Jeremiah by Izzi Ray

Can anyone hide himself in secret places, So I shall not see him?" says the LORD; "Do I not fill heaven and earth?" says the LORD. Jeremiah 23:24

The Burning Doctrine of Hell - Grounds

The following portion is from the essay “The Final State of the Wicked” by Vernon C. Grounds, appearing in the September 1981 issue of the Journal of Evangelical Theological Society, p. 217-220. 

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Granted that since apostolic times Christians have given free rein to their imaginations in treating this dogma. Granted that a well-intentioned zeal has pressed into the service of evangelism a grossly literalistic hermeneutic and even in the cases of theological greats like Augustine, Aquinas and Jonathan Edwards has painted lurid pictures that revolt both sense and sensibility. Granted that popular preachers – a Charles Haddon Spurgeon, for example – have been guilty of an unconscionably sadistic depiction of lost souls. How far, we must inquire, are any of these eschatological pronouncements warranted by sober, careful, reflective study? How far is a Jonathan Edwards, whose philosophical insight even non-Christians applaud, justified in this sort of exposition?

The world will probably be converted into a great lake or liquid globe of fire, in which the wicked shall be overwhelmed, which shall always be in tempest, in which they shall be tossed to and fro, having no rest day or night, vast waves or billows of fire continually rolling over their heads, of which they shall ever be full of a quick sense, within and without; their heads, their eyes, their tongues, their hands, their feet, their loins and their vitals shall for ever be full of a glowing, melting fire, enough to melt the very rocks and elements. Also they shall be full of the most quick and lively sense to feel the torments, not for ten millions of ages, but for ever and ever, without any end at all. [F. W. Farrar, Eternal Hope (London: Macmillan, 1892) 57.]

Does sober, careful, reflective study warrant – no, demand – such a ghastly prospect? Does it force us to adopt an attitude that Walter Moberley stigmatizes as "unconceivable callousness"? Does it close our ears and minds and, much worse, our hearts to Langton Clarke's comment?

I remember once going through the dungeons of one of our old feudal castles, and looking down into the dark hole in the floor of the dungeon, the only entrance to or exit from an oubliette, one of those awful "places of forgetfulness." And I well remember thinking – How could the people above be so stony-hearted as to be happy and merry with all this going on beneath their very feet? And then it suddenly flashed across me that this is what is said of the blest in the world to come! – that they are supremely happy with hopeless and endless torments continually going on before their very eyes. [Quoted in Moberley, Ethics, 333-334.]

If a sober, careful, reflective study warrants – no, demands – that we agree with these all-too-common depictions, expositions and asseverations, then we evangelicals must apparently become schizophrenic. We must rigidly compartmentalize our psyches, keeping our normal mental processes and emotional reactions from contaminating our creedal commitments with sanity and compassion. What, therefore, does probing Christian thought warrant and demand?

Here as in so many other hard areas of orthodox belief C. S. Lewis proves to be an immense help – discerning, lucid, and above all clear-headed. Confronting the fierce objection to the very notion of hell drawn from not only medieval art but "certain passages in Scripture," he argues that three symbols dominate particularly our Lord's teaching: punishment, destruction, and "privation, exclusion, or banishment." "The prevailing image of fire," he suggests, "is significant because it combines the ideas of torment and destruction." Then in an extended passage he develops the reality portended through the Biblical literary forms:

What can that be whereof all three images are equally proper symbols? Destruction, we should naturally assume, means the unmaking, or cessation, of the destroyed. And people often talk as if the "annihilation" of a soul were intrinsically possible. In all our experience, however, the destruction of one thing means the emergence of something else. Burn a log, and you have gases, heat and ash. To have been a log means now being those three things. If soul can be destroyed, must there not be a state of having been a human soul? And is not that, perhaps, the state which is equally well described as torment, destruction, and privation? You will remember that in the parable the saved go to a place prepared for them, while the damned go to a place never made for men at all. To enter heaven is to become more human than you ever succeeded in being on earth; to enter hell, is to be banished from humanity. What is cast (or casts itself) into hell is not a man: it is "remains". To be a complete man means to have the passions obedient to the will and the will offered to God: to have been a man – to be an ex-man or "damned ghost" – would presumably mean to consist of a will utterly centered in itself and passions utterly uncontrolled by the will. It is, of course, impossible to imagine what the consciousness of such a creature – already a loose congeries of mutually antagonistic sins rather than a sinner – would be like. There may be a truth in the saying that "hell is hell, not from its own point of view, but from the heavenly point of view." I do not think this belies the severity of our Lord's words. It is only to the damned that their fate could ever seem less than unendurable. And it must be admitted that as . . . we think of eternity, the categories of pain and pleasure . . . begin to recede, as vaster good and evil looms in sight. Neither pain nor pleasure as such has the last word. Even if it were possible that the experience (if it can be called an experience) of the lost contained no pain and much pleasure, still, that black pleasure would be such as to send any soul, not already damned, flying to its prayers in nightmare terror. [C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (New York: Macmillan, 1943) 113-114.]

Help in cracking the shell of Biblical literary forms and so extracting their intended teaching comes as well from Robert Anderson. Inspector of Scotland Yard in Queen Victoria's era, he was a gifted and prolific author of theological works. His discussion of eschatology, Human Destiny: After Death – What?, Spurgeon praised as the most satisfactory treatment of that problem he had ever read. After examining the theories of universalism, conditionalism, and annihilationism and showing their untenability from a scriptural perspective, Anderson states some of the prevalent misconceptions about hell. He then proceeds to undercut the case against eternal punishment by an appeal to revelational principles. Suppose with a minimum of editing we quote his own phrasing of this rebuttal.

1.        The destiny of the lost is a great mystery, but it is only one phase of the crowning mystery of Evil. There must be some moral necessity why evil, once existing, should continue to exist. . . . By redemption God has won the undoubted right to restore the fallen race to blessing. But who can tell what moral hindrances may govern the exercise of that right and power?

2.       In a sphere where reason can tell us nothing, we are bound to keep strictly to the very words of Scripture, neither enlarging their scope nor drawing inferences from them. But in contrast to this, the inspired words have been used in such a way as to produce a mental revolt which endangers faith.

3.       All judgment is committed to Jesus Christ precisely "because He is the Son of Man." Hence because He is both the Son of Man and God the Son, His justice and goodness and love are beyond all question and doubt.

4.       The Bible was not written to gratify curiosity. . . . As regards the destiny of those the Gospel fails to reach, it is absolutely silent. The fate of the heathen is with God. And "shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?"

5.       The lost will not be sent to their doom unheard. Twice in Scripture they are represented as parleying with their Judge. Each one will be fairly dealt with. The record of each life will be laid bare. The books will be opened, and the dead shall be judged every man according to his works. Each sinner in the countless multitude to be arraigned at the great assize shall hear his indictment, and be heard in his defense.

6.       Instead of absolute equality, Scripture indicates an infinite inequality in punishment. There will be the "few stripes" and the "many stripes."

7.       The "everlasting fire" is not to be the Devil's kingdom; it will be his prison, not his palace. . . . The word-pictures which describe the shrieks and curses of the lost on earth, as demons mock their anguish or heap fuel on their torture fires, are relieved from the charge of folly only by the graver charge of profanity. There is no spot in all the Queen's dominions in which the reign of order is so supreme as in prison. So shall it be in Hell.

8.       Obedience will be the normal condition in Hell. To speculate how it will be brought about is idle. It may be that the recognition of the perfect justice and goodness of God will lead the lost to accept their doom.

9.       There are no idlers in a well-disciplined gaol: in God's great prison-house is idleness to reign supreme? . . . Are we to suppose that all the energies of the lost are to be consumed in tasks of aimless punishment? . . . May we not suppose that in the infinite wisdom of God there are purposes to the accomplishment of which even they will be made to minister? . . . Why assume that the lost will be battened down in some huge dungeon with no occupation save to bewail forevermore their doom?

10.     Scripture leaves no doubt that in the world to come sin’s punishment shall be real and searching. We know that it will entail banishment from God, and further we know that infinite love and perfect justice shall measure the cup each must drink. But beyond this we know absolutely nothing. [R. Anderson, Human Destiny: After Death – What? (London: Pickering and Inglis, 1913) 113-179.]

Confessedly these revelational principles with their undeniable admixture of logical extrapolation fail to remove all difficulties, but at any rate they make hell a doctrine that does not offend the heart and crucify the mind.

Help in clearing away rhetorical fog from this area of theology is also provided by Friedrich von Hügel. He distinguishes between, on the one hand, "the essence of the doctrine of Hell," which he takes to lie "above all, in the unendingness of that destiny," and, on the other hand, "the various images and interpretations given to this essence.” In contrast to saved spirits, he reasons, lost spirits "according to the degree of their permanent self-willed defection from their supernatural call" will persist in four tragic, destructive dispositional patterns and behavior orientation. First, they will persist in "the all but mere changingness, scatteredness, distractedness, variously characteristic of their self-selected earthly life." Only in hell they will feel far more intensely "the unsatisfactoriness of this their permanent non-recollection more than they felt it upon the earth."

Second, lost spirits will persist "in the varyingly all but complete self-centeredness and subjectivity of their self-selected earthly life." Only in hell they will feel far more intensely "the stuntedness, the self-mutilation, the imprisonment involved in this their endless self-occupation and jealous evasion of all reality not simply their own selves."

Third, they will persist "in their claimfulness and envious self-isolation, in their niggardly pain at the sight or thought of the unmatchable greatness and goodness of other souls." Only in hell they will experience their consciousness of this "more fully and unintermittently."

Fourth, lost souls will persist in the pains felt on earth – "the aches of fruitless stunting, contraction . . . the dull and dreary, or the angry and reckless, drifting in bitter-sweet unfaithful or immoral feelings, acts, habits, which, thus indulged, bring ever-increasing spiritual blindness, volitional paralysis, and a living death." Only "the very pains of Hell (will) consist largely in the perception by the lost soul of how unattainable" is the opportunity to endure the sanctifying sufferings which saved spirits endured on earth. That very perception will be an intensifying source of "fruitless pangs." [F. von Hügel, "What Do We Mean By Heaven? And What Do We Mean By Hell?", Essays and Addresses on the Philosophy of Religion (London: J. M. Dent, 1924) 216-221.]

Though all of von Hügel’s extrapolation is vastly removed from the wooden, offensive literalism of much traditional theology, it is closer, one surmises, to Biblical truth and eschatological reality.

Lewis and Anderson, together with von Hügel, help to make hell a credible dogma despite the residual difficulties that compel the exercise of a reverent agnosticism and a post-critical faith.

What to say, then, in conclusion? The issues we have been considering are unspeakably momentous, the most momentous indeed that can occupy the human mind. It is impossible to exaggerate the seriousness and urgency that the doctrine of hell imparts to life here and now. How better to express this than to repeat what James Orr affirmed as he came to the end of his masterful lectures on The Christian View of God and the World?

Scripture wishes us to realize the fact of probation now, of responsibility here. We should keep this in view, and, concentrating all our exhortations and entreaties into the present, should refuse to sanction hopes which Scripture does not support; striving, rather, to bring men to live under the impression, "How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?" (Hebrews 2:3). [J. Orr, The Christian View of God and the World (New York: Scribner’s, 1897) 345-346.]

 JETS 24/3 (September 1981) 211-220.

Singing the Psalms on Lord's Day

I lifted up mine eyes to the mountains, whence my help shall come.

My help shall come from the Lord, who made the heaven and the earth.

Let not thy foot be moved; and let not thy keeper slumber.

Behold, he that keeps Israel shall not slumber nor sleep.

The Lord shall keep thee: the Lord is thy shelter upon thy right hand.

The sun shall not burn thee by day, neither the moon by night.

May the Lord preserve thee from all evil: the Lord shall keep thy soul.

The Lord shall keep thy coming in, and thy going out, from henceforth and even for ever. Psalm 121

The Trinity Revealed in Scripture - Shedd

The doctrine of the Divine Unity is a truth of natural religion; the doctrine of the Trinity is a truth of revealed religion.

The various systems of natural theism present arguments for the Divine existence, unity, and attributes, but proceed no further.

They do not assert and endeavor to demonstrate that the Supreme Being is three persons in one essence.

It is because this doctrine is not discoverable by human reason, that the Christian church has been somewhat shy of attempts to construct it analytically; or even to defend it upon grounds of reason.

The keen Dr. South expresses the common sentiment, when he remarks that “as he that denies this fundamental article of the Christian religion may lose his soul, so he that much strives to understand it may lose his wits.” Yet all the truths of revelation, like those of natural religion, have in them the element of reason, and are capable of a rational defense.

At the very least their self-consistence can be shown, and objections to them can be answered. And this is a rational process. For one of the surest characteristics of reason is, freedom from self contradiction, and consonance with acknowledged truths in other provinces of human inquiry and belief.

It is a remarkable fact, that the earlier forms of Trinitarianism are among the most metaphysical and speculative of any in dogmatic history. The controversy with the Arian and the Semi-Arian, brought out a statement and defense of the truth, not only upon scriptural but ontological grounds.

Such a powerful dialectician as Athanasius, while thoroughly and intensely scriptural-while starting from the text of scripture, and subjecting it to a rigorous exegesis-did not hesitate to pursue the Arian and Semi-Arian dialectics to its most recondite fallacy in its subtlest recesses.

If any one doubts this, let him read the four Orations of Athanasius, and his defence of the Nicene Decrees. In some sections of Christendom, it has been contended that the doctrine of the Trinity should be received without any attempt at all to establish its rationality and intrinsic necessity.

In this case, the tenets of eternal generation and procession have been regarded as going beyond the Scripture data, and if not positively rejected, have been thought to hinder rather than assist faith in three divine persons and one God.

But the history of opinions shows that such sections of the church have not proved to be the strongest defenders of the Scripture statement, nor the most successful in keeping clear of the Sabellian, Arian, or even Socinian departure from it.

Those churches which have followed Scripture most implicitly, and have most feared human speculation, are the very churches which have inserted into their creeds the most highly analytic statement that has yet been made of the doctrine of the Trinity.

The Nicene Trinitarianism is incorporated into nearly all the symbols of modern Christendom; and this specifies, particularly, the tenets of eternal generation and procession with their corollaries.  The English Church, to whose great divines, Hooker, Bull, Waterland, and Pearson, scientific Trinitarianism owes a very lucid and careful statement, has added the Athanasian creed to the Nicene.

The Presbyterian churches, distinguished for the closeness of their adherence to the simple Scripture, yet call upon their membership to confess, that “in the unity of the Godhead there be three persons, of one substance, power, and eternity; God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost.  The Father is of none, neither begotten nor proceeding; the Son is eternally begotten of the Father; the Holy Ghost eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son.”

The treatise of Augustin upon the Trinity, which is here made accessible to the English reader, is one of the ablest produced in the patristic age. The author devoted nearly thirty years of his matured life to its composition (A.D. 400 to 428).

He was continually touching and retouching it, and would have delayed its publication longer than he did, had a copy not been obtained surreptitiously and published. Source.

William G. T. Shedd. For the full essay by Shedd, go here.

The Fulness of the Godhead in Christ - Clark

Colossians 2:9: Because in him there dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.

The contrast between the fallacious deceit of human traditions and all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge lies in the fact that in Christ there dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. This verse is the only verse which might seem to indicate that Paul is directly attacking Gnosticism. In the schemes of Basilides and Valentinus, all the fullness of the Godhead, or plērōma, was indeed contained in Christ, but not bodily. Thus the divine person did not die on the cross. However, this verse does not require a Gnostic reference, for the same is true of Docetism also; and from another point of view the Jews also rejected the proposition.

Aside from any reference to Gnosticism, the general question remains as to the force of the word bodily. The word fulness indicates the contents; for example, “The Earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.” The fulness of the Godhead is the totality of perfections, attributes, or qualities of deity. These include self-existence, sovereignty, omnipotence, and the like. The question now is, how do these exist in Christ bodily?

The question is sharpened by the word Godhead. Commentators regularly contrast the word in this verse (theotēs) with a similar but different word (theiotēs) in Romans 1:20, where the King James uses the same translation: “Godhead.” The latter refers to divine qualities and can be diluted to the level of such qualities as they appear in exceptionally qualified men. Or, as in Romans, the word can refer to some divine attributes while excluding others. But theotēs refers strictly to the full divine nature as such – to deity itself.

C. F. D. Moule acknowledges this distinction, but when the word bodily is added, he writes,

“Commentators…group themselves…round five interpretations: (i) “as an organized body,” i.e., the totality of the Godhead is “not distributed through a hierarchy of beings” …but gathered into one “organism” in Christ…; (ii) expressing itself through the Body [of Christ, that is, the church]; (iii) “actually” – in concrete reality, not in mere seeming…; (iv) “in essence” so the Greek Fathers and Calvin; (v) “assuming a bodily form,” “becoming incarnate.” Of these, (iv) seems highly improbable, if intelligible at all.”

Putting it a little more strongly than does Moule, the present writer notes that the first of these five requires either a Gnostic reference or a reference to Philo. Ronald Nash thinks that the phraseology of the Epistle to the Hebrews betrays a knowledge of Philo. This is chronologically possible, since Philo died around A.D. 40 or 50. But as for Colossians, Moule remarks that it depends on a single adverb, “a slender peg on which to hang so mighty a thought.” The second interpretation is so far-fetched that we shall waste no time on it.

The third and fifth together, as Moule says, “seem on the whole to present the fewest difficulties.” This is certainly so: The fulness of the Godhead was actually and really there, not there in mere appearance only. And there is the incarnate Christ. But however true this is, it is vague and incomplete.

To complete (iii) and (v), number (iv) must be added. Moule dismissed it as hardly intelligible. But the Greek fathers and Calvin are not usually unintelligible. The three views are compatible and complementary. The fourth means that the essence, that is, the definition, the reality of God, dwelt in the body of Jesus. Of course Jesus’ body as such was not omniscient, for bodies know nothing; nor was it omnipresent, for bodies are locally restricted. But the ego, the person, whose body and instrument it was, satisfied the complete definition of deity.

Another possible interpretation, or implication, one that Moule does not mention, is the Lutheran doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum. This means that the characteristics of the divine nature are also common to the human nature.

But a communicatio idiomatum ought to work both ways. If the divine attributes are common to the physical body, the characteristics of time, space, form, and tactual qualities should be held in common by the divine essence. But this implication, that God has physical and temporal form, is hard to swallow. Perhaps the communicatio relates only to mental, not physical, characteristics. In this case the thinking of the Father would be temporal, and he also would be ignorant of the date of Christ’s return. At any rate, the Lutheran interest is not in Jesus’ mind or soul. The communicatio refers to Jesus’ body. And for this reason the word bodily in the verse under consideration serves Lutheran purposes. The reason is that their doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum is essential to their sacramental theory of consubstantiation. Christ’s body is ubiquitous, and therefore that body is in, with, and under the bread wherever communion is celebrated. Calvinists object that, first, this violates the law of contradiction; and, second, its sacramentarianism is as un-Biblical as Romish transubstantiation.

So much for that. But before leaving this verse, the word Godhead needs further comment. To what was said a few paragraphs back, a remark should be made relative to the doctrine of the Trinity. American Christians in their pews – Bible-believing Christians – are apt to think of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and then stop thinking. If they are not consciously tritheists, neither do they clearly envisage the unity of the Godhead. Some who think a little more and have just a smattering of philosophic terms consider the Father as the unity, and the Son and Spirit as the diversity. Thus they attempt to solve “the One-and-the-Many problem” which Parmenides discovered and removed by denying plurality, which Democritus hardly considered at all, which embarrassed Plato, in which Plotinus failed horribly, and in which also William James turned Parmenides upside down by denying unity. The contemporary theologians may go further and constructively propose that unity and plurality are “equally ultimate” in the Godhead. They are not apt to have a very clear idea of what “equally ultimate” means.

The orthodox doctrine of the Trinity certainly teaches that the Father and the Son are equal in power and glory, and, as equally eternal, they may be called equally ultimate. But the Father is not to be equated with unity and the Son with plurality. The three persons are the plurality and the Godhead is the unity. The Godhead is not one of the persons as distinct from another, but rather the common reality shared by the three. Such is our partial answer to the objection of Islam, and also to some confused American theologians. But whether the group of common qualities, the Godhead, is more ultimate than any one of the three persons who share these attributes, and whether “ultimate” means “generic,” for certainly there is no chronological precedence in this argument, are questions more properly discussed in a systematic theology than in an exegesis of Colossians.

Gordon H. Clark, Colossians, in Commentaries on Paul’s Epistles, “The Works of Gordon Haddon Clark Vol. 12” (Unicoi, TN: The Trinity Foundation, 1979, 2005), 202-203. Commenting on Col. 2.9

Cherubic Hymn

Verbal Inspiration - Clark/Berkhof

And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts; knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. 2Peter 1:19-21

The idea that God gave his words to the prophets seems to many liberals a mechanical and artificial theory of revelation. God, they tell us, is not to be pictured as a boss dictating words to his stenographer. And further, the writings of the prophets show clearly the freedom and spontaneity of personal individuality. Jeremiah’s style is not that of Isaiah, nor does John write like Paul. The words are obviously the words of John and Jeremiah, not of a boss dictating to several stenographers. The stenographers of one boss will turn out letters of the same literary style; they do not correct his English.

. . .

How then are the differences of style to be accounted for, and what does verbal inspiration mean? The answer to these questions, involving the relation between God and the prophets, takes us quickly away from the picture of a boss and a stenographer.

When God wished to make a revelation, at the time of the exodus or of the captivity, he did not suddenly look around as if caught unprepared and wonder what man he could use for the purpose. We cannot suppose that he advertised for help, and when Moses and Jeremiah applied, God constrained them to speak his words. And yet this derogatory view underlies the objection to verbal inspiration. The relation between God and the prophets is totally unlike that between a boss and a stenographer.

If we consider the omnipotence and wisdom of God, a very different representation emerges. The boss must take what he can get; he depends on the highschool or business college to have taught the stenographer shorthand and typing. But God does not depend on any external agency. God is the creator. He made Moses. And when God wanted Moses to speak for him, he said, "Who has made man's mouth? . . . Have not I, the Lord?" Therefore verbal inspiration, like every other particular doctrine, must be understood in connection with the complete system of Christian doctrine. It may not be detached therefrom, and a fortiori it may not be framed in an alien view of God. In particular, verbal inspiration can be more clearly understood – and can only be properly understood – in its relation to the Presbyterian, the Reformed, the Calvinistic doctrines of the divine decree, providence, and predestination. When the liberals surreptitiously deny predestination in picturing God as dictating to stenographers, they so misrepresent verbal inspiration that their objections do not apply to the Calvinistic viewpoint. The trouble is not, as a liberals think, that the boss controls the stenographer too completely; on the contrary, the analogy misses the mark because the boss hardly controls the stenographer at all.

Put it this way: God from all eternity decreed to lead the Jews out of slavery by the hand of Moses. To this end he so controlled history that Moses was born at a given date, placed in the water to save him from an early death, found and adopted by Pharaoh's daughter, given the best education possible, driven into the wilderness to learn patience, and in every event and circumstance so prepared that when the time came, Moses’ mentality and literary style were the instruments precisely fitted to speak God's words.

It is quite otherwise with dictation. A boss has little control over a stenographer except as to the words she types for him. He did not control her education. He cannot trust her literary style. She may be totally uninterested in his business. They may have extremely little in common. But between Moses and God there was an inner union, an identity of purpose, a cooperation of will such that the words Moses wrote were God's own words and Moses’ own words at the same time.

Thus, when we recognize that God does his will in the army of Heaven and among the inhabitants of the Earth, when we understand that God works all things after the counsel of his own will, when we see God's pervading presence and providence in history and in the life of his servants, then we can realize that business office dictation does not do justice to the Scriptures. The Holy Spirit dwelt within these men and taught them what to write. God determined what the personality and style of each author was to be, and he determined it for the purpose of expressing his message, his words. The words of Scripture, therefore, are the very words of God. 

Gordon H. Clark, Religion, Reason and Revelation, in "The Works of Gordon Haddon Clark Vol. 4, Christian Philosophy" (Unicoi, TN: The Trinity Foundation, 2004), 185-187.

Concerning "organic" inspiration, Louis Berkhof says in his Manual of Christian Doctrine (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1987), p. 42-43:

I agree with Dr. Berkhof when he says that God used the prophets just as they were, but I also agree with Dr. Clark when he says that God made the prophets just as they were.

For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them. Psalm 139:13-16

Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying: 

"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations." 

Then said I: "Ah, Lord GOD! Behold, I cannot speak, for I am a youth." 

But the LORD said to me: "Do not say,`I am a youth,' For you shall go to all to whom I send you, And whatever I command you, you shall speak. 

Do not be afraid of their faces, For I am with you to deliver you," says the LORD. 

Then the LORD put forth His hand and touched my mouth, and the LORD said to me: "Behold, I have put My words in your mouth. 

See, I have this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms, To root out and to pull down, To destroy and to throw down, To build and to plant."  

Jeremiah 1:4-10

"The Spirit of the LORD spoke by me, And His word was on my tongue. 2Samuel 23:2

Know God is your God - Sibbes

Another sign and evidence that God is our God is victory over our base corruptions in some measure. This you have in Rev. xxi. 7: ‘He that overcometh it shall inherit all things; I will be his God, and he shall be my son.’ How shall I know that God is my God, and that I am his son? If by the power of his Spirit I am able to overcome and conquer in some comparable measure base tentations and my base corruptions and lusts; when I lie not as a beast or as a carnal man under sin, but God hath given me in some measure spiritual strength over sin.

Undoubtedly these and such like works of the Spirit, together with the testimony of the Spirit, will be wheresoever God is our God.

In a word, to name no more trials but this, whosoever God is a God to, there will be a transforming unto God, a transforming unto Christ, in whom God is our God. For we must know that we are renewed according to the image of the ‘second Adam.’ Our comfort is by God revealed in Christ. If God be our God in Christ, we will be like to God; and that will be known that we are like to God, if we be like to God in the flesh, God incarnate. For we are predestinated to be like God incarnate. God, first he is Christ's God before he is ours; and as Christ carried himself to God, so if we be God’s , we must carry ourselves like Christ, be transformed unto him. How did Christ carry himself to God? God was his God. ‘My God, my God,’ saith Christ upon the cross. Now the gospel sheweth that he obeyed his Father in all things, in doing and suffering; ‘Not my will, but thy will be done,’ Luke xxii. 42. You know how full of mercy and compassion he was; how he prayed all night sometimes. Though he knew God would bestow things on him without prayer, yet he would pray in order to God's appointment. You know how full of goodness he was, going about continually doing good, Acts x. 38; and that in obedience and conscience to God's command. In a word, look how Christ made God his God, and carried himself to God. So must we; for we are predestinated to be transformed to the image of the ‘second Adam,’ Christ. Especially observe one thing – I touched it before – whom we run to and trust to in extremity, is our god. Christ in extremity, when he felt the anger and endured the wrath of God, being a surety for our sins, yet ‘My God, my God’ still. So if we make God our God, chiefly in the greatest extremity, in the time of desertion, as Christ did, it is a good sign. I do but touch these things. The point, you see, is large. I only give you matter of meditation. You may enlarge them yourselves in your own thoughts. These I think sufficient trials, whereby you may know whether God be your God.

Having now thus unfolded these terms, let us see what we may draw from thence for our use and comfort.

First, then, if by these trials we find that God be not, or have not been, our God, alas! let us never rest till we make good that God is our God. For what if we have all things, if we have not God with all things? All other things are but streams; God is the fountain. If we have not spring, what will become of us at last? Ahithophel had much wit and policy, but he had not God for his God. Ahab had power and strength, but he had not God for his God. Saul had a kingdom, but he had not God for his God. Herod had eloquence, but he had not God for his God. Judas was an apostle, a great professor, but he had not God for his God. What became of all these? Wit they had, strength they had, honor they had, friends they had, they had not God; and therefore a miserable end they made. What miserable creatures are all such, when they shall say, Friends have forsaken me, wealth hath forsaken me, and health hath forsaken me; terrors lay hold upon me, the wrath of God hath overtaken me. But they cannot say, God is my God. Oh, such are in a miserable case, in a fearful estate indeed. Nay, suppose they have all these, suppose they could say they have a world of riches, they have inheritances, they have friends, &c., yet if they cannot say, God is my God, all is vanity. The whole man is this, to have God to be our God. This is the whole man, to fear God and keep his commandments, Eccles. Xii. 18. If a man has all the world, and have not God for his God, all is but vanity and vexation of spirit. Never rest therefore till we can prove ourselves to be in the covenant of grace, till we can say, God is my God.

But, secondly, when we have found God to be our God, then make this use of it, a use of resolution. Is God my God? then I will result to please him, though all creatures be against me. This was their resolution in Micah iv. 5, ‘Every nation walketh in the name of his god, but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever.’ Resolve with Joshua and others to please God, whosoever saith the contrary; to walk after the commandments of God, whatsoever others do or say. In all discouragements from men or devils, let us set this as a buckler, God is my God. Arm ourselves with resolution against all fears and threatenings of men, of men of terror, against the arm of flesh. They say they will do this and this; ay, but God is my God. All that they do they must do in his strength. Arm ourselves with this against the power and gates of hell. Fear not the devil. If we fear man or devil more than God, fear them so as to do anything to displease God, we make them god. If our conscience rightly tells us that what is to be done by us is the will and command of God, and that herein I serve God, we need not fear any opposer; but oppose this as an armor of proof against all creatures, against all discouragements whatsoever. And certainly experience telleth us, and approveth it to be true, that nothing can dismay a man that doth things in conscience to God, and knows God will bear him out in it, though not from danger in this world; and yet for the most part he doth that too. Those that are the stoutest men for God are as oftentimes most safe, always freed from inward dejection. Yet God disposeth of it so as that he that keeps a good conscience shall always be a king, and rule over the world; and therein he performs his promise. Whatever discouragements he endureth outwardly, yet no discouragement can cast down that soul that looks to God. In his conscience he knows that he takes God to be his, that he serveth him, and that it shall go well with him at last, that God will be all-sufficient to him; and this raiseth him above all, makes him rule and reign over his enemies, and be a terror to those that do him harm.

Richard Sibbes, “The Faithful Covenanter,” in The Complete Works of Richard Sibbes, p. 14-16.

The Bondage of the Will, Discussion: Second Part, Section CVII - Luther

Sect. CVII. ó BUT let us, I pray you, suppose that God ought to be such an one, who should have respect unto merit in those who are to be damned. Must we not, in like manner; also require and grant, that He ought to have respect unto merit in those who are to be saved? For if we are to follow Reason, it is equally unjust, that the undeserving should be crowned, as that the undeserving should be damned. We will conclude, therefore, that God ought to justify from merit preceding, or we will declare Him to be unjust, as being one who delights in evil and wicked men, and who invites and crowns their impiety by rewards. ó And then, woe unto you, sensibly miserable sinners, under that God! For who among you can be saved! Behold, therefore, the iniquity of the human heart! When God saves the undeserving without merit, nay, justifies the impious with all their demerit, it does not accuse Him of iniquity, it does not expostulate with Him why He does it, although it is, in its own judgment, most iniquitous; but because it is to its own profit, and plausible, it considers it just and good. But when He damns the undeserving, this, because it is not to its own profit, is iniquitous; this is intolerable; here it expostulates, here it murmurs, here it blasphemes! You see, therefore, that the Diatribe, together with its friends, do not, in this cause, judge according to equity, but according to the feeling sense of their own profit. For, if they regarded equity, they would expostulate with God when He crowned the undeserving, as they expostulate with Him when He damns the undeserving. And also, they would equally praise and proclaim God when He damns the undeserving, as they do when He saves the undeserving; for the iniquity in either instance is the same, if our own opinion be regarded: ó unless they mean to say, that the iniquity is not equal, whether you laud Cain for his fratricide and make him a king, or cast the innocent Abel into prison and murder him!

Since, therefore, Reason praises God when He saves the undeserving, but accuses Him when He damns the undeserving; it stands convicted of not praising God as God, but as a certain one who serves its own profit; that is, it seeks, in God, itself and the things of itself, but seeks not God and the things of God. But if it be pleased with a God who crowns the undeserving, it ought not to be displeased with a God who damns the undeserving. For if He be just in the one instance, how shall He not be just in the other? seeing that, in the one instance, He pours forth grace and mercy upon the undeserving, and in the other, pours forth wrath and severity upon the undeserving? ó He is, however, in both instances, monstrous and iniquitous in the sight of men; yet just and true in Himself. But, how it is just, that He should crown the undeserving, is incomprehensible now, but we shall see when we come there, where it will be no longer believed, but seen in revelation face to face. So also, how it is just, that He should damn the undeserving, is incomprehensible now, yet, we believe it, until the Son of Man shall be revealed!

Martin Luther

Institutes, III, xxiii, 2: God's Will is the Rule of Righteousness - Calvin

(First objection: the doctrine of election makes God a tyrant, 2-3)

2. God's will is the rule of righteousness

Foolish men contend with God in many ways, as though they held him liable to their accusations. They first ask, therefore, by what right the Lord becomes angry at his creatures who have not provoked him by any previous offense; for to devote to destruction whomever he pleases is more like the caprice of a tyrant than the lawful sentence of a judge. It therefore seems to them that men have reason to expostulate with God if they are predestined to eternal death solely by his decision, apart from their own merit. If thoughts of this sort ever occur to pious men, they will be sufficiently armed to break their force even by the one consideration that it is very wicked merely to investigate the causes of God's will. For his will is, and rightly ought to be, the cause of all things that are. For if it has any cause, something must precede it, to which it is, as it were, bound; this is unlawful to imagine. For God's will is so much the highest rule of righteousness that whatever he wills, by the very fact that he wills it, must be considered righteous. When, therefore, one asks why God has so done, we must reply: because he has willed it. But if you proceed further to ask why he so willed, you are seeking something greater and higher than God's will, which cannot be found. Let men's rashness, then, restrain itself, and not seek what does not exist, lest perhaps it fail to find what does exist. This bridal, I say, will effectively restrain anyone who wants to ponder in reverence the secrets of his God. Against the boldness of the wicked who are not afraid to curse God openly, the Lord himself will sufficiently defend himself by his righteousness, without our help, when, by depriving their consciences of all evasion, he will convict them and condemn them.

And we do not advocate the fiction of "absolute might"; because this is profane, it ought rightly to be hateful to us. We fancy no lawless god who is a law unto himself. For, as Plato says, men who are troubled with lusts are in need of law; but the will of God is not only free of all fault but is the highest rule of perfection, and even the law of all laws.* But we deny that he is liable to render an account; we also deny that we are competent judges to pronounce judgments in this cause according to our own understanding. Accordingly, if we attempt more than is permitted, let that threat of the psalm strike us with fear: God will be the victor whenever he is judged by mortal man [Ps. 51:4; cf. 50:6, Vg.].

* "Therefore, with reference to the sentiments of the Schoolmen concerning the absolute or tyrannical will of God, I not only repudiate, but abhor them all, because they separate the justice of God from his ruling power."

John Calvin