I make no secret about it that I enjoy Charles Spurgeon. I enjoy reading Spurgeon’s sermons and I enjoy studying this great saint’s life. I even named my second child after him, Haddon Spurgeon Ingle (although we tend to call him Spur for short). However, I often have wondered where Spurgeon got his views about Arminianism from. I know that Spurgeon was a great reader and had a brilliant mind with a photographic memory. Spurgeon could read a book and not just remember quotes from the books he read but could recite what page the quote came from even years after reading the book. In his life he read John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress well over 100 times and memorized entire sections of the story. Yet I have yet to learn what Arminian books Spurgeon studied from. I have found a catalog of the books Spurgeon owned, and yet while he read from many Puritans (though not from John Goodwin), I have found that he only owned Adam Clarke’s Bible commentary. At times Spurgeon spoke highly of John Wesley and Adam Clarke, but these are the only Arminians I have found in Spurgeon’s sermons or letters.
Having read much of Spurgeon I have come to the conclusion about Spurgeon’s views on Arminianism as follows:
- Spurgeon viewed Arminians of his day as enemies and yet at times he spoke of the Wesleyans as friends. In his sermon Free Will – A Slave, Spurgeon states that Arminians are “our enemies” implying Calvinists. Yet Spurgeon himself was saved in an Arminian church.
- Having not read much of Arminian theologians (except Clarke) nor even of the works of Wesley or Arminius (though he loved Whitefield), I am convinced that Spurgeon did not understand true reformation Arminian theology.
- Despite his attacks on the semi-Pelagianism of Charles Finney, Spurgeon and Finney had much in common in regard to their preaching styles and to their salvation methods. Finney did later use the “anxious seat” for those wanting to be saved, but Spurgeon himself was attacked by the hyper-Calvinists of his day in England for calling sinners to repent and offering the gospel as he did to sinners.
- Spurgeon viewed the main issue for Arminians to be “free will,” but this was not correct.
It is this last point that I wish to post about. Charles Spurgeon, like many Calvinists before him and after him including today, made the mistake of making Arminians’ central tenet to be free will.1 Spurgeon, again in his sermon Free Will – A Slave, sought to build a case against Arminianism by showing that no one can be saved apart from the grace of God and the work of the Holy Spirit. After reading Spurgeon’s sermon, I don’t know of any Arminians who would disagree with Spurgeon that no man comes to Christ apart from the drawing, convicting, and regenerating work of the Holy Spirit.
For the Arminian, the main issue that Spurgeon fails to deal with are two-fold. First, the Arminian would not disagree with Spurgeon that we are saved by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8-9). We don’t deny that salvation is by faith, but we believe that we are saved by faith and not unto faith (Romans 5:1). Arminians do not stress that a man “wills” themselves to salvation or that any human merit can lead to eternal life. Eternal life comes only by the grace of God in Christ Jesus (Romans 6:23). While the Bible no doubt calls for sinners to “believe” (John 1:12) even the believing comes because the Spirit of God opens our eyes to the gospel (John 16:8-11; Titus 3:5-7). Apart from the work of the Holy Spirit, no person can be saved (John 3:3-7).
Second, yet we Arminians would differ over the extent of God’s love for those made in His image (Genesis 1:26-27). Spurgeon implies in his sermon that the reason that we are in Christ is by unconditional election. Here is where Arminians and Spurgeon would disagree. We accept election as biblical (Ephesians 1:3-14) but we reject election as unconditional. If you take Spurgeon’s arguments and stretch them beyond what he preached, the lost are condemned for their unbelief that is there by God’s sovereign choice. Most Calvinists (including Spurgeon) reject double predestination and simply teach that God passes over the reprobate and lets them die in their sins but their condemnation comes from their own unbelief (Mark 16:15; John 3:19-21). Arminians answer the same (that God condemns the lost because of their unbelief), but we believe that people reject the grace of God given to them by God in Christ (Romans 1:18-32). This “common grace” enables the sinner to be saved. God demonstrates His love for the world in His Son (John 3:16-17; Romans 5:8-9) and yet people reject the Lord and His mercy in Christ and therefore are condemned for their own refusal to repent (Luke 13:1-5; Acts 17:30-31).
Here is the issue for Arminians when it comes to Spurgeon’s view of election: Why doesn’t the sovereign God of Calvinism not elect all to be saved? Why does He elect some but not all (Matthew 20:16 NKJV)? The Calvinist answer is that God’s love and grace are glorified by His sovereign choosing of only some (and it seems few) to be the elect of His Son. But would not God be glorified even more by electing all to repent and then the whole earth would be full of His praise and His glory?
Spurgeon sees the Arminians of his day (and many use Spurgeon’s views to this day) as loving free will and willing themselves to salvation. I know of no Arminian who holds such a view. And further, Arminians defend free will simply because we believe that the above notion of unconditional election does not glorify God but rather it makes Him cruel and unloving. We defend free will because we believe that God made humanity in His image and this includes the ability to think, to love, and to form relationships that are not based on coercion but out of the decision to love. We defend free will because we believe that God does not force anyone to believe (a point that even Calvinist would not deny) but that He wants a genuine, loving relationship with people that He first initiated with by the gift of His Son (1 John 4:10) and He continues to pursue through His gospel and through His Spirit working through His Word (Romans 10:14-17).
So Mr. Spurgeon, I love you, but you’re wrong in your views on Arminianism. Our passion, sir, is not free will but the mighty love of God that He demonstrated in the giving of His Son for the elect who come to Christ by faith (1 Timothy 4:10), foreknown by God (Romans 8:29-30; 1 Peter 1:2).
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1 For an Arminian defense of our beliefs see Roger Olson’s book Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities.
[Link to original post and comments at Roy Ingle’s website.]
