). We might all go cast all that we have "to the moles and to the bats, to go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty," (Isa. 2:20, 21). If the second, that is it that we affirm, that Christ in their stead and room suffered for all the sins of all the elect in the world. If the first, why, then, are not all freed from the punishment of all their sins? You will say, "Because of their unbelief; they will not believe." But this unbelief, is it a sin, or not? If not, why should they be punished for it? If it be, then Christ underwent the punishment due to it, or not. If so, then why must that hinder them more than their other sins for which he died from partaking of the fruit of his death? If he did not, then did he not die for all their sins [Hence, they cannot be saved, SW]. Let them choose which part they will."

We can see that to understand who the intended objects were, we must understand the nature of the atonement. And the nature of this work of Christ will forever elude us if we do not always hold God's perfect justice before our eyes, by which we stand either condemned, or justified, if it is that Christ has satisfied God's justice on our behalf. If justified, then certainly glorified (Rom. 8:30-34), and since not all are glorified, not all are justified, and Christ died only for those who are saved: the elect.

Sam W.

Singing like a Pharisee

The Pharisees did not simply follow God's commandments at all. They were hypocrites; shiny on the outside, rotten on the inside. To them the law was not spiritual, and their hearts were far from the Law-Giver.

They added to this wicked hypocrisy by not only making up new commandments not found in God's Word, but also condemning others for not keeping those things in order to puff themselves up. And the worst of all, which was no doubt the root of their pride and hypocrisy, was that they taught that righteousness was obtained by means of keeping the law. But only those who have graciously been given the perfect righteousness of Christ are justified in God's sight. The just shall live by faith in Christ's righteousness, not their own.

In contrast, those who believe that they have obtained righteousness by means of their own will, naturally will produce the proud fruit of hypocrisy, rather than the humble fruit of sincerity. Because they believe that their own will makes the difference between them and another, it is natural for them to puff themselves up against others, and insist on burdensome commandments to trip others up, so that they are considered better. So, they love the praise of men rather than the praise of God, because being unjustified, they have not experienced the praise of God in their consciences as righteous in Christ alone, which testimony makes the praise of men worthless and undesirable.

If you want an example of Pharisaic worship today, look no further than the Roman liturgy, or the charismatics (which are actually worse). Some charismatics even think that a person who does not raise his hands and shake and babble and do whatever other ridiculous fad, is totally unspiritual, and probably not even a Christian, or at least a far less spiritual Christian. And woe betide the church which refuses to sing their super-spiritual hymns and choruses!

After all, they say, isn't God always doing a "new thing", and bringing "new revelations", and "new waves" and "movements of the Spirit" (a spirit of confusion and pride, you understand, not the Holy Spirit of God who brings the righteous fruit of self-control, patience, and love which covers a multitude of sins, and by which we humble ourselves and bear with the failings and weaknesses of our brethren). And "sing a new song" they insist means that we must sing their sensational, carnal, and emotive doggerel, while discarding and abolishing the inspired Psalms as deadweight. So, they puff themselves up against those who are content with singing the songs actually inspired by God, the 150 Psalms. It is after all, one of the Psalms speaking of itself (not some other song) which says, "sing a new song".

Who here is the Pharisee? He who sings the songs which God has given to His church, or he who condemns us for refusing to sing songs which have not been appointed by God for worship? And since God is the only one worthy to determine how He must be worshipped, we must not worship in any way other than what He has commanded, and so we ignore the unscriptural commandments of the Pharisaic charismatics, and maintain that their worship is vain because it is not what God has required. By means of their pride, they lay aside the good things which God has commanded. And is this not Pharisaism?

"Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition. Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." - Matt. 15:6b-9.
"For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men...Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition" - Mark 7:8,13.

Finally, consider the objection to only singing Psalms, which tries to compare our Scriptural practice to the wickedness, pride, and hypocrisy of the Pharisees, because we don't condemn the singing of all other songs outside the worship service as inherently sinful. To bring other songs before God as worship would be sinful - unless one meant in the sense that we must worship God with everything we think, say or do, and with all the gifts and talents that have been given to us. But is it not plain that there are a great many songs and many other activities that are not sinful to sing or do most of the time, but would be completely inappropriate for the worship service? I may fix teeth all week as a dentist, but I won't do it in the worship service. Similarly a poet, or a musician, or a singer may do a great many lawful things during the week, which would be inappropriate for the worship service. Is it is not placing an unnecessary and even grievous burden on such people to restrict their singing to only the Psalms all the time outside the worship service?

Now, the reason I've written a short article on the subject was to answer these objections, because they were laid against the Scriptural practice and teachings of my church, and they were made publicly, and I felt it would be worthwhile and helpful to defend our practice and teaching, because it is Scriptural, and I want others to see that, and grow in understanding, and for God to be worshipped rightly and given the praise and honour He deserves from His people, and I want to see the errors which oppose this thrown down and exposed, and His people blessed in singing the 150 Psalms in worship, and not burdened with the traditions of men, and the proud craftiness of Pharisaic philosophies.

But I can't help wondering what one hopes to achieve with these objections, if one is not really bothered after all with whether or not we sing the Psalms. Is it all just an academic exercise, or is there a genuine care about how God must be worshipped in spirit and in truth? And for those who treated the issues of God's commandments as mere academia, Christ had words too: "Woe unto you also, ye lawyers! for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers." - Luke 11:46.

Of course, God's law is not burdensome (I John 5:3; James 1:25), but men try to present it as such when they do not desire to keep it, or wish to excuse themselves. There is no fault with God's commandments, the fault is with us whose hearts are sinful and rebel against God's authority in His Word.

Acceptable Worship in Christ Alone

The only thing acceptable in God's sight is what proceeds from Him alone. God is holy, and the highest good and only source of all goodness. The human heart is always filled with pride, and all kinds of malice, idolatry, wickedness, and envy. There is such evil in the human heart by nature that we cannot fathom it. Nothing good can possibly come from the heart of those fallen in Adam. And though the life of Jesus Christ is present in every Christian, there is only a small beginning, and the totally depraved, vile, and abominable sinful nature remains.

It is entirely evident to me now, as despite myself God has graciously taught me by His glorious law of light and liberty, more of how deceitfully wicked we really are at heart, that for a man to get the insane notion into his head that he can write a song that is worthy to be brought into the presence of Holy God in the congregation of the saints as pure, true, and spiritual worship to the Holy One, is nothing but rotten, foul, and stinking pride of the worst sort - spiritual pride.

David, and the others inspired writers of the Psalms were inspired by the Holy Spirit of God to pen the 150 Psalms, and God has not added to them, nor ever will, because His Word is sufficient, and perfect. Some say that this is a lack of diversity and is unworthy of the God who created millions of species of insect, but He eternally decreed 66 books of the Bible, and every word of it, and all the history recorded therein, all the commandments, who should write them, all the prophecy, and the lives of all those mentioned in the Bible, and of those who penned the books. And He decreed 150 Psalms to be perfectly inspired by His Spirit, to proclaim the praises of the redemption of His elect church by the promised Messiah, for His glory and honour. And He is worthy, not of the lame and blemished to be brought to Him (Mal. 1:6-14), but only for that which is perfect, as He is perfect, to be offered as praise before Him.

First of all, this tells us that Christian worship can only ever be acceptable, by being sanctified in Jesus Christ. The beloved Son of God covers the filthy rags of our pathetic worship to make it acceptable in the sight of God. He atoned for all the impurity, weakness, and carnality of our worship. But does such grace give us license to be proud before the Holy One, and lift up our hearts as if we were acceptable of ourselves? That is what we say (whether we realise it or not) to God, when we offer up the ridiculous writings of mere men as worship. Even the holy Psalms become filthy rags as we try to offer them as worship, so how much more the products of proud hymn-writers, no matter how much derived (or distorted) from Scripture (which God did not appoint to be sung, but to be preached). Such hymns may indeed be edifying, and helpful in their place, but that place is not in worship. It is not a matter of greater and lesser, but of appointed for worship, and not at all.

Shall we sin that grace may increase? By no means. Rather we must, in holy reverence granted by the Spirit of God, repent of our spiritual pride, and seek to worship with what God Himself has given approval, and to do so in spirit and in truth more and more as He causes us to grow by the powerful preaching of the Gospel. Considering our depravity, it is utter foolishness to expect that our own carnal imaginations and reasoning about what God desires in worship should ever be anything other than completely wrong and even abominable in His sight. Instead, we must humbly seek His wisdom, and ask of God in His Word revealed to us, how we ought to worship, just as we must learn from Him how we must pray. Naturally, all our own ideas about spiritual things are nonsense, and worse than folly; even directly opposed to what is godly and righteous.

Furthermore, since Christian worship can only be acceptable in Jesus Christ, knowing that there is one Mediator between God and man, and that He is the only way to the Father, we should know that anything not appointed as worship in His Word is as vain and idolatrous as seeking God outside of Christ. Again, it is idolatry to worship God according to our own ideas about what is acceptable. The Lord Jesus alone appoints how we must worship, just as He alone directs and governs all things in His church. And the church that refuses to submit to His rule, is not His bride, but a whore with which the world commits fornication. To offer anything other than the Psalms of Holy Scripture as worship is nothing less than disobedience to Christ, and seeking to have fellowship with God apart from the Mediator, Jesus Christ, by whom we were given the Psalms.

The starting principle of the godly is that he humbles himself before God, and forsakes his own thoughts, and inquires carefully of God how it is that He must be worshipped. Those who come to the Scriptures with this Christian attitude of humility, and this question, cannot escape the conclusion that there is nothing else apart from the Psalms of Scripture that God ever appoints for us to sing in worship to Him. And so all other notions and objections, no matter how persuasive must be utterly rejected as deceitful and devious lies and temptations of the devil who always seeks to corrupt the worship of God, and whose greatest ally in the church is the sinful heart of man, with all its proud natural reasoning.

"Because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So they that are in the flesh cannot please God." - Rom. 8:7-8. 

The most blind argument that can ever be made against singing the Psalms only, is that it is proud. The idolatry of offering worship that has not been appointed by God is proud. And it is natural that a church which loses the doctrine of the depravity of man, and the holiness of God, and of Christ the Mediator, and in short where Christ is no longer heard in its preaching, and the sacraments are carelessly profaned, and there is no spiritual discipline to remove the leaven of adulterers (for example), that such a lump becomes more and more leavened, so that the worship too is utterly corrupted, in that proud man-made worship is proudly offered, and the sincerity, holiness, purity, richness, and worthiness of the Psalms are no longer heard at all. The voice of the Bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, are no longer heard in such false churches. Where you hear the voice of the Bridegroom however, there you will also hear the voice of His bride, singing joyfully to her Saviour, with the words given to her by God Himself.