Review by David J. Engelsma

The Crux of the Free Offer of the Gospel. Sam Waldron.
Greenbrier, AR: Free Grace Press, 2019. 143 pages, softcover, $18.00.

Introduction

With the enthusiastic recommendation of such Reformed theologians as Joel Beeke and Richard D. Phillips, Baptist theologian Sam Waldron launches a vehement attack on the Reformed confession of salvation by particular grace and a vigorous defense of the theology of universal, ineffectual (saving) grace as this heresy is inherent in the doctrine of the “well-meant offer” of the gospel.

To his credit, Waldron is candid in his attack and defense, as other defenders of the popular doctrine are not. By the “free offer,” he means a divine invitation to salvation that expresses a saving love of God for all to whom the ineffectual invitation comes, with the sincere, gracious purpose and desire of God that everyone who hears the invitation be saved. In the “free offer,” God extends His saving grace in Jesus Christ to all to whom the offer comes—extends it with the desire of love that the sinner be saved by the offer, that is, by the offering God.

It is both the conviction and assumption of this book that the crux of the doctrine of the Free Offer of the gospel is God’s indiscriminate desire for the salvation of sinners. To put this in other words, at the core of the Free Offer of the gospel is what is called the ‘Well-Meant’ Offer of the gospel…This conviction (that the Well-Meant Offer and God’s indiscriminate desire for the salvation of sinners is the crux of the Free Offer) is also the conviction of its most vocal enemies (9–10).

Whereupon Waldron adduces this reviewer’s book Hyper-Calvinism and the Call of the Gospel as expressing the rejection of the well-meant offer to which he and his theological allies are opposed.

Honestly, Waldron acknowledges that it is this that the avowed foes of the so-called “free offer” find objectionable—foes particularly in the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC).

This is strikingly candid on Waldron’s part because many advocates of the well-meant offer like to disguise the heresy, which they hold, as much as possible by carefully referring to it only as the “free offer.” Thus, they hide behind the use of the phrase in the Westminster Confession of Faith (7.3) and leave the impression that they are only confessing the indiscriminate preaching of the gospel to all and sundry; the serious call to all hearers to repent and believe; and the generally announced particular promise that everyone who believes will surely be saved. This meaning of the “offer,” of course, is orthodox and heartily subscribed to by the PRC.

What is Meant by the “Free Offer”

In fact, this is not what such theologians mean by the “free offer.” What they mean is what Waldron rightly and candidly calls the “well-meant offer.” What Waldron means, and what such defenders of the “free offer of the gospel” as Beeke, Phillips, R. Scott Clark, and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (all of whom are adduced by Waldron as defenders of the well-meant offer) mean, by the “free offer” is that “God wills for them [all who hear the gospel] to be saved” (22) and that God has a “desire and intention for the salvation of men who were finally lost” (24), so that the “free offer” preacher assures everyone in his audience that “God wants him to be saved” (33).

The doctrine of the “free offer” for which Waldron contends, as do also most contemporary advocates of the “free offer,” is “that he [God] would have all come to Christ” (130). “God earnestly desires the salvation of every man who hears the gospel. He sends them the gospel—with the desire, intention, and will—that they might be saved by it” (100).

As this universal will of salvation itself implies, Waldron candidly declares that his and the others’ “free offer” proceeds from a saving love for all who hear the gospel and proceeds to them all as the (would be) saving grace of God.

Waldron struggles, as well he might, with the implication of his well-meant offer, namely, that there are two, contradictory wills in God. With the will of election (which Waldron confesses), God desires and intends the salvation of some only who hear the gospel, Jacob, not Esau. With the will of the well-meant offer, God desires the salvation of all, Esau as well as Jacob. Thus, the God of the well-meant offer is in conflict with Himself, which is intolerable for a Calvinistic, indeed Christian, theologian.

Waldron makes an effort to alleviate his grave problem of contradiction in God, and that in the important matter of salvation, by recourse to a deep and murky discussion of the nature of the being of God (which discussion does nothing at all to solve Waldron’s problem of a conflicted god—a god whom I would advise to make up his mind: does he purpose to save all, or some only?; does he want us to preach his will of election or his will of the well-meant offer?). The familiar appeal in defense of this contradiction in two wills of God to the oneness and threeness of God’s being, as though the oneness and threeness of the being of God are also contradiction, is a complete failure. For God is not one and three in the same respects. He is one in being, and three in persons. The Trinity of God is not a glaring contradiction. The doctrine of the Trinity reveals God as incomprehensible.  It does not reveal Him as nonsense.

“Will of Precept/Will of Decree” 

Beyond all doubt, Waldron’s main defense against the charge that his theology of the well-meant offer posits two contradictory wills in God is his appeal to the Reformed distinction between the preceptive will and the decretive will of God. Again and again, Waldron falls back on this distinction in the will of God. He expresses the importance of the distinction for his doctrine of the offer early in his treatment of his subject: “First, the backdrop of this discussion is the preceptive will of God for all men” (25). He returns to the distinction at the very end of the book, where he adds to his confusion by introducing the distinction between the secret and the revealed will of God.

This means that the supposed objection to the Free Offer from particular redemption is not different in its fundamental nature from the problem relating to the tension between God’s decretive (or secret) and preceptive (or revealed) will…The particular redemption of only some of those to whom the gospel is preached is not an objection. The revealed or preceptive will of God in the gospel is that he would have all come to Christ. The revealed will of God is that in Christ, on the basis of his precious blood, there is a sufficient Savior for them (130).

Waldron misunderstands and misrepresents the distinction “preceptive will/will of decree.” The distinction is not between a desire to save some (election) and a desire to save all (the well-meant offer). But, as the wording of the distinction itself makes plain, the distinction is between a desire, or intention, or purpose, to save only the elect (the will of decree) and the command, or precept, to all who hear the gospel, that they repent and believe (the will of precept). The preceptive will of God is His command, not the expression of His purpose, or intention. A precept is a command. It is not a wish. It is exactly the idea of the distinction in Reformed theology that the Bible often teaches that God commands (preceptive will) what He does not purpose according to His decree (will of decree). Similarly, He forbids (precept) what He has decreed (decree).

Here may be difficulty for the human comprehension. But there is no contradiction. God forbade Adam to eat the fruit (precept), whereas He had decreed that Adam would eat, in order that He might carry out His purpose of salvation in Jesus Christ (decree). God forbade Joseph’s brothers to sell him into Egypt, whereas He had decreed that they would sell him, so that Joseph might keep the family of Jacob alive. God forbade all the agents of the wickedness of bringing Jesus to the cross to perform their evil deeds, whereas He ordained that they would perform them in order to accomplish the salvation of many by the redemption of the cross. God commands all who hear the gospel to believe (precept), whereas by the very preaching of the gospel He hardens the hearts of some that they not believe, according to his decretal will of reprobation (decree). What God commands is one thing (will of precept). What He decrees is another thing (will of decree). Precept and decree involve no contradiction.

When Waldron inexcusably describes the preceptive will of God as God’s gracious intention, or purpose to save those whom He has not elected, he completely misunderstands the preceptive will of God, and brings God into conflict with Himself. “The revealed or preceptive will of God in the gospel is that he would have all come to Christ” (130). Now God has two contrary wills: a will desiring the salvation of all and a will desiring the salvation of some only. He is a God at cross purposes with Himself. And one of these wills—the one which Waldron and his free-offer colleagues emphasize—is a failure. All who hear the gospel do not come to Christ.

Likewise, Waldron’s appeal to a distinction between the “secret” and “revealed” will of God rests on a misunderstanding of the distinction. For Waldron, God’s revealed will is His purpose that all be saved by the gospel, inasmuch as God loves them all alike. God’s secret will, in contrast, is His election of some only. This is sheer contradiction in God with regard to the salvation of humans who hear the gospel. But this is inexcusable ignorance on Waldron’s part, ignorance that those who so heartily recommend the book ought in kindness, to say nothing of theological astuteness, to have called to Waldron’s attention. The secret will of God is what God has ordained in His eternal counsel, for example, that God would harden Pharaoh’s heart so that he would refuse to let God’s people go, in order that God might be glorified in Pharaoh’s disobedience. Pharaoh did not know this will, nor did he need to know it. Pharaoh knew, and only needed to know, God’s revealed will, which was the command of God to him by Moses, “Let my people go.” The precept did not contradict the decree. In fact, the precept served the decree. By disobeying the precept Pharaoh hardened himself so as to make himself ready for his decreed destruction.

Waldron makes the revealed will of God a purpose of God to save all who hear the gospel, in contradiction of the secret will of God’s predestination that only some be saved. Not only does this understanding of the distinction cause God to be at loggerheads with Himself and bring the gospel into utter confusion (does the God of the gospel will to save some, or all?), but it also is falsity on its very face. If the revealed will of God is taken to refer to God’s revelation in Scripture as to whether He purposes the salvation of all who hear the gospel, or of some only, the revealed will—the revealed will—of God plainly teaches that He wills to save some only, not all. Jesus told His enemies to their faces in John 10 that they were not of His sheep, to whom alone He willed (intended, purposed, desired) to give eternal life. It is the revealed will of God that God has no desire for the salvation of all who hear the gospel, indeed, of all to whom Jesus Himself preaches the gospel. In Romans 9, the Holy Ghost teaches that the purpose of God with some who hear the gospel is that their hearts be hardened so that they perish everlastingly. This is not the “secret” will of God, but the “revealed” will. God has made known that He does not will, or purpose, or intend, the salvation of all who hear the gospel. His revealed will clearly makes known His decree of predestination, that He purposes and intends the salvation of some only, in distinction from others for whom He purposes damnation. The revealed will makes known also that God designs and uses the preaching of the gospel as means of grace for the salvation of the elect only.

Waldron and his free-offer allies are inexcusable in their opposition to this revealed will of God. “Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth” (Rom. 9:18). The text explains God’s will in the matter of the salvation of sinners. The text teaches that this will concerning salvation is particular, not universal. The text teaches that the will for the salvation of some only includes, as an essential aspect of this will, the will for the hardening and damnation of others. And this twofold will of God regarding salvation is part of biblical revelation. It is the revealed will of God. Whether they receive it by bowing to the revelation, this will of God is made known to Sam Waldron and his free-offer allies, as well as to the PRC, unless they do not have John 10 and Romans 8 and 9, and many similar passages, in their Bibles.

To Waldron and his theological allies, who forever oppose and argue against this revealed will of God, that He is merciful in the gospel to whom He wills to be merciful, withholding His mercy from others, as though this truth would render God somehow unfair, if not hard-hearted, making Him the original “hyper-Calvinist,” comes the apostolic warning, “Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay…?” (Rom. 9:20).

Let Waldron and his allies consider, whether their theology of the offer would occasion such an objection and necessitate such a warning. Who would object to the teaching that God loves all with a saving love and comes to all alike with the message, “I love you all alike, that is, with a saving love, and sincerely desire to save you all; now I offer all of you alike Christ and salvation; and (as this message implies) it is now up to you”? It is inconceivable that anyone would object, “Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?” (vv. 19–20).

So important for Waldron’s defense of his theology of the well-meant offer is his mistaken understanding of the preceptive will of God that, with the exposure of this inexcusable error, his well-meant offer collapses.