The New Puritanism, Part 2: Michael S. Horton: Holy War With Unholy Weapons

By Zane C. Hodges

Associate Editor, Journal of the Grace Evangelical Society, Mesquite, Texas

Introduction to the Series

[Over the last year or so a growing number of books and articles has appeared which have targeted the Free Grace movement for critique and rebuttal. These publications mention the Grace Evangelical Society and its literature. This is a positive development. GES definitely wishes to have its views seriously discussed in the marketplace of ideas.

It might be possible to describe these writings as presenting what is known as “Lordship Salvation.” But this designation, though widely used, does not indicate the true historical antecedents of the movement in its present form. The term could be used with equal ease to describe many who are Arminian in theology. Yet the major “lordship” writers of today are not Arminian, however much they tend toward conclusions similar to those of Arminians (e.g., on assurance). Instead, these writers describe themselves as Calvinists. But John Calvin himself, were he alive today, would probably disown them because they more closely resemble the scholastic theology that resisted the Reformation than Calvin’s own theology. [1]

In deference, therefore, to the many Calvinists who hold a biblical theology of grace (e.g., R. T. Kendall, M. Charles Bell, Charles C. Ryrie), we refuse to describe the writers we are talking about as Calvinists. Instead, it would be better to identify them with the theology that became predominant in Puritan thought and which was, in significant respects, a rejection of certain basic concepts of Reformation theology. Hence my series title is “The New (i.e., contemporary) Puritanism.”

In this series we will consider some of the more significant recent literature produced from this particular theological perspective. In the process we will seek to determine how fairly, and how effectively, these writers have confronted the Free Grace movement.]

I. Introduction

Michael S. Horton is the president of an organization known as Christians United for Reformation (CURE), with headquarters in Anaheim, California. As its journalistic arm, CURE publishes a magazine called modernReformation [sic], which promotes CURE’s point of view. On the masthead of this magazine CURE is identified as “a non-profit educational foundation committed to communicating the insights of the 16th century Reformation to the 20th century Church.”

The book under review here is a symposium volume entitled, Christ the Lord: The Reformation and Lordship Salvation (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992; 240 pp.) and is edited by Horton. He also contributed a preface, an introduction, and two out of the eight articles the book contains. Four other contributors (W. Robert Godfrey, Rick Ritchie, Kim Riddlebarger, and Rod Rosenbladt) are listed as “Writers” on the masthead of modernReformation. The two remaining contributors are Paul Schaefer, a freelance writer, and Robert Strimple, a professor at Westminster Theological Seminary in California (as also is Godfrey, mentioned above).

Clearly there is no reason to quarrel with the designation “A CURE Book” which appears on the title page.

Michael S. Horton’s name has achieved considerable visibility in recent years through a number of books, including The Agony of Deceit (which he edited) and Made in America (which he wrote). But it is probable that many to whom his name is known could not pinpoint his theology beyond saying that it was evangelical. However, as one reviewer of Made in America has noted:

Horton’s major concern is not with the country in general, but how quickly American evangelicals in particular abandoned the Puritan ideal, particularly its Calvinistic theology and world view, and accomodated themselves to whatever the culture dictated [italics added]. [2]

Later, the same reviewer notes that “those who do not share Horton’s love for the five Points of Calvinism may find his constant harping on Arminianism excessive” [italics added]. [3] An awareness of the theology behind Christ the Lord is essential if we are to correctly evaluate this book.

II. Let the Reader Beware

In the last analysis, Christ the Lord is a vigorous attack on Free Grace theology from a slightly disguised Dortian (five-point Calvinist) perspective.

The reader should understand that five-point Calvinism generally denies the validity of all free will in human beings and embraces a harsh doctrine of reprobation along with a rigid view of divine election. To put it plainly, those who are lost were unconditionally assigned to hell by divine decree in eternity past. Since they have no free will, there is nothing they can possibly do about their eternal reprobation.

But equally, the elect can do nothing either, not even believe. This leads to the doctrine that our faith does not appropriate God’s gift of life, but rather faith results from God’s sovereign regeneration of the elect person. To the five-point Calvinist, regeneration logically precedes faith, despite all of the Scriptures that condition eternal life and/or justification on faith.

It follows, as well, that Christ did not pay the penalty for the sins of the non-elect, but only for those of the elect. This too flies in the face of Scripture (2 Cor 5:19; 1 Tim 2:3–6; 1 John 2:2).

None of these ideas has any right to be called normative Protestant theology. None has ever been held by a wide cross-section of Christendom. Most importantly, none of them is biblical. In the opinion of this reviewer all of them lie outside the proper parameters of Christian orthodoxy. [4]

Yet the contributors to this book do not lay explicit claim to this set of doctrines. To do so would have “turned off” a large majority of Christian readers. Instead, they feel more comfortable hurling at their opponents such epithets as “Arminian” and “antinomian.” But by concealing the full scope of their own theology—and by laying claim to orthodoxy—they actually construct a fantasy world. They create the deceptive illusion that the Free Grace movement is an enemy to historic orthodoxy.

But in fact, the Free Grace movement is not an enemy to orthodoxy. On the other hand, most (but not all) Free Grace people are indeed opposed to the “Christian fatalism” of 5-point Calvinism.

The writers of this volume are sometimes so intense that one feels they regard their assault on free Grace theology as a kind of “holy war.” But if this is their view of it, their weapons are decidedly unholy. Let us examine some of these “weapons,” which the writers freely deploy. Limits of space require our focus to be mainly on Horton, the leading offender here.

III. Unholy Weapons

Very few books that I have read deal so heavily in caricature and misrepresentation. It was hard for me even to recognize myself after encountering so many false strokes on this volume’s portrait of me. We will look at some of these “false strokes” as we survey the “unholy weapons” deployed in this volume.

A. False Statements

1. The Issue of Saving Faith

Under his discussion of “Is Faith a Gift?” (Introduction, p. 16), Horton refers to my approving citation of Dr. Robert Preus in Absolutely Free! (Note 5, pp. 227–28). [5] Horton describes Preus as “perhaps the leading conservative Lutheran scholar in our generation” (p.16), and quotes the section (which I also quoted) where Preus states:

The Arminians too opposed the Lutheran doctrine by making faith (which they granted was trust) a work (actus) of man. Like the Romanists they had a synergistic notion of how man came to faith…Their deviations from the evangelical model are in force today, although in somewhat less gross form. We have all encountered them. [6]

What follows in Horton is an astounding and reckless charge. He writes:

Indeed, we have all encountered them, not least in Zane Hodges’s Absolutely Free! That Hodges can approvingly cite these remarks while laboring throughout the book [italics added] to establish that very Roman Catholic and Arminian view of saving faith as a human act and the product of a synergistic (i.e., cooperative) response of free will to divine grace demonstrates the author’s confusion either as to what the Reformers taught or as to his own position [p. 16].

This is totally “off the wall,” to use a colloquial expression. We should note that, in saying that I labor “throughout the book” to prove what he charges me with, Horton does not cite so much as one single page-reference! Since I do not hold or teach what Horton says I do, Horton’s statement is flatly false.

What is equally bad is the question of whether or not Horton has even read with care the very footnote in my book from which he himself was quoting! In that note I speak approvingly of Preus’s insistence on the traditional Lutheran understanding of faith as “pure receptivity.” I also refer to Preus’s citation of Luther’s own great statement: “Faith holds out the hand and the sack and just lets the good be done to it. For God is the giver…, we are the receivers who receive the gift through faith that does nothing.” [7] This is my view of faith, too.

I do not contradict this position anywhere in Absolutely Free! Horton’s claim that I do is without foundation. Faith is not an “actus” in either the Roman Catholic or Arminian sense. It is “pure receptivity” to the offer of the Gospel. Faith is a persuasion of the heart, not an “act” of the human will. [8]

2. The Second or Third Point of Calvinism?

After the discussion above, we are hardly surprised to read another accusation by Horton:

Denying the doctrine of unconditional election (“this tragic error,” Hodges calls it) and the effectiveness of God’s grace in granting faith, the author adds… [p. 17; italics added].

This is also an untrue statement. I say nothing in Absolutely Free! about the doctrine of unconditional election (the so-called second point of Calvinism). As a matter of fact, I hold to that doctrine, though probably not in a form to which Horton would give his approval.

In my text the words “this tragic error” refer to the third point of Calvinism, namely, to ‘the doctrine of limited atonement. This doctrine is often denied by those Calvinists who hold to the other four points of Calvinism (including unconditional election). With apologies to the reader, I must quote myself here in order to make my point. I wrote:

Frequently (though not always) lordship salvation is combined with a harsh system of thought that denies the reality of God’s love for every single human being. According to this kind of theology, God dooms most men to eternal damnation long before they are born and really gives His Son-to die only for the elect. 

For such thinkers, the declaration that “God so loved the world” (John 3:16) must be tortured into meaning something less than His universal love for mankind. It does not lie within the scope of this book to deal with this tragic error” (italics added). [9]

No doubt this section of my book greatly displeased Horton, who evidently holds to “limited atonement.” But why could he not accurately designate the doctrine I was criticizing? Is this carelessness? Or is it an unwillingness to allow his belief in “limited atonement” to be plainly declared. After all, most Christians throughout church history have rejected this doctrine. Furthermore, a powerful case has been made that Calvin himself did not hold it.” [10] Is Horton afraid that “open confession” will undermine his case to the general Christian public?

3. Revelation 3:20

Or, we might take the following unwarranted statement by Horton:

Hodges also returns to the faulty, if popular, exegesis of Revelation 3:20: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.” It is clear from the context that Jesus is addressing “the church of the Laodiceans,” not the unbelieving world, as Hodges and others interpret it [pp. 17–18].

How could Horton possibly have come up with this? Certainly not by a careful reading of my book! In fact I say clearly of Rev 3:20 that:

It would be wrong to take this famous statement as a simple gospel invitation, though that has often been done. Here our Lord is addressing a Christian church and, clearly, anyone in the church is invited to respond.” [11]

Moreover, on p. 150 of my book, I refer to Rev 3:20 in connection with Christian repentance! Horton’s statement about my view is totally false.

4. Conclusion

The observant reader will have noticed that the three false statements I have cited occur on pp. 16, 17 and 17–18. This is falsification at a very rapid clip! Obviously I would soon use up all the space in this article if I tried to enumerate each and every false assertion this volume makes about my views.

Suffice it to say, Horton and his fellow authors are so unreliable in stating these views, that none of their statements about me should be taken at face value unless carefully verified by the reader from my actual writings!

B. Distortions

As we have said, the writers in Christ the Lord frequently just misstate my views; on the other hand, they often distort them. Once again we will focus on Horton.

1. The Charge of Denying God’s Sovereignty

On p. 21 (still in his Introduction!), Horton rejects my view about the statement in Eph 2:10 that Christians are “created … for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” In Absolutely Free! (p. 73), I stated that one cannot find in this text “any kind of guarantee that the stated purpose will be fulfilled.”

Horton replies: “So, once again, the author follows his logic to its sad conclusion: God is not sovereign; he does not achieve his gracious purposes …” (p. 21).

Has Horton never heard the formulation to which even many Calvinists hold, namely that, “What God desires, He does not always decree”? God may deeply desire certain goals which, in His wisdom, He has not chosen to attain. Horton’s charge that my theology results in the conclusion that God is not sovereign, is logically absurd.

Horton’s position is also linguistically untenable. The Greek word hina (= “that” in Eph 2:10) tells us nothing about the final results and only describes the intended purpose God has for us as people “created in Christ Jesus.” Whether or not this purpose will be fulfilled in each and every case is a conclusion that cannot be supported from this text.

But in Horton’s theology one is required to hold to its fulfillment by all the elect. From Horton’s perspective, the reason for this is indicated by the words that immediately follow the quotation cited above: [The result of Hodges’s view is that] “the effectiveness of the grace he [God] offers depends entirely on what we decide by an act of the will” (p. 21).

This, too, is a distortion. I do not state, nor do I believe, that obedience to God’s will “depends entirely” on what we decide. God works on the human will to move us (not coerce us!) to a decision to obey, and His enablement is necessary as we seek to carry out this decision (see Phil 2:13). At the same time, the Christian may resist God’s work in his heart.

But leaving this point aside, the real key to Horton’s comments is his complete refusal to allow any role to man’s will either in salvation or in sanctification. Horton appears to think that any allowance for the activity of the human will deprives God of His sovereignty. But this is false.

The relationship between divine control and human freedom has long been a controversial theological issue. The reader may be interested in a recent and highly competent treatment of this difficult subject. He will find it in an article by David Basinger entitled, “Divine Control and Human Freedom: Is Middle Knowledge the Answer?” in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 36 (1, March 1993): 55-64. The complexity of the issue can easily be seen from Basinger’s discussion. Horton’s perspective evidently requires what Basinger calls “theological determinism.” In my view, the approach designated “middle knowledge” is superior to other views. In “middle knowledge” full account is taken of God’s omniscience so that room is left for the biblical concept of human responsibility as well as of divine sovereignty. A discussion of the whole question cannot be taken up here. [12]

Suffice it to say, Horton apparently charges me with theological indeterminism of an Arminian type, which is not at all a fair or correct assessment of my position.

2. The Charge of Antinomianism

Naturally, Horton also charges me (and others) with antinomianism. This is pretty standard fare for my critics in the New Puritan camp. I was certainly not surprised to find it in this book too.

What did surprise me was Horton’s apparent lack of accuracy in discussing the so-called “antinomian controversy” in seventeenth-century New England. In a section entitled “The Antinomian Controversy” (found on pp. 142–47 of Horton’s chapter called “Christ Crucified between Two Thieves”), Horton depicts that controversy in a way that is, historically, almost unrecognizable.

The best resource for students of this controversy is the volume edited by David Hall and entitled, The Antinomian Controversy, 1636–1638: A Documentary History. [13] Here all the essential original documents have been collected and printed in full. The first edition was published in 1968 (Horton apparently errs in citing it as 1989 on p. 228), while a second edition appeared in 1990. I have read the documents in their entirety. But has Horton? I seriously doubt it, even though he cites the book four times. On inspection, his citations from the first edition are from p. 15 (twice), p. 19, and p. 53. But this is a book of well over 400 pages! [14]

Strikingly, Horton critiques the New England Puritans who opposed(!) antinomianism because they “appeared to be following a system more akin to the medieval penitential system, with assurance of God’s favor being granted through successive stages of contrition, purgation, illumination, and finally union” (pp. 144–45). And who is Horton’s “hero” in this controversy? Astoundingly, it is John Cotton, the leading clergyman on the antinomian side! Of Cotton he writes:

For whatever reasons, John Cotton had become more aligned with the thinking of the Reformers (and, I think, the New Testament) after his move to Boston [p. 144]. 

Cotton argued, quite traditionally, that we do not attain union through a series of stages; rather we are united to Christ immediately by the Holy Spirit through faith. His opponents, however, like many of their English contemporaries, followed a line closer to the medieval scheme [pp. 144–45].

All of this is to be taken cum grano salis because it throws a false slant on the controversy. As Hall has reaffirmed in the preface to his new edition, “I argued in 1968, and would argue again, that assurance of salvation was the central issue in the controversy.” [15] The argument among the Puritans revolved around whether assurance of salvation could be immediately given by the Spirit at conversion, or whether assurance must wait on one’s sanctification—i.e., on a manifestation of obedience to the law. Those who opposed making obedience to the law a necessary condition of assurance were the “antinomians” (= those against law). As I have noted, Cotton was the leader of the “antinomians.” [16]

But if Cotton, the “antinomian,” is Horton’s hero in the controversy who is his villain? This dubious distinction falls on Anne Hutchinson, whom Horton acknowledges to have been “one of his [Cotton’s] devoted parishioners” (p. 144), Of Hutchinson Horton writes:

Now it must be said that Anne Hutchinson, in addition to being a strange person, was certainly an antinomian. Very often, charges of antinomianism are not seaworthy, but Anne clearly denied the necessary connection between faith and repentance, justification and sanctification, and relegated the latter to “works-righteousness.” Every command, every requirement in Scripture, was viewed as a form of legalism [p. 144].

Where is the documentation for these claims? Horton offers none. Apparently he wishes to distance Hutchinson from Cotton, but in so doing he distorts history.

Much more accurate, it seems to me, are the publisher’s comments on the back cover of the paperback edition:

This new edition of the 1968 volume, published for the first time in paper, includes an expanded bibliography and a new preface, treating in more detail the primary figures of Anne Hutchinson and her chief clerical supporter, John Cotton. Among the documents gathered here are transcripts of Anne Hutchinson’s trial, several of Cotton’s writings defending the Antinomian position, and John Winthrop’s account of the controversy. Hall’s increased focus on Hutchinson reveals the harshness and the excesses with which the New England ministry tried to discredit her and reaffirms her place of prime importance in the history of American women.

This does not sound at all like Horton’s description of things!

What is crucial here is the account, or transcript, of Mrs. Hutchinson’s examination by the General Court at Newtown in November of 1637. [17] This account was first found in an appendix to an historical work published in Boston in 1767. [18] It sheds significant light on Mrs. Hutchinson and is included in Hall’s volume on Pp. 312–48.

It is plain from the transcript that Mrs. Hutchinson was routing her accusers with her responses until she admitted that she had received divine revelations. As Hall has noted,

Her trial by the Court was nearly a disaster, for Mrs. Hutchinson made the various charges brought against her seem ridiculous. Not until she spoke of receiving revelations from God did the Court find an issue on which she could be banished. With her proscription the Controversy drew to a close. [19]

So, in reality, Mrs. Hutchinson was not banished for her antinomian views, but for what amounted to her “charismatic” tendencies!

The reader may be interested in a brief extract from the exchange between Anne Hutchinson and her accusers at this hearing. In segment, the Deputy Governor charges her with disparaging all ministers in the Massachusetts Bay Colony by saying “that they have preached a covenant of works, and only Mr. Cotton a covenant of grace.” [20]

The transcript proceeds as follows:

Mrs. H. I pray Sir prove it that I said they preached nothing but a covenant of works. 

Dep. Gov. Nothing but a covenant of works, why a Jesuit may preach truth sometimes. 

Mrs. H. Did I ever say they preached a covenant of works, then? 

Dep. Gov. If they do not preach a covenant of grace clearly, then they preach a covenant of works. 

Mrs. H. No Sir, one may preach a covenant of grace more clearly than another, so I said. 

D. Gov. We are not upon that now but upon position. 

Mrs. H. Prove this then Sir that you say I said. 

D. Gov. When they do preach a covenant of works do they preach truth? 

Mrs. H. Yes Sir, but when they preach a covenant of works for salvation, this is not truth. 

D. Gov. I do but ask you this, when the ministers do preach a covenant of works do they preach a way of salvation? 

Mrs. H. I did not come hither to answer questions of that sort. 

D. Gov. Because you will deny the thing. 

Mrs. H. Ey, but that is to be proved first. 

D. Gov. I will make it plain that you did say that the ministers did preach a covenant of works. 

Mrs. H. I deny that. 

D. Gov. And that you said they were not able ministers of the new testament, but Mr. Cotton only. 

Mrs. H. If I ever said that I proved it by God’s word. 

Court. Very well, very well. 

Mrs. H. If one shall come to me in private, and desire me seriously to tell them what I thought of such an one. [sic] I must either speak false or true in my answer. [21]

Here it is plain, as it is throughout the entire transcript of the proceedings, that the court was having considerable difficulty in nailing down any significant charge against Mrs. Hutchinson. Moreover, John Cotton stood with Mrs. Hutchinson in her defense virtually to the end of the hearing. A segment near the end of the examination is illuminating:

Mr. Peters. I was much grieved that she should say our ministry was legal. Upon which we had a meeting as you know and this was the same she told us that there was a broad difference between Mr. Cotton and us. Now if Mr. Cotton do hold forth things more clearly than we, it was our grief we did not hold it so clearly as he did, and upon those grounds that you have heard. 

Mr. Coddington. What was wrong was that to say that you were not able ministers of the new testament or that you were like the apostles—methinks the comparison is very good. 

Gov. Well, you remember that she said but now that she should be delivered from this calamity. 

Mr. Cotton. I remember she said that she should be delivered by God’s providence, whether now or at another time she knew not. 

Mr. Peters. I profess I thought Mr. Cotton would never have took her part. [22]

It should be clear enough from these segments of Hutchinson’s trial before the General Court that something quite different was taking place than what Horton describes. The issues were fundamentally her charges of legalism against the Puritan ministers and her claims to direct revelation. Mrs. Hutchinson was not banished from the colony for antinomianism in any widely accepted sense of that word, such as “lawlessness” or “libertinism.” As much as anything she was banished (as we said earlier) for her “charismatic” tendencies. Pastor Cotton did not desert her.

Ironically, Hutchinson was later tried by Cotton’s own church in Boston, with Cotton participating. [23] But this was on an array of new charges, many of which were unrelated to the original controversy. Although she was convicted and excommunicated by Cotton’s church, Hutchinson professed to have held none of the censured convictions prior to her imprisonment, which followed her trial at Newtown. Cotton acknowledged his.own previous unawareness that she held these views. [24] But at this point the larger antinomian controversy was over.

In conclusion, it must be said that Horton’s discussion of this historic controversy is so distorted and flawed, that one wonders how he could manage to be so far off target. It is therefore almost grotesque for Horton to write:

Like Anne Hutchinson, the Dallas position is clearly what its critics insist it is: nothing short of the antinomian heresy. The gospel is distorted in bizarre ways by Hodges, Ryrie, Cocoris and the like [p. 146].

With words like these, Michael Horton descends to new depths of irresponsibility.

C. Soteriology Subjugated to Determinism

If there is one thing five-point Calvinists hold with vigorous tenacity, it is the belief that there can be no human free will at all. With surprising illogic, they usually argue that God cannot be sovereign if man is granted any degree of free will. But this view of God actually diminishes the greatness of His sovereign power. For if God cannot control a universe in which there is genuine free will, and is reduced to the creation of “robots,” then such a God is of truly limited power indeed. [25]

We would argue quite differently. The God of the Bible is in fact great enough to create creatures with genuine powers of choice. Yet so perfect is His omniscience of all choices, possible and actual, that He can devise an almost infinitely complex scenario for mankind in which His sovereign purposes are all worked out perfectly through—and even in spite of—the free choices made by His creatures. This view of things is sometimes called “Middle Knowledge,” which was briefly referred to in our last article. [26]

The theological determinism found in Christ the Lord is in no way necessitated by the Bible. But since the writers impose it on Scripture, the results are necessarily bad. When the Bible is not allowed to speak beyond the grid of its interpreters, we are not surprised if its voice is seriously distorted.

1. There Is No Place for Human Responsibility

It is a logical (though unadmitted) corollary of theological determinism that there can be no true concept of human responsibility. If man has no free will, he can make no other choices than those for which he has been programmed. Man cannot be held truly responsible for “choices” which were mere illusions of choice and which are really the inevitable outworking of a predetermined program to which he is unconsciously subjected. If the word “responsible” is assigned to such “choices,” the word loses any real significance at all. Determinists who use the word are playing a word-game. We might as well say that the table, on which I have just laid some books, is “responsible” to hold them up!

It is part of the creed of the theological determinist that unsaved man cannot really be called upon to believe the Gospel, since he has no capacity to do so at all. It follows, then, that faith must be a divinely imparted gift which man receives only as a part of his conversion.

This idea is pretty clearly stated by Horton. Speaking of “union” with Christ, he writes:

Regeneration, or the new birth, is the commencement of this union. God brings this connection and baptism even before there is any sign of life—God “made us alive … even when we were dead” (Eph 2:5). The first gift of this union is faith, the sole instrument through which we live and remain on this vine. [27]

This statement is theological quicksand to say the least. It is fraught with unbiblical implications.

It is evident that Horton believes that faith is a consequence of regeneration, not regeneration the consequence of faith. It follows that an unsaved man could not possibly believe unless God first regenerates him. The non-elect, therefore, are faced with the horrible reality that God has chosen not to regenerate them and that, therefore, they cannot believe even if they want to.

Yet biblically, the failure to believe is the basis of the condemnation of the unsaved, as John 3:17 declares:

He who believes is not condemned. But he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God.

The result of Horton’s theology is that non-elect people are hopelessly bound for hell because God declines to regenerate them. Thus they are unable to believe.

Yet they are condemned for that unbelief! The picture of God that emerges from this is a hideous distortion of His loving character and nature.

It is not surprising, therefore, to find Horton also writing (on the same page!) these words:

He [God] cannot love us directly because of our sinfulness, but he can love us in union with Christ, because Christ is the one the Father loves. [28]

What this amounts to is that God does not “directly” love anyone unless first He regenerates him or her, since “regeneration is the commencement of union.” In other words, God does not love the elect until they are regenerated, and He never loves the non-elect at all.

This is hardly the God of love whom we meet in the Bible. The deity of the determinist creates human beings for whom he has no direct love, and who have no free will, and thus they are created solely for a destiny in everlasting torment. Christ’s death in no way affects them, and so they stand totally outside of any redemptive provision. Christ’s atoning work is limited to the elect. The non-elect are both unloved and doomed.

The cruelty implicit in such a view is obvious to any observer outside of those who have been brought up in, or have bought into, this kind of theology. Despite specious arguments addressed to every text alleged against such theology, determinists of this type are bereft of true biblical support. It is absurd, for example, to claim (as they sometimes do) that when the Bible says, “God so loved the world,” it means only “the world of the elect.”

This is not the place to refute the doctrine of limited atonement. The reader of this Journal should consult passages like 1 John 2:2, 2 Cor 5:18–19, and 2 Pet 2:1 for clear biblical declarations. Suffice it to point out that the antagonistic, distorted attack on the Free Grace movement in Christ the Lord is understandable against the backdrop of such theology. The theology itself is hard-edged. It transparently lacks a true sense of God’s compassion and love toward all mankind.

It seems to this reviewer that the harsh rhetoric which determinists direct toward their opponents is basically a manifestation of the harsh theology they have embraced.

2. The Doctrine of Assurance Is Muddled

The tensions produced by determinist theology necessarily affect the doctrine of assurance. Horton is well aware of the problems created by a heavy stress on good works as a proof of saving faith. For example, he chides John MacArthur for writing: “If disobedience and rebellion continue unabated there is reason to doubt the reality of a person’s faith … ” [29] Correctly, Horton finds such a statement to be in tension with Paul’s struggle in Romans 7, which both he and MacArthur take as the experience of a regenerate person.

But, surprisingly, Horton goes on to say:

MacArthur may have been on safer ground to have said, “If there is no struggle against the disobedience and rebellion, there is reason to doubt the reality of a person’s faith.” In other words, evidence of the new birth is not whether we are, on the whole, achieving victory at any given point, but whether we are at war! While Paul struggles in this way, he adds, “For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin that is in my members” (Rom 7:22–23). While the regenerate do not cease sinning, they also do not cease hating their sin and struggling to eradicate it. [Italics added.] [30]

Although many interpreters have regarded Romans 7 as referring to a pre-conversion experience, its reference to post-conversion experience now has widespread acceptance. Yet the view that Romans 7 is normative Christian experience is open to serious question. [31] Surely, the conclusion of the chapter suggests that it is not: “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Rom 7:24–25). These words, in fact, prepare the way for the positive perspective of Romans 8 where an experience opposite to that of Romans 7 is suggested: “… that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (Rom 8:4).

It is then quite inappropriate for Horton to elevate the experience of Romans 7 to the level of a test, or proof, of saving faith. He really has no grounds for doing this. His own claim that “evidence of new birth is … whether we are at war,” is completely arbitrary. Surely there is nothing in Romans 7 that suggests that the reality of our faith can be tested by such an experience of repeated failure and defeat! The claim that “the regenerate … do not cease hating their sin” is gratuitous, too. [32]

Correctly, Horton observes that

Nevertheless, the Reformers were quite anxious to hold together faith and assurance as responses that demand Christ alone as their object. In other words, one is not justified through faith alone and then assured some time later by examining his or her works. [33]

As far as it goes, this seems to be fine. Throughout his book, Horton does react against a radical reliance on works for assurance. Our discussion of his remarks on Romans 7 illustrates this fact.

But what immediately follows the statements just quoted, is obscure. Horton states:

Rather, justifying faith carries with it (in its very definition: trust) a certain confidence and assurance that the promise is true for me, even though my faith and assurance may be weak (italics added). [34]

What does this really mean? What is intended by a certain confidence? Does Horton mean a certain level of confidence? If so, what level? What, in fact, is weak assurance? Is “weak assurance” functionally equivalent to “a certain level of doubt”? If so, what level? And is that really assurance at all?

In addition, what does it mean for one to have “assurance that the promise is true for me”? Does this mean: “I am sure that I’m saved based on God’s promise”? Or, does it mean, “I am sure the promise is for me if I truly believe”? Most Reformed thinkers would take the latter option. [35]

In his conclusion to the chapter we are quoting from, Horton is even less perspicuous. For example, he states: “Many think they are living holy lives because they do not have the slightest comprehension of biblical holiness.” [36] Later in the same paragraph he adds:

Because they have never had premarital sex or been drunk, they are certain they do not require self-examination and a swift flight back to the cross. They may not be “spiritual giants,” they concede, but they’re “good Christian folks”—mediocre, external, and superficial in their devotion. They have never been condemned in their righteousness by the law, so they shall never be justified by Christ’s righteousness. [37]

Here, of course, Horton is on solid Puritan terrain, honeycombed though it is with theological land mines. Here the typical Puritan disdain for “superficial” Christianity comes through clearly, along with a loud warning that apart from a deep conviction of sin, wrought by the law, one cannot hope to find justification by faith! So it turns out that one can hardly look to Christ and His cross for salvation unless one first discerns in himself a sufficiently deep spirit of conviction and unworthiness.

But how deep? When is my guilt great enough, or my sorrow profound enough, that I can look to the Cross and find peace? Horton, like most Puritans new and old, does not tell us. He is sure, however,

that the reason so many unbelievers can sit comfortably in our churches and even call themselves born-again Christians is that we give them very little to deny. The offensive message of the cross has been replaced with “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life,” with the cross tucked somewhere underneath it. [38]

Again, this is strong Puritan stuff. But it will only do what Puritanism almost always does. It will drive the believer away from resting in the Cross and will require him to examine the reality of his own faith and conversion. Yet Horton writes, a few pages earlier, “We must be careful not to react to the antinomian threat by driving the sheep back to themselves, away from Christ.” [39]

But when Horton is read carefully, it seems to me he violates his own principle. The believer cannot simply rest in Christ and in what the Savior has done for his salvation. The believer must also take note of whether he is “at war” with sin. (And how much struggle must there be?) He must take care not to be like superficial professing Christians who think of themselves as “good Christians” but have never really felt the condemnation of the law. Moreover, he must be careful that he has been given enough wickedness “to deny,” lest he be like “so many unbelievers” who “can sit comfortably in our churches and even call themselves born-again Christians.”

Shakespeare said, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” And we might add, “Self-examination by any other name is still self-examination.” In seeking to avoid the Scylla of “assurance by works,” Horton has been sucked into the Charybdis of “assurance by self-condemnation and guilt.” Both alternatives are ruinous to genuine assurance, which can only be gained by looking away from ourselves to our Savior.

In the last analysis, Horton cannot give up what deterministic theology requires. And that is some kind of consistent evidence that man’s sinful and enslaved will has been re-made by God’s work of salvation. Since unsaved men cannot use their wills in a way that pleases God, the absence of any apparent response to God in a professing Christian is taken as an indication that God has not worked in that person.

The biblical reality is more complex. The new life imparted at regeneration carries with it “all things that pertain to life and godliness” (2 Pet 1:3). But Peter must also appeal to the will of his readers to give “all diligence” to the process of character development (2 Pet 1:5ff). Even in a Christian, the human will can impede growth and fruitfulness, or stop it altogether (2 Pet 1:9).

The search that the new Puritans undertake for some consistent universal evidence of God’s action on the will of the regenerate person, is like the medieval search for the Holy Grail. It is always beyond reach and ultimately unattainable.

I think that Horton’s position on assurance implodes due to its inherent instability and inconsistency.

3. Sanctification Is Seriously Distorted

Theological determinism also plagues Horton’s view of the process of sanctification in the believer’s life. The result is a serious distortion of this biblical doctrine.

Horton’s background tells us a lot about his present perspective. He writes:

Here we must bring this critique to a pastoral reflection, and for that I will have to explain why the issue is so important to me. I was raised in Bible churches pastored by those who had been taught by Zane Hodges, Charles Ryrie, and other proponents of the “carnal Christian” teaching … As a teenager I had discovered the writings of the Reformers and the later exponents of that teaching. The more deeply I delved into those works, the more cynical I became toward the schizophrenia I had experienced all along in trying to get from the bottom of the spiritual ladder to the point where I could finally be victorious, fully surrendered, yielded, and consecrated (italics added). [40]

The reviewer can certainly empathize with Horton here. My own experience at Wheaton College was very similar to his. There I often heard the Christian life presented as though “surrender” and “yieldedness” were the panacea for all of a Christian’s problems with sin. Later at Dallas Seminary, it sometimes seemed as if the “filling of the Spirit” was a similar panacea. Simplistic approaches to Christian experience can be devastating, because they don’t really work.

The biblical teaching on the Christian life has much greater depth than such “panacea approaches” often suggest. (The basic biblical primer is Romans 6–8.) I am truly sorry if any student of mine has taken a simplistic approach in teaching Horton or others about Christian living. But I would maintain that he didn’t get this approach from me—or, at least, I never intended such a result. Teachers are all too often saddened by what their students claim to have learned from them!

Horton’s reaction to his background, however, leads to an even worse result. Theological determinism, of a Puritan type, takes over. Since man has no free will, except as he is wrought on by God, Horton need no longer struggle with aligning his will with God’s. Everything comes from God.

Most interesting are these words from Horton:

Union with Christ is not the result of human decision, striving, seeking, yielding, or surrendering, but of Christ’s. While we are called to be “filled with the Spirit” (Eph 5:18), that is merely a figure of speech: “Do not get drunk on wine … Instead, be filled with the Spirit.” In other words, make sure you’re under the right influence! Every believer is Spirit-filled and, therefore, a recipient of every heavenly blessing in Christ (Eph 1:3–4). (Italics added.) [41]

Here we see what psychologists might call a “reaction formation.” Having frequently been exhorted to “be filled with the Spirit,” Horton escapes from this admonition by claiming it as a benefit belonging to all Christians. The command itself is a mere “figure of speech”! All “seeking, yielding, or surrendering” is done by Christ, not by Horton!

But Horton cannot quite escape the “demand” obviously made by Paul’s text. That demand is now reduced to “make sure you’re under the right influence”! But how does Horton do even that? By his decision (or, “will”) to do so? Or does Christ do that too?

The dilemma is acute for the theological determinist. Many commands of the Bible (like Eph 5:18) call upon believers to decide to do, say, or think the right things. If such things can only be done by God Himself working on man’s will—or by Christ living through the man—why does He not do it all the time for all true Christians? Why must the Christian (as Horton holds) always be “at war,” like Paul is in Romans 7? Cannot God bring victory and peace? Where is God’s power?

Let us hear Horton further on this matter:

The believer has died, is buried, is raised, is seated with Christ in the heavenlies, and so on. These are not plateaus for victorious Christians who have surrendered all and willed their way to victory [italics added], but realities for every believer, regardless of how small one’s faith or how weak one’s repentance. 

Thus, we must stop trying to convert believers into these realities by imperatives: “Do this.” “Confess that.” “Follow these steps,” and so on. Union with Christ ushers us immediately into all of these realities so that, as Sinclair Ferguson writes, “The determining factor of my existence is no longer my past. It is Christ’s past.” [42]

A little later he states:

We are justified through receiving what someone else has earned for us. But we grow in sanctification through living out what someone else has earned for us. Both are gifts we inherit from someone else, but the former is passively received and the second is actively pursued (italics added). [43]

This kind of discussion has about it a certain superficial plausibility. Indeed, it contains some real truth. But upon close scrutiny, it is impossibly vague and solves nothing.

It is true, of course, that the believer has died, risen, and ascended with Christ (Eph 2:5–6; Rom 6:3–4). But who among Horton’s opponents has ever described these things “as plateaus for victorious Christians”? I have never heard it done, and Horton leaves his charge undocumented. Furthermore, who has tried to “convert believers into these realities by imperatives”? Again, I don’t know of anyone. The truth in question is usually called “positional” and ascribed to all believers.

But if Horton’s objection is to “imperatives” per se, then his quarrel is with each and every NT epistle. The epistles are full of imperatives. It may even be said that the NT commands us to recognize that we are dead to sin and alive to God and commands us to live accordingly. Thus Paul writes:

Likewise you also, reckon [imperative] yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore do not let sin reign [imperative] in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present [imperative] your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present [imperative] yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God (Rom 6:11–13).

What can Horton’s words possibly mean? A Christian life without imperatives— without an appeal to our will—does not exist.

Further confusion occurs when Horton goes on to describe sanctification as “living out what someone has earned for us” and as a gift which “is actively pursued.” Of course, there is an element of truth in both observations. But both statements are as simplistic as some of the ideas Horton criticizes.

If all one must do is to “live out” a righteousness he already possesses, why is this so difficult—as even Horton acknowledges with his reference to Romans 7? Further, if it is a “gift,” why must I “actively pursue” it? Why indeed is this gift so imperfectly attained in every Christian life? Horton’s rearticulation of the doctrine of sanctification solves nothing. The same old down-to-earth problems remain.

I would contend therefore that Horton’s doctrine of sanctification is an example of theological cosmetic surgery. Some of the wrinkles (commands like, “do this,” “confess that”) have been made to disappear—almost. But what remains is the fundamental problem of how to attain holiness in Christian living.

One cannot wave this problem away by downplaying the role of the Christian’s will in living for God. One cannot evade the Bible’s direct appeals to believers to be obedient. If God’s sovereign power is all that counts, even Horton’s life—and mine!—would be far better than they are. For that matter, why would not both our lives be perfect?

IV. Conclusion

Admittedly, in this review, we have ignored Horton’s fellow-writers in Christ the Lord. But Horton not only edits the book, he also writes the lengthy introduction (pp. 11–57) and two of its chapters (pp. 107–15 and pp. 129–47), the greatest amount of material of any of the contributors. (Paul Schaeffer does have two chapters, covering pp. 149–93). In addition, Horton is president of CURE, which sponsored the book. The rest of the writers for the most part do not seem to diverge significantly from Horton’s position. [44] The reader of this review should therefore now have a basic theological “fix” on Christ the Lord, though many other subjects could have been discussed with profit. But the reviewer has to stop somewhere!

It is difficult to summarize the mixed feelings produced by this volume. On the one hand, its failure to state accurately the views it opposes leaves an impression of deliberate unfairness. But on the other, Horton’s own flight from his previous theological background evokes a real measure of sympathy. Yet this very rebellion against earlier teaching is what seems to poison the discussion.

On balance, the contributions of Horton reveal the damage that a Christian teenager can sustain when his mentors do not effectively address his struggles. At the same time, one wishes that even at this late date Horton could return to his roots, get rid of the unbiblical weeds that choked them, and finally escape from the intellectual prison of theological determinism.

Notes

1. For just one of the points on which this seems true, see Paul Holloway, “A Return to Rome: Lordship Salvation’s Doctrine of Faith,” Journal of the Grace Evangelical Society 4 (Autumn 1991): 13-21.
2. Robert W. Patterson, “Did the Reformation Take a Wrong Turn in America?” Christianity Today 35 (14, November 25, 1991): 30-32.
3. Ibid., 32.
4. One can obtain an instructive exposure to five-point Calvinism in the volume by John H. Gerstner, Wrongly Dividing the Word of Truth: A Critique of Dispensationalism (Brentwood, TN: Wolgemuth & Hyatt, 1991).
5. Zane C. Hodges, Absolutely Free! A Biblical Reply to Lordship Salvation (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, and Dallas: Redenciòn Viva, 1989).
6. Robert D. Preuss, “Perennial Problems in the Doctrine of Justification,’ Concordia Theological Quarterly 45 July 1981): 172
7. Hodges, Absolutely Free!, 227.
8. One might note here Kendall’s crisp summation of Calvin’s view of saving faith: “What stands out in these descriptions is the given, intellectual, passive, and assuring nature of faith. What is absent is a need for gathering faith, voluntarism, faith as man’s act, and faith that must await experimental knowledge to verify its presence.” R. T. Kendall, Calvin and English Calvinism to 1649 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), 19 (italics added). I, of course, concur with such a view of saving faith.
9. Hodges, Absolutely Free!, 85–86.
10. For effective discussions of this issue, leading to the conclusion that Calvin held to unlimited atonement, the reader should refer to Kendall’s book (cited in footnote 7); to M. Charles Bell, Calvin and Scottish Theology: The Doctrine of Assurance (Edinburgh: Handsel Press, 1985); and to A. N. S. Lane, “Calvin’s Doctrine of Assurance,” Vox Evangelica 11(1979): 32-54.
11. Hodges, Absolutely Free!, 129
12. It must be said that Basinger does not himself hold to the “middle knowledge” position. His critique of this position, however, does not seem to me to do full justice to the tremendous scope of God’s foreknowledge, which includes knowing all things that could be conceived of as occurring, in all of their conceivable permutations—and knowing all this with full immediacy. Such a God can instantaneously take account of an infinite number of possible scenarios and could ordain precisely that scenario in which His will is completely worked out within a cosmos containing actual free will. For Basinger’s evaluation, see the article cited in the text above, 61–64.
13. David D. Hall, The Antinomian Controversy, 1636–1638: A Documentary History, 2nd ed. (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1990).
14. In the second edition, to be exact, xxi + 453 pages.
15. Hall, The Antinomian Controversy, xiv.
16. Cotton was charged with antinomianism, for example. by Robert Baillie, who was a minister in the Church of Scotland as well as a delegate to the Westminster Assembly (which drew up the Westminster Confession). Cotton’s defense of himself against this charge is set forth in Hall’s volume. See Hall, The Antinomian Controversy, 396–437.
17. Given in Hall’s chapter, “The Examination of Mrs. Anne Hutchinson at the Court at Newtown,” 311–48.
18. Specifically, according to Hall, p. 311, “the second volume of Thomas Hutchinson’s History of the Colony and Province of Massachusetts Bay (Boston, 1767).” Hall calls Hutchinson “a notable historian and political figure in pre-revolutionary Massachusetts.”
19. Hall, The Antinomian Controversy, 10.
20. Ibid., 318.
21. Ibid., 318-319.
22. Ibid., 347.
23. For the account of this trial, see Hall, The Antinomian Controversy, 349–95.
24. Ibid., 372.
25. Besides Horton, the other writers are Robert B. Strimple, Rick Ritchie, Kim Riddlebarger, W. Robert Godfrey, Paul Schaefer, and Rod Rosenbladt.
26. See Journal of the Grace Evangelical Society, “The New Puritanism—Part 2: Michael S. Horton; Holy War with Unholy Weapons,” Autumn 1993, pp. 32–33, and note the article by Basinger referred to on p. 32.
27. Christ the Lord, 111.
28. Ibid.
29. Ibid., 49, quoted from John F. MacArthur, Jr., The Gospel According to Jesus: What Does Jesus Mean When He Says Follow Me? (Grand Rapids: Academie Books, Zondervan Publishing House, 1988), 113.
30. Christ the Lord, 50.
31. For a Reformed defense that Romans 7 is normative, see John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans: The English Text with Introduction, Exposition and Notes (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959), 256–59.
32. Especially so in the light of Heb 3:12–13, which is addressed to Christian “brothers”!
33. Christ the Lord, 51.
34. Ibid.
35. One might also note here Horton’s later statement: “If saving faith is more than the conviction that Jesus Christ died on the cross and rose from the dead, but that he did this for me, then that conviction is synonymous with assurance. To trust in Christ for salvation is to be assured that he will fulfill his promise. If we are not assured, we are not trusting. “Of course, this was never to suggest that assurance is complete, any more than faith. Our faith and assurance may be weak, sometimes barely distinguishable, but it is impossible to truly exercise a justifying faith that does not contain the assurance that Christ’s saving work has guaranteed what has been promised in one’s own case” (Christ the Lord, 132). This partakes of the same ambiguity noted above. Horton seems to be saying that one can be sure of the objective facts and of the validity of the promises. But does he also mean that one can know for sure that he is eternally saved at the moment he trusts Christ? If he does, this is far from clear.
36. Ibid., 55.
37. Ibid.
38. Ibid., 54-55.
39. Ibid., 51.
40. Ibid., 30-31.
41. Ibid., 113.
42. Ibid., 113-14.
43. Ibid., 114.
44. One of a number of possible contradictions to Horton is found in the words of Robert B. Strimple, who seems to regard good works as expected evidences of true faith: “That a person’s possession of eternal life is necessarily evidenced by that person’s life of faith, hope, love, joy, peace, kindness, self-control—is thought [by Hodges!] to be a totally unbiblical idea. And I suspect, I certainly hope, that you would immediately think of many New Testament passages to which you could turn to refute Hodges here, like 1 John 2–3 and James 2 …” (Christ the Lord, 63). This sounds much more like MacArthur than Horton, for whom the evidence is more akin to the “war” in Romans 7!