“Believers and non-believers, elect and reprobate alike (not that all non-believers are reprobate. God is not done calling all his people to faith) have much in common. We are all image-bearers. We all live in God’s world, under his providence. We all suffer from the effects of the fall. We are all recipients of God’s general, natural revelation of his law (Romans 1:18–2:16) Please do not interpret the shared experience and realities as a species of neutrality. Common is not neutral.”

Modern Reformed and evangelical Christians inherited the language of “common grace” (Gemeene Gratie) from Abraham Kuyper (1837–1920), a pastor, scholar, theologian, newspaper publisher, educator, and politician (he served as Prime Minister of the Netherlands) of enormous energy and accomplishment. He not only helped to organize a major political party but also a new denomination (GKN). He wrote tirelessly for both political and ecclesiastical newspapers and founded the Free University of Amsterdam. James Bratt’s recent biography of Kuyper is well-written and fascinating account of a truly important figure. Scholars sometimes attribute the doctrine of common grace to orthodox writers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In the wake of the controversy surrounding the “Three Points” of Herman Kuiper argued, in 1928, that Calvin taught the essence of the doctrine of common grace.  Be that as it may (I tend to agree that the doctrine did not emerge from nowhere in the 19th century, it had roots in Reformed orthodoxy), prior to Kuyper, however, we did not much use the language “common grace” alway in the way we use the phrase.¹ We tended to speak about “mercy,” whereby God restrains evil in the world. As Darryl Hart taught me a long time ago, we tended to speak about God’s general providence (as distinct from his special saving providence for his elect) in the world rather than “common grace.”² One of the unhappy consequences of the phrase “common grace” is that, in Scripture, grace typically refers to God’s unconditional saving favor toward his people. It is not common to or shared by the elect and non-elect. Grace is particular. In his general, common providence God mercifully makes the rain to fall and the sun to shine on the just and the unjust (Matt 5;44–48). In light of our Lord’s teaching in Matthew 5, our theologians (e.g., Petrus van Mastricht) have spoken of God’s general love for all humanity. Believers are to love their enemies even as God loves his enemies. This is what it means, in that case, to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect.

Believers and non-believers, elect and reprobate alike (not that all non-believers are reprobate. God is not done calling all his people to faith) have much in common. We are all image-bearers. We all live in God’s world, under his providence. We all suffer from the effects of the fall. We are all recipients of God’s general, natural revelation of his law (Romans 1:18–2:16) Please do not interpret the shared experience and realities as a species of neutrality. Common is not neutral. This is God’s world. By God’s special providence, by his particular grace, in Christ to his elect they have been given new life (regenerated), they have been given the gift of true faith, and through that gift they have been united by the Spirit to Christ. By God’s grace believers see themselves for what they are (sinners) and they see the world for what it is: a witness to God’s justice and a declaration of his glory (Ps 19:1). Believers acknowledge the God who made them. They rest in Christ and in his finished work for sinners. They’ve been transferred from the covenant of works (do this and live) to the covenant of grace (Christ has done for you, now live in light of his grace). Unbelievers live in darkness. They do not acknowledge themselves for what they are (sinners) and they continue to shake their fist at their Creator, even as he restrains the effects of the fall and provides for them despite their rebellion.

However many things that believers have in common with unbelievers the gospel is not one of them. The gospel declares that God loves sinners so much that he gave his only and eternally begotten Son (John 3:16) but the way to God is narrow. “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matt 7:13–14; ESV). Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). The gospel is that there is a Savior, that he has come, that he has accomplished redemption for his people and that he is efficaciously applying that salvation to every one of his people. The gospel, however, is particular. Believers and unbelievers do not have the gospel in common. It separates us. It distinguishes between belief and unbelief. In that way the gospel is not like the falling rain or the shining sun. Those are general blessings and mercies. The gospel is not a general blessing. The gospel does not say, “I have done my part, now you do yours.” The law says: “you do.” The gospel says, “Christ has done. It is finished.”

Because the gospel is not general, because it is not common, it must be proclaimed to all universally, seriously, and freely.  The first of Synod Kalamazoo’s Three Points was the free or well  meant offer of the gospel. God reveals himself as willing that none should perish. So, despite the protestations of a noisy minority, the Reformed have widely taught the doctrine of the free or well-meant offer of the good news. We offer Christ and his grace to all because we do not presume to know whom God, from all eternity, in Christ, has elected. Just as we who believe are the unworthy recipients of favor earned for us by Christ, we offer that grace to all.

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