Is God Obligated…?

 

The late R. C. Sproul was the most prominent Reformed theologian of his day, and did much to promote Calvinism in his time. He established the Ligonier Ministries, an “international Christian discipleship organization … distinguished by its teaching of Reformed theology,” according to the Wikipedia article on the subject. On their own website, it identifies its mission as follows:

“Ligonier Ministries exists to proclaim, teach, and defend the holiness of God in all its fullness to as many people as possible. We support the church by providing trustworthy teaching to help Christians know what they believe, why they believe it, how to live it, and how to share it.”

He was also a prolific writer, and wrote several books, the best known and most popular of which probably is The Holiness of God, which has sold around a ¼ million copies. I haven’t read the book myself; but while I was searching the Internet on another subject, I stumbled across the above quote from the book on the Reformed Reader Blog (link), which I thought was interesting, and worth commenting on. The blog post is titled: “God Is Not Obligated…,” and is dated May 24, 2010. The quote is from chapter 6 of the book, according to the blog post, the full text of which begins as follows:

“Suppose ten people sin and sin equally. Suppose God punishes five of them and is merciful to the other five. Is this injustice? No! In this situation five people get justice and five people get mercy. No one gets injustice. What we tend to assume is this: if God is merciful to five he must be equally merciful to the other five. Why? He is never obligated to be merciful. If he is merciful to nine of the ten, the tenth cannot complain that he is a victim of injustice. God never owes mercy.”

There are several issues with that statement. Firstly, it assumes that God’s mercy is arbitrary. He arbitrarily decides whom to be merciful to, and whom not to be. He doesn’t use an established criteria to decide whom to be merciful to and whom not to be—which criteria we can then also use or apply to qualify for his mercy. That is not biblical. The Bible does indeed teach that God uses a certain criteria to determine whom to be merciful to, and whom not to be:

Proverbs 28:

13 He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.

Psalm 86:

5 For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee.

2 Chronicles 30:

9 … for the Lord your God is gracious and merciful, and will not turn away his face from you, if ye return unto him.

Joel 2:

13 And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.

Matthew 9:

13 But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

James 4:

8 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.

9 Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.

10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.

2 Peter 3:

9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

Ezekiel 18:

23 Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord God: and not that he should return from his [evil] ways, and live?

Ezekiel 33:

11 Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?

So God’s extension of his mercy is not arbitrary. He uses a certain criteria to decide whom to be merciful to, and whom not to be—which criteria we can then also apply to qualify for his mercy. That criteria is humility, meekness, turning to God, and above all, repentance. That is what the Bible teaches. Another problem with that statement is, he says that God “… is never obligated to be merciful. … God never owes mercy.” That is not quite correct either. When God lays down a certain criteria for extending his mercy; and someone fulfills that criteria; God is obligated to keep his word, his promise, and extend his mercy. God is obliged to remain true to his word, to his character, to his promise. When he says in Proverbs 28:13 that “… whoso confesseth [his sins] and forsaketh them shall have mercy,” he is obligated to remain true to his word, and fulfill the promise; because one of the attributes of the character of God is that he “cannot lie” (Num. 23:19; 1 Sam. 15:29; Heb. 6:18). He is obliged to keep his promise, his word. He cannot violate his own character. Then the quotation continues as follows:

“God is not obliged to treat all men equally. Maybe I’d better say that again. God is never obliged to treat all men equally.”

Which again is unbiblical and false. God is identified in scripture as being “no respecter of persons” (2 Chron. 19:7; Acts 10:34-35; Rom. 2:11; Eph. 6:9; Col. 3:25; 1 Peter 1:17), and that “… in every nation [and religion] he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him” (Acts 10:35). What that means is that God does not discriminate. He does not have favorites. He treats all men alike, on an equal basis. He does not arbitrarily decide whom to save, and whom not to save; or whom to forgive, and whom not to forgive; or whom to be merciful to, and whom not to be merciful to, etc. He has laid down a criteria by which to decide those things; and when the criteria is fulfilled, the promised blessings are applied, they cannot fail. God cannot violate his own covenants and promises, because he cannot lie. When the criteria he has laid down are fulfilled by someone, the promised blessings and rewards necessarily follow. The quote then continues as follows:

“If he were ever unjust to us, we would have reason to complain. But simply because he grants mercy to my neighbor, gives me no claim on his mercy.”

Not correct. Everyone has claim on his mercy, when the required conditions are fulfilled, as outlined above. That statement is based on the false premise of his Calvinistic heresy that God’s mercy is applied arbitrarily and unconditionally, which of course is not correct, and has no biblical support. And the quotation finally ends with this statement:

“Again we must remember that mercy is always voluntary. ‘I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy’” (Ex 33:19).

That quote (Ex 33:19) of course is regularly misread, misunderstood, and misapplied in Calvinism. It does not mean that God arbitrarily decides whom to be merciful to, and whom not to be. It means that he is the decision-maker; but it does not mean that he makes those decisions by means of some arbitrary fiat. He has established a criteria by which those decisions are made; and he has told us what those criteria are; and he is the ultimate decision-maker for determining when those criteria have been met. That is what that scripture means. It doesn’t mean what Calvinists like to think it means. So the bottom line is that Calvinism is a heresy. It is as heretical, false, and unbiblical as it can get.