How foolish! How absurd!

As foolish and absurd as it is, church history bears witness of the attempt made time after time. Each theology attempted to present itself as something new. Each theology attempted to condemn the old theology as heretical, but in truth it was the same theology all over again.

First it was Pelagianism. Then it was semi-Pelagianism. Then it was Arminianism. Then it was conditional covenant theology. Then it was federal vision theology. Now it is “sequential” theology: It is significant for the doctrine of salvation that first we believe, and then we receive assurance of salvation. It is significant for the doctrine of salvation that first we do good works, and then we receive additional assurance and additional blessings. First do, and then… First, and only then.

In the above paragraph names were named. Those names indicate heresies, doctrines identified and declared false by ecclesiastical assemblies—heresies such as Pelagianism, semi-Pelagianism, Arminianism, conditional covenant theology, and federal vision theology.

Then there is “sequential” theology. No capital letter. No condemnation by a deliberative assembly. Not listed on the register of Heresies with a capital H. The purveyors of sequential theology readily point that out. They will deny all the Heresies with a capital H. They will refuse to find any relationship whatever with those other Heresies. Sequential theology cannot be a Heresy, therefore.

Such reasoning is set before the judgment of church history and found wanting. Try it with Arminianism prior to the Synod of Dordt. Arminius and his followers used exactly the same reasoning. They claimed to be orthodox and publicly spoke orthodox language when their views were questioned. They stated publicly that they never taught anything that contradicted the Heidelberg Catechism and the Belgic Confession. They publicly subscribed to those confessions of the Reformation. They also promised that they would never teach anything that contradicted those Reformed confessions. Right along with their “brethren” in the Reformed Churches of the Netherlands, Arminius and his followers condemned the heresies of Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism. Thus they argued for their influential places in the churches and universities, as well as in the state. When they argued for their particular points of doctrine, they strenuously maintained that those doctrinal points were most certainly and definitely neither Pelagian nor semi-Pelagian. They maintained those doctrinal points as being well within the Reformed standards (while arguing for the revision of those standards).

What would have happened if the orthodox in the Netherlands had yielded to such arguments? “The doctrine cannot be condemned because it is different. The doctrine cannot be condemned because its promoters are our colleagues in the ministry, the university, and the state. The unity and peace of these institutions may not be disturbed, much less sacrificed, for any division caused by doctrinal arguments.” What would have happened to the cause of the faith? What would have happened to the clear witness to the truth?

What did happen?

The fathers at the Synod of Dordt were not afraid to condemn with the strongest language the Remonstrants and their doctrine. The fathers at Dordt did not mince words or adjust their language and tone out of respect for officebearers in their churches. The fathers did not feel any need to soften their tone or grant concessions, lest some in the church be offended.

But the synod said regarding the Remonstrants and their doctrine,

This savors of the teaching of Pelagius, and is opposed to the doctrine of the apostle.

These adjudge too contemptuously of the death of Christ…and bring again out of hell the Pelagian error.

These…seek to instill into the people the destructive poison of the Pelagian errors.

This is altogether Pelagian and contrary to the whole Scripture.

This idea contains an outspoken Pelagianism.¹

Indeed, the Remonstrants had carefully crafted their doctrinal statements. No, not about works but only about faith. No, not even about faith without grace. Grace (and grace alone) removes the hindrances and obstacles to true, saving faith. Grace (and grace alone) is the gospel that is preached to persuade and to call men to believe. Grace (and grace alone) gives to those who hear the gospel the ability freely to exercise the will to believe. All grace! All grace alone!

The orthodox did not listen. The orthodox did not concede but said, “These…bring again out of hell the Pelagian error.”

Why is Pelagianism the same error as Arminianism? Why is Arminianism—then and now, classical and evangelical—the Pelagian error out of hell?

Because they both cheat grace. They both cheat grace in the same way.

Let us move from the past to the present. As Dordt skipped over semi-Pelagianism, let us feel free to skip over conditional covenant theology and federal vision theology to what we can call “sequential” theology.

No buzzwords have yet been invented, such as Remonstrants or Arminianism. No name, such as federal vision, has been given. However, there are mantras: “In the way of.” “See what grace can make of a man.” “What God’s grace can do to a man.” However, a doctrinal system is being built and presented. As with Pelagian Arminianism, this sequential doctrinal system demands doctrinal justice for man’s activities—the working of his will and his responsibility to obey God’s commandments. As with Pelagian Arminianism, this sequential doctrinal system is based on the commandments of God’s word, the language of scripture that expresses God’s promises in conditional language, and the recorded experiences of God’s children.

All the purveyors of this sequential theology demand recognition as orthodox. They subscribe to the Reformed creeds, and they promise to teach and defend nothing outside of the creeds.

Then, let us not merely skip, but let us leap. Let us leap from sequential theology to Pelagianism. Let us make this leap because, just as the leap from Arminianism to Pelagianism, sequential theology cheats grace. Just as Pelagianism and Arminianism, sequential theology pretends grace. Grace. Grace alone. All by grace. But sequential theology is the definition of cheating.

Should we be naïve enough to suppose that this time around the heresy will self-identify?

In spite of all the talk about grace, there is a gap.

Sequential theology does cheat grace. The cheat is in the sequence itself of the sequential theology.

What is first? Grace is first. Some kind of grace—undeserved gifts given, gifts given to only the elect—that maintains sovereign, particular grace. But then there is what is second: man’s activity, man’s deed, man’s work. Then there is what is third in this sequence: the grace of God that follows.

Still grace because, for a number of reasons, grace is still undeserved.

Grace to believe, then man’s activity of believing, and only then the grace of salvation in the assurance of salvation.

Grace to do good works, to obey God’s law; then man’s actual doing good works of obedience; and only then the grace of increased assurance and all kinds of prosperity following.

Let us freely acknowledge that we do hear a division of the voices, pens, and keyboards that are clamoring for this sequential theology. Some are bolder and freer than others. These others insist that when men do something, it is always and only by grace alone. But some go further. These bolder and freer promoters state a division. Grace indeed works, and that grace is necessary. But in one way or another, grace must acknowledge man’s responsibility and the reality of what he does. Grace must operate in such a way as ultimately to leave something for man to do. Maybe grace is available, which man must then use. Maybe grace gives the possibility or potential, but man must then turn to good acts and good deeds.

Why is this sequential theology not only conditional covenant theology, not only federal vision theology, not only Arminianism, not only semi-Pelagianism? Why is it also simple Pelagianism, Pelagianism again brought out of hell?

Because it is the same ancient endeavor to cheat grace. Because, however pious and holy the appeals to grace pour forth, they spring out of the same pride that characterized the destructive poison of the Pelagian error.

Why? How?

Because grace waits for no man!

Because if grace waits for any man, it must wait forever!

Because if grace waits for any man, then salvation is not of grace but of works!

Three practical considerations make the above clear.

The first is from the doctrine of God’s providence, that part of providence called “sustaining.” God sustains the entire creation in its existence from beginning to end. Were God to withdraw his hand of providence, the creation would not spin out of control into chaos, but the creation would no longer exist. Providence is God’s work alone. The same is true of God’s work of salvation from beginning to end. Were grace to be withdrawn for the sake of man’s activity as man’s very own, there would be no child of God, no Christian, and no saint. There would only be the sinner enmeshed and ensnared in his total depravity by nature (Canons of Dordt, 5.3, 6–8).

The second consideration is from an examination of the doctrine of Pelagius, as that doctrine was criticized and condemned by Augustine. Pelagius did acknowledge grace. He acknowledged that grace was God’s gift to man, to give to man a will that was operational and therefore free. God gave further grace to show to man in what direction he ought to turn his will—toward God and not away from him. That grace was the light of nature, which was sufficient for man to understand, to trust in God, and to worship and serve him for salvation. On another, more gracious level was the law of God revealed in scripture. God’s word graciously told man what works and deeds would be pleasing to God and which works and deeds he would reward with grace and salvation. On another, even more gracious level was the gospel of Jesus Christ. Without doing what was required by the light of nature, without doing what was required of the law, man could obtain grace and salvation by merely believing on Jesus Christ. Different ways and different requirements, all graciously given by God. Man, making good use of these gracious gifts by his own free will, was always able to and actually did in many cases obtain grace and salvation from a gracious God. God’s promises of grace and salvation were certain and sure. They were certain and sure by grace. But for man’s will to be truly man’s will and truly free, grace could not affect that will in its operation. The will had to remain man’s will. It had to remain free.

In his response to Pelagius’ doctrine, Augustine denied that Pelagius’ system was gracious at all. Any breach in grace for the sake of man’s will was a breach fatal to all grace. Pelagius’ system was not a mixture of grace and works. It was a system of works.

The third consideration is from a particular insight that Augustine had about Pelagius’ doctrine. Augustine’s insight considered the very point at which salvation depended on the activity of man’s free will. If man’s activity was going to be decisive as part of the necessary sequence between preceding grace and following grace, that activity had to come from man’s own will. Augustine’s insight was that man’s will, to be truly his, had to have two things true about it. The first was that man’s will had to be able to choose one or the other. It had to have no constraint on it or within it from an outside source. The operation of grace might not make that will choose. The second was that man’s will had to lead to two results. Man’s will had to sometimes choose the wrong, and his will had to sometimes choose the right. In other words, free will had to carry through to decisions and activities that were bad as well as good. All grace was suspended on the decisive will of man. Grace might aim and intend. Grace might be highly persuasive. But its realization depended on man’s will. Grace might be promised and reserved, but its actual benefit depended on man’s will.

How do the above points apply to this new theological system of sequence: of God’s grace, then man’s activity, then God’s grace?

Grace must fail.

In one respect grace must fail because man remains man in this system of sequence. Man is changeable. He is a creature of time. His will may decide one thing one day and another day decide another thing. As there is faith in man, there is also unbelief. Will faith prevail one day and unbelief prevail the next? If the will of man must have its own leading place between preceding grace and following grace, then following grace is in peril.

In another respect grace must fail. Where grace must end to give man room for the proper exercise of his will—free from grace—exactly there must man fall back into the death of his depravity. Not only might he not do what he is supposed to do in order to obtain subsequent grace, but also he cannot do what he is supposed to do. His natural depravity means he must certainly do what is displeasing to God. Preceding grace cannot carry through to following grace. Its interruption by man’s evil will and act prohibits any gracious gift and every gracious end. This sequence does not leave a gap for man’s will to fill, but the sequence leaves a horrible, unbridgeable chasm. It leaves all subsequent and following grace completely out of reach.

Another application of this theology of sequence is that it demands for man independence from grace. Grace makes itself available for the use of man, but it is up to man in his independent condition whether he will use that grace. God graciously provides an incentive, a reward, if man but does his part, but man must be free in himself to pursue this reward if he will obtain it. Grace enables. Grace equips. It enables and equips according to the predestinating and regenerating will of God. Grace provides an incentive to help persuade man to do what he must do. But what lies between must depend on man alone to fulfill, independently of God’s willing and acting.

Independence!

But grace will not be cheated.

Grace will not allow itself to be compromised.

The sentence of Romans 11:6 must sound: “If it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.” This judgment of scripture is why Arminianism was condemned by the Synod of Dordt as just another version of Pelagianism. This sentence of scripture is why this theology of sequence must be condemned as just another version of Pelagianism.

Grace will not tolerate any kind of attack.

The grace of God will not share the glory with the works or will of man.

Grace must wholly withdraw from the scene and leave man alone, alone in his proud desolation. Man, seeking proud independence, must find himself self-deceived, thinking his blindness is great wisdom and his inability is great strength. Man’s insistence on self-doing is his undoing. All his talk of grace and what grace can make of a man and can do to a man is truly only revolt from grace and from the God of all grace.

What a mystery this is to the child of God who loves and rejoices in the grace of God that gives him all his good willing and all his good doing! He repudiates his own will as only evil for the sake of praising God’s will as only good (Lord’s Day 49). The child of God will claim no part of his salvation for himself but must insist that it is all the work of God in Christ through the working of the Holy Spirit of Christ in him. The child of God delights to attribute all his willing and all his doing to the thorough, pervasive grace of God working in him. “It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13).

Why cheat grace?

Why divide between grace and works?

How abhorrent to divide between God and man!

All must be by grace alone!

Why such a mystery?

Why must the child of God truly find so repulsive this theology that insists on a sequence that gives man a place? 

Why must he heartily agree that this theology of sequence is again the Pelagian error out of hell?

Because the child of God finds the fellowship of his God in grace to be most delightful and precious. He does not want his God to provide grace, leave his child free to will or to do, and then supply grace in response. Such is no freedom to the child of God but only death. He never wants grace to leave any kind of gap for him to fill. There he sees death, the yawning chasm of his depravity. There he will not go. He must remain near to his God, always conscious of the never-ending supply of grace to him from God’s throne, where Christ sits at God’s right hand.

Also because the believer wants to live always in the knowledge that his entire way to glory—every aspect of that way of salvation and every step of that way—is from the cross of his Lord Jesus Christ. The believer wants to know that it is that cross alone that ensures by its purchase all his life and all his way on the path that must lead to eternal life. Seeing it all, step by step as he experiences it, it is his great delight to give thanks to his God for it all, seeing the great price that Christ paid for it.

Further, because the child of God needs the conscious assurance that no part of his entire pathway is up to him. He needs to know that he cannot possibly fail to enter into Zion, that the promises of God are incapable of failure. The child of God needs to know that God’s strength is his by grace alone, strength given for all his weakness and all his incapability, and that strength of grace is all he needs to persevere all the way to glorious perfection, perfection promised and attained by grace alone.

For the sake of his salvation, the believer must have nothing to do with the Pelagian error. No matter what guise it may adopt in crawling out of hell with the aid of its proud assistants, it must be detected, named, and cast back in.

Grace must never be cheated but fully embraced and completely trusted.

Grace alone!