Christian salvation, its doctrine and experience

II JjJ* hristian Salvation its DoGtrine and Experience

Class Book.

zu-

Copyri^htN°_

CSPXRIGHT DEPOSfT.

ROBERT ALEXANDER WEBB, D.D., LL.D.

Christian Salvation

Its Doctrine and Experience

By

Robert Alexander Webb, D.D., LL.D.

M

Late Professor of Apologetics and Systematic Theology in the

Presbyterian Theological Seminary of Kentucky

Louisville, Kentucky

Published by

Presbyterian Committee of Publication Richmond, Virginia

Copyright, 1921

presbyterian committee of publication

richmond, va.

OCT 25 m\

Va

Dedicated

to the

Students of Dr. Webb

Robert Alexander Webb, D.D., LL.D.

A Sketch

By Rev. Charles R. Hemphill.

Robert Alexander Webb, the son of Robert C. Webb and Elizabeth Dortch Webb, was born on the 20th day of September, 1856, at Oxford, Mississippi, and fell asleep in Louisville, Ky., May 23, 1919. He spent the first fifteen years of his life on the plantation of his father, and enjoyed the sports and out-door life of a boy on a Southern plantation. He always cherished the happiest memories of his boyhood days. When he was fifteen years of age the family removed to Nashville, Tennessee, and at seventeen he became a student in the Webb School at Culleoka, Tennessee, noted for its high quality as a training school. From this institution he passed to the Southwestern Presbyterian University at Clarksville, Tennessee, from which he was graduated with highest honors in 1887. At the closing exercises that year the Baccalaureate sermon was delivered by the Rev. John L. Girardeau, D. D., Professor of Theology in Columbia Seminary, one of the most eloquent preachers and orators our country has produced. The ardent spirit of the young man was so profoundly impressed by the preacher that he determined to pursue his theoligical studies in the Seminary at Columbia, in which he matriculated the following September. The Seminary had an able faculty and young Webb appreciated all of his professors and zealously performed every task, but it was Theology that engaged his deepest interest and it was Dr. Girardeau whose Christian character most attracted him, whose eloquence most charmed him and whose profound thinking and inspiring instruction most excited his intellectual powers.

The older man took the younger into companionship with himself, and many were the hours they spent together in discussion of profoundest themes of theology, and this companionship became the more intimate when, after graduation, the young man became one of the household through marriage with Miss Sally, second daughter of Dr. Girardeau. Death soon dissolved this relation, but the two men were always father and son. It was a frequent counsel of Dr. Girardeau to the Seminary graduate to accept a call to a church in the country rather than in a town or city. His reason for this advice was that the young minister forms his intellectual habits in the first three or four years and that the country offers the best opportunity for continuous and systematic study and for the formation of studious habits. Dr. Webb, acting upon this counsel, became the pastor of Bethel Church, in York County, South Carolina, one of the oldest and largest country churches in a region originally settled by Scotch-Irish and dotted with Presbyterian churches. In his case Dr. Girardeau's judgment was fully vindicated. The young man gave himself with complete devotion to the study of great themes in theology and to the Christian Scriptures, and it was in the five years spent in this country church that he consolidated the results of all his previous studies and laid the foundation for his intellectual achievements in later days. From Bethel Church Dr. Webb went to Davidson College, North Carolina, as pastor, and a year later became pastor of Westminster Church, Charleston, South Carolina. In 1892 he was called to the Chair of Theology in the Divinity School of the Southwestern Presbyterian University, which had been filled since the opening of the Divinity School in 1885 by the Rev. Joseph R. Wilson, D. D., father of President Woodrow Wilson, and from which Dr. Wilson had resigned. The University was favored at this time in adding to its faculty of older men several able young men, and the Divinity School sent forth a succession of graduates who proved themselves most effective ministers and not a few of whom have risen to distinction in the church. From the outset Dr. Webb displayed all the qualities of a great teacher, and in these early days, as in all after years, he left an ineffaceable mark on every man who passed under his hand. His students spread his fame as a teacher and a Christian theologian and he speedily attained a reputation which increased with every passing year. In 1908, Dr. Webb, in response to a unanimous call by the Board of Directors, became Professor of Apologetics and Systematic

Theology in the Presbyterian Theological Seminary of Kentucky, at Louisville. This most important Chair had been vacant since the death in 1906 of the eminent theologian and teacher, Francis R. Beattie. Dr. Webb soon made a place for himself in the Seminary circle and the community, and though he lived the somewhat retired life of the teacher, he won many warm friends here as everywhere, and in and out of the churches there were many who admired the great scholar and the courteous Christian gentleman.

It would be pleasant to enter into personal details and recollections of Dr. Webb and to speak of him as preacher and pastor and ecclesiastic, but the limits of this sketch forbid, and there is opportunity only for an effort to estimate him in the office of a teacher of theology in which he served for twenty-seven years. For this office he was fitted by natural endowments, by bent of mind, by an almost perfect intellectual discipline, by deep Christian experience and by broad attainments. He commanded the whole field of theology and had thoroughly mastered all the historical systems of theology and the philosophies underlying or akin to them. He was not, however, a mere expositor of theological systems, but, on the ground of both Scripture and reason, a convinced and thorough-going adherent and advocate of the Augustinian or Calvinistic system of theology.

He had a keenly analytic mind, and with this power of analysis was united an equal power of logic which marched with unbroken step from premise to conclusion. Added to these was an unusual capacity for profound, clear and patient thinking which explored every recess of a subject, and an ability to set forth the results of study and thought in a style simple, clear, pungent and often flashing out in all the colors of rhetoric. These intellectual qualities were transfused with an ardent love of truth, an absolute submission to the teaching of the Holy Scripture, and an adoring devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Dr. Webb's method of instruction was the combination of text-book and lecture, along with daily inquisition of the student. In his questions he was very skilful, and while he would sometimes play the student as the fisherman plays the fish, it was always in kindest spirit. He threw his whole soul into his teaching and often the professor's chair became the preacher's pulpit and he bore down on the heart and conscience of the student with powerful appeal. His students were deeply attached to him and gave him the warmest affection and the most unstinted admiration. They knew him to be their friend, wise in counsel and sympathetic with them in their doubts and difficulties. In all their ministry they remained loyal to him, and through them he has had an incalculable influence in holding the Church steadfast to her faith and to her mission.

It was the often expressed wish of Dr. Webb's students and many other friends that he should publish his lectures, or reduce them to the form of a usable text-book in theology. Had his life been prolonged he might have been induced to undertake this. The wish is met in part by the present volume.

While at Clarksville Dr. Webb published a treatise on the Theology of Infant Salvation, in which he convincingly shows how the Calvinistic system provides, on the basis of the Scriptures, for the salvation of all persons who die in infancy. Some years later he delivered a course of lectures on the Smyth foundation at Columbia Seminary, which were repeated at Jackson, Miss,, and published under the title of The Christian Hope. At various times articles of his appeared in the Presbyterian Quarterly and in the religious papers. The two volumes and the occasional articles alike exhibit the ability, knowledge, and conscientious work always characteristic of his strong and disciplined mind.

Dr. Webb was taken away in the maturity of his powers, and at a time when the Church needs his steadying influence, and his unsurpassed ability in training young men for the ministry. He lives in the characters and teachings of his hundreds of students, who in this and other lands are preaching the glorious Gospel of the blessed God.

On October 23, 1888, Dr. Webb was married to Miss Roberta Chauncey Beck, of Columbia, S. C, who with their two children, Miss Annie Webb, of Louisville, and Robert A. Webb, Jr., M. D., of London, England, survives him. A great multitude throughout the Church share their sorrow in the loss they have suffered, and are grateful to God for him and for the grace by which he wrought so much for the Church and the world.

Preface

This volume is published in response to the urgent desire of former students and numerous friends of the late Professor Webb, and in accordance with affirmative action of the General Assembly of 1920 upon overtures from five Presbyteries "asking that the Executive Committee on Publication be instructed to take steps looking to the publication of a volume of the writings of the late Dr. R. A. Webb."

Mrs. Webb kindly put Dr. Webb's lectures and other writings at the disposal of the Executive Committee, and at its request two of Dr. Webb's colleagues in the Kentucky Seminary and five of his old students were constituted an Advisory Committee to select the material for the proposed volume.

In making the selection the Advisory Committee was controlled by the desire to secure unity of subject and completeness of treatment, and to avoid trenching on material that might properly make up another volume should its publication be found practicable. After much consideration the choice fell upon the lectures dealing with Soteriology, or the Doctrine of Salvation, which discuss a single general subject, and cover it more completely than was found true in the case of any other subject. It has not been thought proper by the Committee to do any editing of the lectures beyond making a few trivial corrections and transliterating Greek words referred to by the author.

The Executive Committee has been favored in having the cheerful and efficient aid of representative men in the Synods and Presbyteries, mostly students of Dr. Webb, in obtaining advance subscriptions to the volume.

The book is sent forth to the Church in recognition of an able and loyal son and a gifted teacher of many of her most useful ministers, and in the conviction that by it her faith in the doctrines of Grace will be confirmed.

PART I. Salvation as a Doctrine

I. Introduction 13

II. The Covenant of Grace 18

III. Predestination 22

IV. Election 26

V. Reprobation 37

VI. Jesus of Nazareth 43

VII. The Messiah 59

VIII. Christological Problems 74

IX. Mediation 99

X. Christ : The Prophet 115

XL Christ : The Priest 126

XII. The Atonement: Its Necessity —

A Summary Statement 148

XIII. The Atonement: The Theory of

Satisfaction 150

XIV. The Atonement : Its Extent 165

XV. The Atonement : Disproofs of

Universalism 192

XVI. The Atonement : Disproofs of

Arminian Universalism 202

XVII. The Intercession of Christ 224

XVIII. Christ : The King 230

XIX. The Humiliation of Christ 242

XX. The Exaltation of Christ 256

Introduction

Soteriology. — Theology Proper, or Theism, is the doctrine of God; Anthropology is the doctrine of Man; Soteriology is the doctrine of Salvation. It is formed out of soter (saviour) and logos (discourse). It is that department of general theology which treats of the Redemption of sinful men. Its task is to discover and expound the biblical ordo salutis.

Ordo Salutis. — But is there any ordo salutis, or plan of salvation? In saving sinful men may not God proceed in an emergent and haphazard fashion, adjusting his saving acts to the circumstances as they occur in human history? May not the facts of the Gospel be without order, incapable of being reduced to any programme whatsoever? If so, there can be no soteriology, or systematic exposition of a gospel plan of salvation. There are three proofs for the fact of an ordo salutis: (i) biblical, (2) logical, (3) analogical.

(1) Biblical. — The Scriptures speak of an Economy of Redemption. "The dispensation of the fulness of times" (oikonomian tou pleromatos ton kairon) (Eph. 1:10). These "times" are gospel times, they have contents a pleroma, a fullness of gospel items or facts, and these contents are dispensed," not in confusion and disorder, but as an "economy." "Economy" is derived from the Greek oikonomia which is compounded of oikos (house) and nomeo (to arrange). It therefore signifies something as orderly as a well arranged house.

(2) Logical. — The Scriptures give us all the Elements of a Plan. These are three: (a) an object to be accomplished, (b) means for the accomplishment of that object, and (c) the application of the means to the accomplishment of that object. The gospel object is the salvation of sinful men, the means for the accomplishment of that object is the saving work of Christ, and the means for the application of the saving work of Christ to the accomplishment of the object of saving sinful men is the work of the Holy Spirit. Where we have all the elements of a plan we logically have the plan itself.

(3) Analogical. — All the analogies between Nature and Grace, (and the Redeemer frequently said the kingdom of heaven is like certain things in nature) support the proposition that there is a plan of salvation. The natural sciences delight to assert that the universe is a cosmos and that all the laws of nature are orderly. If God works in an orderly and methodical way in creation, how much more would we expect him to operate in a regular and unchaotic fashion in redemption?

Elements. — Soteriologists collect and arrange the elements of the plan of salvation under three heads: (1) Predestination, (2) Atonement, (3) Vocation.

They get these three elements, or departments, by observing that the Christian Scriptures represent the Triune God — Father, Son and Holy Ghost — as the saviour of sinful men. Each person in the Godhead, exercises a saving office, and performs a saving work, in the redemption of sinful men ; and the beneficiaries of divine grace owe the praises of their salvation, co-ordinately and co-equally, to the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. In offering up his thankful worship and grateful praise for the salvation of his soul, no man is warranted in making distinctions in the Trinity and rendering more, or different, gratitude to one of these adorable persons as distinguished from the other members of the Godhead. In redemption, as in creation and providence, these three persons are equal in power and glory, and the blessings of redemption are to be ascribed alike to each. The Christian is right when he sings the Long Meter Doxology.

The economic offices of the Trinity in the salvation of sinful men may be shown by a homely illustration. It is the office of an architect to draw the design of a building — sketch it on paper — conceive it in mind — give to the house mental, ideal, decretal existence — the general outline and all the specifications and details. Then it is the office of a contractor to take this design — this conceptual house — from the hand of the architect, gather his workmen and materials, and actually erect the building according to design and specifications — make the ideal or mental house a real or concrete house. Then, according to our custom, it is the business of the man who runs the moving car to get the family and its belongings and move them into the house designed by the architect and built by the contractor.

In this homely figure the Father is the Architect of the house of redemption, the house of many mansions, in the language of the Saviour; the Son is the Contractor, who by his incarnation, life and death, actually erects this house of redemption, in all things according to the pattern which he receives from the hand of his Father, altering it neither by addition nor subtraction, or in any manner whatsoever; and the Holy Spirit runs the analogue of the moving car, using the gospel, the ministers, Christian workers and the Church as his force for collecting God's people — those for whom this house of redemption was designed and erected — and actually moving them into its possession and enjoyment — making of them conscious Christians.

Leaving figures, the technical term for the saving work of the Father is Predestination; for the saving work of the Son is Atonement ; and for the saving work of the Spirit is Vocation.

These terms are to have their exposition in the proper place.

Outline. — Soteriologists dispute with each other about the proper and biblical order of these three elements or doctrines in God's ordo salutis, and their arrangement of them gives rise to several parties or schools of interpreters of the Plan of Salvation.

Sublapsarians. — These are low Calvinists. Their order is (1) Predestination, (2) Atonement, (3) Vocation. Their name indicates that they place Predestination under (sub) or below (infra) the fall (lapsus) of mankind. In their view God's predestination terminates upon men viewed as created and fallen, and out of this created and fallen mass of mankind he elects some to everlasting life and passes by others and leaves them to their sinful fate. Then as a means to this end, he sent his Son into the world to make an atonement for the sins of all the elect, and his Spirit to effectually call all of these into saving relations to Christ.

Supralapsarians. — These are high or ultra Calvinists. They are so called because they conceive of God predestinating some to life and passing by others — as uttering his saving purpose — before or above (supra) the fall (lapsus) of all mankind. They insert creation and the fall between predestination and atonement, and so give us this logical order: (i) Predestination, (2) Creation, (3) the Fall, (4) Atonement, (5) Vocation. Interpreted, it means that God first decreed to save and damn; then that he might have some objects upon whom such a decree could terminate, he next decreed to create men as they were created; then that they might be in a salavable and damnable condition, he next decreed their sin and fall; and then sent his Son to make the atonement and his Spirit to effectually call through the gospel. Such an ordo salutis is abhorrent to metaphysics, to ethics, and to the Scriptures. It is propounded in no Calvinistic creed and can be charged only upon some extremists.

Hypotheticalists. — These are sometimes called New Schoolmen or Hypothetical Universalists or Moderate Calvinists. They give us this order: (1) Atonement, (2) Predestination, (3) Vocation. These place the work of the Son first, and construe it as universal ; then the work of the Father, and interpret it as elective and partial in its saving results and intentions, and then the work of the Spirit third, and interpret the gospel call as effectual only in the case of the elect. It is repugnant to the Scriptures to represent Christ's saving work as preceding the work of the First Person in the Godhead: violative of the uniform Trinitarian order of life and action. It is repugnant to the gospel to

Christian Salvation — Its Doctrine and Experience iy

represent the Father as passing by any persons for whom Christ has made atonement. Christ and his Father are always one — there can be no discord between them.

Arminians. — These propose the following ordo salutis: (i) Atonement, (2) Vocation, (3) Predestination. That is, Christ made an atonement for all sinful men universally and indiscriminately, and the Spirit likewise calls all men universally and indiscriminately, and then the Father elects such as believe, repent, and obey the gospel, and reprobates all other persons. This scheme holds the mind of the Father in abeyance until he has seen the results of the work of Christ and of the Spirit. It thus violates the Trinitarian order of thought, life and action. The house of many mansions must logically wait until the divine Architect can find out for how many persons there will be need. The gospel represents that men are chosen to be holy, while this view represents men as being chosen because they are holy. According to the gospel, men choose Christ because he first chose them; according to this programme, God chooses men because they first chose him. According to the gospel, God first loves us in Christ Jesus ; according to this interpretation, we first love God in Christ Jesus, and then he consequentially loves us.

Sentimentalists. — Sentimentalists, Pelagians, Rationalists, and all who are neither sublapsarians nor supralapsarians, nor new schoolmen, nor Arminians, construe the scheme of grace by deleting altogether the doctrine of predestination. For them there are but two elements in the plan of salvation: (1) Atonement, (2) Vocation. The Father is but a spectator of the saving work of Christ, and the Spirit — a mere onlooker at what these two are doing in the sinful world — a mere receiver of the results which they obtain.

Calvinists. — The ordo salutis of the Calvinistic creeds and confessions is: (1) Predestination, (2) Atonement, (3) Vocation. In other and interpretative words: (1) Redemption as conceived by the Father, (2) Redemption as executed by the Son, and (3) Redemption as applied by the Spirit.

CHAPTER II. The Covenant of Grace

Soteriologists of the federal school think that the Plan of Salvation took the form of a Covenant. They specifically call it The Covenant of Grace. That other arrangement under which occurred the sin and fall of the race they call The Covenant of Works.

Elements. — A covenant is an agreement between two or more persons. Analyzed, there are three factors or elements in every such agreement: (i) Parties, (2) Conditions or Stipulations, and (3) Sanctions. That is, in every covenant there are the contracting parties who make the agreement; then there is the stipulation, or matter about which the agreement is made, and then there are the sanctions, or the thing which makes the engagement sacred and binding — the thing promised on condition that the agreement is kept and the forfeit or penalty which must follow on condition the agreement is broken by either party.

Parties. — The parties to this covenant of grace are the three persons of the Godhead. They are equal and sovereign, and so capable of contracting with each other. This covenant is made between them, about sinful men. Sinners are not contracting parties. They are neither metaphysically nor morally capable of contracting with Almighty God. A holy being could enter into covenant relations with a sinless creature, but he could not enter into such an engagement with a creature whose moral depravity renders him incapable of complying with the very terms of such a contract. The party of the first part in this covenant of grace is the Father and the parties of the second part are the Son and the Holy Spirit. It is an inter-trinitarian agreement concerning the salvation of sinful men.

Stipulations. — In this covenant the Father agrees to equip the Son with a human nature necessary to perform his redeeming task, to plentifully sustain him in his undertaking and give him a people for his reward, organized into a kingdom. In it the Son engaged to become incarnate, to obey perfectly both the penal and preceptive requirements of that moral law which men had violated — in short, to make an atonement. In it the Spirit engaged to convict, convert and sanctify sinful men and present them to the Father a holy people, without any moral spot, or blemish, or wrinkle, or any such thing. In short, the issues of this transaction hang upon the obedience of the Son and Spirit to the conditions under which they are to be sent into the world upon this saving mission.

Sanctions. — The sanctions of the covenant of grace are life and death — life upon condition of obedience, and death upon condition of disobedience. That is, the Son, if he makes the stipulated atonement is to have all the blessings promised in the covenant, and if he fails he would forfeit his life as any other transgressor; and the Spirit, if he converts and sanctifies according to the agreement, is to have all the blessings promised thereunder, and if he breaks down in his task he too must forfeit his standing before a righteous and covenant-keeping God. It is a solemn transaction. Failure on the part of either person in the transaction would be the failure and break-down of the Godhead. It cannot fail. The covenant of grace is bound to issue in triumph because of the very nature of the parties entering into the agreement.

Sinners. — Now the desideratum is how can sinful men become beneficiaries of this covenant of grace made between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. True, it was made about them; but how are they to become participants? Sinful men need two things in order to become partakers of this covenant: (1) a legal right and (2) a conscious experience. The first is given by election, and the second by conversion. No man, and especially no sinful man, has a natural right — a right that inheres in and arises out of the very nature of the case — to be a beneficiary of this covenant. Such a legal title must be given him by grace. He must be appointed, or designated, an heir. This act of appointment Calvinistic soteriologists call election. By it they are accustomed to say that the sinner is given a right to become a Christian. But an heir must have not only a title to his estate ; he must also actually enter upon his inheritance and consciously enjoy it. It is conversion by the Spirit that makes a legal Christian a conscious Christian. No sinful man has the power to enter upon the blessings of this covenant of grace even if he had the legal right to do so. A something has to be done within his nature. The Spirit converts him and leads to unite himself to Christ by faith. It is, therefore, by election and conversion that the sinful man becomes a beneficiary of this covenant of grace between the three persons of the Godhead. Not by one, but by both. Election without conversion would give a title without the conscious blessing; and conversion without election would give him the blessing without a right to it. In short, election by the Father gives the sinner a right to the atonement made by Christ, and conversion by the Spirit gives him that atonement as a life and experience.

Grace and Works. — The Scriptures persistently and consistently contrast grace and works. They tell us that if sinful men are saved by works, then they are not saved by grace, and that if they are saved by grace, then they are not saved by works. They are antithetical systems. They cannot be compounded or mixed. Sinners are salvable by grace just because they are not salvable by works. A "grace" is anything which is given; a "work" is anything which is done. In a scheme of "grace" man is a beneficiary, a recipient, a patient ; in a scheme of "works" he is a doer, an agent. Hence the first covenant, the one under which man sinned and fell, is called a Covenant of Works, because its blessings were suspended upon something which he was to do ; while the second, the one under which he is saved, is called a Covenant of Grace, because its blessings are suspended upon something which is to be given to him. His title is given to him by election ; the atonement is made for him by Christ ; he is regenerated and sanctified by the Spirit. Hence he does not save himself; he is saved by grace. The triune God is the saving agent and he is the saved patient. This is but saying that sinful man does not save himself, but that he is saved by God.

Dispensations. — There never has been any other or any different programme of redemption since the fall of man. The scheme of grace has had different dispensations, or modifications, which differ not in substance, but only in form. One of these is historically called the Patriarchal Dispensation, (from Adam to Moses), in which the patriarch, or head of the family and tribe, was the minister of religion employed by the Spirit of God in leading men into the covenant of grace. A second is called the Mosaic Dispensation, (from Moses to Pentecost), in which the people of Israel were employed by the Spirit of God as his instrumentality in leading sinful men into the covenant of grace. And the third is called the Christian Dispensation, (from Pentecost to the end of the world), in which the Spirit of God employs the Church with its ministers as the agency through which he leads sinful men into the covenant of grace. The Millennium, (if there is to be one), is but a signal and distinguished period within the Christian Dispensation. God has not had, and will at no time have, any other method of saving sinful men but the Covenant of Grace, which sinners enter, legally by election, and consciously by conversion, showing itself in faith, repentance and evangelical obedience.