Forbidden Bible Verses — 1 Timothy 3:1-7 — part 1

The three-year Lectionary that many Catholics and Protestants hear in public worship gives us a great variety of Holy Scripture.

Yet, it doesn’t tell the whole story.

My series Forbidden Bible Verses — ones the Lectionary editors and their clergy omit — examines the passages we do not hear in church. These missing verses are also Essential Bible Verses, ones we should study with care and attention. Often, we find that they carry difficult messages and warnings.

Today’s reading is from the English Standard Version Anglicised (ESVUK) with commentary by Matthew Henry and John MacArthur (as indicated below).

1 Timothy 3:1-7

Qualifications for Overseers

3 The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. ² Therefore an overseer^[a] must be above reproach, the husband of one wife,^[b] sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, ³ not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. ⁴ He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, ⁵ for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church? ⁶ He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. ⁷ Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil.

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Last week’s post discussed Paul’s instructions to Timothy about the role of women in church.

This is a long post about overseers in the church.

False teachers had arisen in the churches in Ephesus and surrounding areas. Timothy’s command from Paul was to replace them with good, faithful men. Recall that, at the end of 1 Timothy 1, the Apostle told his protégé that already had to turn Hymenaeus and Alexander over to Satan.

Matthew Henry’s commentary reminds us of Paul’s departure from Ephesus after three years of establishing the church there (emphases mine):

It seems they were very loth to part with Paul, especially because he told them they should see his face no more (Acts 20 38); for their church was but newly planted, they were afraid of undertaking the care of it, and therefore Paul left Timothy with them to set them in order.

John MacArthur picks up the story:

In Acts 20, he said to the Ephesian elders – he said, “I know that when I leave, perverse men will come in, evil men will rise up on the inside, and both from the inside and the outside will come false leaders to lead this church astray.” He knew the enemy, Satan. He knew the plan and the plot to work against the Kingdom of God, and he knew the inevitability of such an attack. And his prophecy was fulfilled.

By the time he gets out of prison and goes to Ephesus to meet Timothy there, he discovers that the church is filled with false pastors, and false overseers, and false elders, and those who teach lies and heresies. And so, leaving Timothy there to set things in order, he goes on to Macedonia. But isn’t gone long before he pens this letter, writes back to Timothy, and says, “Now, I want you to get this settled in that church.” There are issues that have to be dealt with. And a major issue that sits right in the middle of this epistle is the matter of confronting the church about the qualifications for church leaders.

Paul then lays out the characteristics of men in church leadership roles in 1 Timothy 3.

The Apostle begins with overseers, or ‘bishops’ in some translations. Paul means head pastors.

Verse 1 in Henry’s translation reads as follows:

This is a true saying, If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.

Right away Paul stamps the authority of truth on the desire to do good when one wants to become a pastor (verse 1).

Henry explains what Paul is conveying to Timothy and contrasts it with how it evolved over the centuries, and not always in the best way. The Church of England had long been established by the time Henry wrote his commentary:

I. The ministry is a work. However the office of a bishop may be now thought a good preferment, then it was thought a good work. 1. The office of a scripture-bishop is an office of divine appointment, and not of human invention. The ministry is not a creature of the state, and it is a pity that the minister should be at any time the tool of the state. The office of the ministry was in the church before the magistrate countenanced Christianity, for this office is one of the great gifts Christ has bestowed on the church, Eph 4 8-11. 2. This office of a Christian bishop is a work, which requires diligence and application: the apostle represents it under the notion and character of a work; not of great honour and advantage, for ministers should always look more to their work than to the honour and advantage of their office. 3. It is a good work, a work of the greatest importance, and designed for the greatest good: the ministry is conversant about no lower concerns than the life and happiness of immortal souls; it is a good work, because designed to illustrate the divine perfections in bringing many sons to glory; the ministry is appointed to open men’s eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, etc., Acts 26 18. 4. There ought to be an earnest desire of the office in those who would be put into it; if a man desire, he should earnestly desire it for the prospect he has of bringing greater glory to God, and of doing the greatest good to the souls of men by this means.

Henry gives us one of the questions those who thought they had a calling to the priesthood in the Church of England were to answer:

This is the question proposed to those who offer themselves to the ministry of the church of England: “Do you think you are moved by the Holy Ghost to take upon you this office?”

MacArthur would agree with that question:

… the statement that you need to know there is, “if a man desire.” That’s the key. You need to understand that all we know about in the New Testament in relation to call springs from desire. It’s a question of, what are you compelled to do? I believe that, where the call in the Old Testament might have been verbally from God out of heaven, the call in the New Testament might have been directly from Jesus Christ, the call in this age is the work of the Spirit of God.

God the Father called in the Old Testament. God the Son called in the New Testament. God the Holy Spirit is calling today. And the call of the Spirit of God today comes through the compulsion of the heart; the strong desire. And if you desire that, that’s a good thing to desire.

MacArthur discusses the words ‘a true saying’:

Notice the phrase: “This is a true saying” – or – “This is a faithful saying.” That little formula introduces something that is of great importance; of great importance. It is attached to something of monumental importance.

Paul uses that phrase five times. He uses it in 1 Timothy 1:15, he uses it here in 3:1, he uses it again in chapter 4, verse 9, he uses it in 2 Timothy 2:11 and he uses it in Titus 3:8. Five times it is used. Now, what that means is, “it is a trustworthy statement,” or to put it simply, “this is the truth, and everybody knows it.” This is axiomatic. This doesn’t need proof. This is obvious. This is patently clear to everyone. Here is a believable fact. Here is a trustworthy statement. Now, that is only a formula used in the pastoral epistles, which means that it didn’t come into use until late in the ministry of Paul.

As for ‘a good work’ or ‘a noble task’, MacArthur says:

Unquestionably, then, this gives to us a sense that the early church put a high value on a call to church leadership. It is a very sacred trust. It was essential in the life of the church.

… in that particular day and time, when the early church developed this saying, you can be sure that people didn’t go rushing into the ministry for the wrong reasons, because there was high risk connected with that; the church was persecuted. There was not a lot of prominence and prestige in the community for someone in that position. Great danger, great risk, problems, difficulty, hard work, great toil, low compensation, no security, very little future, no guarantees about anything.

So, the church, wanting to exalt that role, and encourage the hearts of young people, no doubt developed this saying, that it is a worthy thing to desire that, to impel those who were called to think seriously about that as a life career.

MacArthur points out that a Greek word used in the original manuscript is a masculine one:

You will notice further, verse 1 says, “If a man desires the office of overseer, he desires a good work.” It is limited to men. The use of the Greek tis, T-I-S in English, in the masculine form, indicates that men are in reference here. It means any man, but it is masculine; “if any man desires.”

… The limitations on this calling to men are also fortified by verses 2 through 6. And in verses 2 through 6, there is a listing of all kinds of descriptive qualifications; they’re adjectives. Every one of them in verse 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 are in the masculine form.

MacArthur looks at the Greek word for ‘desire’, used twice in that verse:

You will notice that two times, in the Authorized version, the word desire appears in verse 1. “If someone desires the office of an overseer” – or, actually, “desires the overseer’s work” – “he desires a good work.” There are two words for desire, though they’re translated as if they were one in English. The first one is oregō. What that means is, to reach out after, or to stretch out some – oneself, to grasp something. It doesn’t say anything about the inside; it just says what you’re doing on the outside.

It’s the idea of going after something. If someone goes after the function of an overseer; that’s the idea. If he pursues that; and the idea is, he gets in that track. Maybe he goes to school, he reads about that, he studies about that, he learns to do that, he gets under some people that are doing that. If he sort of tracks that track, then it says, if he does that, “he is desiring a good work.” But the second word for desire is completely different. The first word – oregō – is only used three times.

It’s used also, in chapter 6, verse 10, in a negative way; that’s reaching after something bad. It’s used in Hebrew – Hebrews 11:16, I believe it is, reaching for something good. It doesn’t say what you’re reaching for. Here, obviously, it’s reaching out for that pastorate, that leadership in the church. If a person does that, then it says, “he desires,” and he uses a totally different word – epithumeō – used many times in the New Testament, also for bad and good. But this word means a passionate compulsion.

Whereas the first word is something you do outwardly, the second word is something you feel inwardly. And it’s the two of those things that come together in this verse that give us the embodiment of the full understanding of that desire. What you have here, then, is someone who desires to lead in the church, and pursues it on the outside because he’s driven on the inside; he is compelled on the inside …

But it ought to be a compulsion. If it’s from God, it will be a compulsion. Now, the compulsion may be stronger in some than others, but nonetheless, it is a compulsion.

Paul was compelled. We have read many times over the past couple of years in these posts of his compulsion. MacArthur gives us one example. Students of Paul’s epistles will remember more verses:

Paul says, “Look, don’t commend me for my ministry” – 1 Corinthians 9 – “woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel!” I am a driven man. I am compelled. I am compelled.

MacArthur gave a long citation of a book by the English Reformer, Hugh Latimer (1487-1555), who was one of the three Oxford Martyrs that Mary I — ‘Bloody Mary’ — ordered to be burnt at the stake. The three men — Latimer, Nicholas Ridley and Thomas Cranmer — were Church of England bishops in the Anglican sense, rather than the Pauline sense here, who resisted giving up the Protestant faith for Mary’s Catholicism.

MacArthur cites Latimer’s ‘Sermon of the Plough’, which reveals the depth and gravitas of Christian ministry. Latimer’s intended audience were clergymen who were relaxed about their vocations:

And now I would ask you a strange question: who is the most diligent bishop and prelate in all England, that passes all the rest in doing his office? I can tell, for I know who he is; I know him well. But now I think you listening and harkening that I should name him. There is one that passes all the others, and is the most diligent prelate and preacher in all of England. And will you know who it is? I will tell you: it is the devil.

He is the most diligent preacher of all; he is never out of his diocese; he is never from his cure [curacy]; you shall find – never find him unoccupied; he is ever in his parish; he keeps residence at all times; you shall never find him out of the way, call for him when you will, he is ever at home; he is the most diligent preacher in all the realm; he is ever at his plough: no lording or loitering can hinder him; he is ever applying his business, you will never find him idle, I warrant you.

When the devil is resident, and has his plough going, there away with books, and up with candles; away with Bibles, and up with beads; away with the light of the gospel, and up with the light of the candles, yea, even at noon-day…up with man’s traditions and his laws, down with God’s traditions and His most holy Word. Oh that our prelates [pastors] would be as diligent to sow the corn of good doctrine, as Satan is to sow cockle and darnel! There was never such a preacher in England as he is.

Latimer concluded his sermon with this:

The prelates are lords, and not laborers: but the devil is diligent at his plough. He is no unpreaching prelate: he is no lordly loiterer from his cure, he is a busy ploughman… Therefore, you unpreaching prelates, learn from the devil: be diligent in doing your office. If you will not learn from God, nor good men, to be diligent in your office, then learn from the devil.

MacArthur explains the Greek word for ‘bishop’ or ‘overseer’:

… the word is episkopos, the word for bishop or overseer …

It really could be used, the word – we could use the word leader or ruler, because that’s the idea. If you’re given responsibility to lead the church, to oversee the church, you are given a great responsibility. It is a very, very responsible calling. In fact, in Hebrews 13:17, it says you have to give an account to God for how you handled your leadership. James 3:1 says, “Don’t be in a hurry to be a teacher, because you’ll have a greater condemnation.” The responsibility is so great for one in a position of leadership.

Now, the word episkopos, or episkopē, comes out of Greek culture. There is a use of that word in the Greek culture. They use it to refer to an inspector, a sort of a city administrator, a finance manager; and some people believe that that word came out of Greek culture into the church. But it’s been discovered, too, that among a group of Jews called Essenes – they were monastic Jews; they were sort of heterodox Jews; they lived out in the wilderness by the Dead Sea – they also had episkopē.

They used the Hebrew term, mebaqqer and they – they had these men who would be called by them, in the Greek, episkopē, and in the Essene culture – the Qumran community, we call it – these men preached, taught, presided, exercised care, exercised authority, and did church discipline. It wouldn’t be called church discipline, but it was community discipline. They had the duty of commanding the people, instructing the people, receiving alms from the people. They had the duty of accusing the people, examining them, dealing with their sins, and generally shepherding.

So, it’s probably likely that the episkopē really gets its definition out of the Qumran community, rather than out of the Greek culture, because the Greek culture is such a narrow definition of administration, whereas the Qumran people saw this as a wide range of spiritual responsibility. So, the overseer – imagine – had that kind of responsibility; to command the people, lead the people, instruct the people, receive the giving from the people, receive accusations against the people and find out if they were true, examine the people, deal with their sins, shepherd the flock.

The range of responsibility, really, that belongs to every pastor and elder. The overseer is the same as a pastor and an elder. As I said earlier, elder – which is the word presbuteros – simply speaks of spiritual maturity; it means an older person. Shepherd is the word pastor – it is one who feeds – and overseer is the word episkopos – the one who leads, administrates, and coordinates, and supervises. They all refer to the same person. They are all used of the same people in Acts 20:28. They are all used of the same people in Titus 1:6 to 9 – in 1:5 to 9. They’re used of the same people in 1 Peter 5:1 and 2 …

So, they refer to the same person. I am an elder, spiritually mature. I am a pastor, I feed you. I am an overseer, I have responsibility of oversight, it’s all one and the same, just looking at it from different facets. And what is the responsibility of the elders at this church, the shepherds and pastors of this church; what is their responsibility? We are to rule. 1 Timothy 5:17 says we rule. That is proistēmi, to be ranked first or to stand first. We have the authority, given us by Christ, to rule in His behalf using His Word.

Finally, MacArthur looks at what Paul means by ‘a good work’:

The word good is kalos, a noble, excellent, honorable, high-quality work. This is the high estimate of the pastorate. It is of great, great value …

Then lastly … it is a demanding calling. And that is implied in the word work. It is a demanding calling. If you’re looking for leisure, if you’re looking for an easy time, you will not find it in the true exercise of the ministry.

You can find it by sort of getting in and just kind of laying low, but you’ll not fulfill the ministry. It is a demanding calling. The word work implies that. It implies energy, and expending of energy, and effort, and zeal, and commitment. And the word here has the idea, not of a one-time task or a one-time deed, but of a life work. It is a demanding occupation, I would like to translate it. It is a demanding life-long task. When Paul uses the same word, in 2 Timothy 4:5, and says to Timothy, “Do the work of an evangelist,” he’s not saying, “Do it today and tomorrow,” he’s saying, “Do that life-long work of an evangelist. You are one; do that work.”

And we are “to esteem” – 1 Thessalonians 5:12 – “those over us in the Lord for their work,” for their occupation, for the thing they do. The work of the ministry is a demanding thing. The work is never done. It’s – you don’t turn it off at five o’clock, let me tell you, folks. It never goes away – never, ever goes away. And there’s no assembly line that stops, and you can walk away. It just never, ever, ever goes away. It is a demanding calling. And when you look at your own heart and ask yourself if you’re called, realize that.

You’re talking about a life-long occupation. And Paul knew that; he suffered so greatly for that work. Well, these are the kind of people the church needs, who are called, because they understand that this is the kind of thing that it is: a demanding calling. And yet a worthy one, a lofty one, a compelling one. A calling that is rising from deep within the heart of a person, who understands its importance, understands that God is driving them to that. This is where church leadership has to begin. It starts with a calling.

Paul then gives Timothy six characteristics of an overseer, or pastor: being above reproach (blameless), a one-woman husband, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable and able to teach (verse 2).

We can see the heavy responsibility of being a pastor. It is a tall order.

In his next sermon on today’s verses, MacArthur cites Richard Baxter (1615-1691), another English clergyman. The Church of England expelled him during the English Civil War. Baxter continued as what is known as a Nonconformist clergyman, one not affiliated with the state church. He embraced Calvinism and became one of the leaders of the Nonconformist movement. Even today, pastors who are not affiliated with the Anglican church are referred to in England as Noncons.

Baxter wrote a book, The Reformed Pastor, first published in 1656, and MacArthur read it. A citation follows which fully expresses the solemn responsibility of a clergyman:

Take heed to yourselves, lest you live in those sins which you preach against in others, and lest you be guilty of that which daily you condemn. Will you make it your work to magnify God, and, when you have done that, dishonor Him as much as others? Will you proclaim Christ’s governing power, and yet condemn it, and rebel yourselves? Will you preach His laws, and willfully break them?

If sin be evil, why do you live in it? If it be not evil, why do you dissuade men from it? If it be dangerous, how dare you venture on it? If it be not dangerous, why do you tell men it is? If God’s threatenings are true, why do you not fear them? If they are false, why do you needlessly trouble men with them, and put them into such frights without a cause? Do you know the judgment of God, that they who commit such things are worthy of death, and yet will you do them? Thou that teachest another, teachest thou not thyself?

Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, or be drunk, or covetous, art thou such thyself? Thou that makest thy boast of the law, through breaking the law dishonorest thou God? What! Shall the same tongue speak evil that speaks against evil? Shall those lips censure, and slander, and backbite your neighbor, that cry down these and the like things in others? Take heed to yourselves, lest you cry down sin, and yet do not overcome it; lest, while you seek to bring it down in others, you bow to it, and become its slave yourselves.

For of whom a man is overcome, the same he is brought into bondage. To whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, His servants you are whom you obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness. O brethren! It is easier to chide at sin, than it is to overcome it.

Henry explains the importance of each of the characteristics Paul gives Timothy in verse 2:

In order to the discharge of this office, the doing of this work, the workman must be qualified. 1. A minister must be blameless, he must not lie under any scandal; he must give as little occasion for blame as can be, because this would be a prejudice to his ministry and would reflect reproach upon his office. 2. He must be the husband of one wife; not having given a bill of divorce to one, and then taken another, or not having many wives at once, as at that time was too common both among Jews and Gentiles, especially among the Gentiles. 3. He must be vigilant and watchful against Satan, that subtle enemy; he must watch over himself, and the souls of those who are committed to his charge, of whom having taken the oversight, he must improve all opportunities of doing them good. A minister ought to be vigilant, because our adversary the devil goes about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour, 1 Pet 5 8. 4. He must be sober, temperate, moderate in all his actions, and in the use of all creature-comforts. Sobriety and watchfulness are often in scripture put together, because they mutually befriend one another: Be sober, be vigilant. 5. He must be of good behaviour, composed and solid, and not light, vain, and frothy. 6. He must be given to hospitality, open-handed to strangers, and ready to entertain them according to his ability, as one who does not set his heart upon the wealth of the world and who is a true lover of his brethren. 7. Apt to teach. Therefore this is a preaching bishop whom Paul describes, one who is both able and willing to communicate to others the knowledge which God has given him, one who is fit to teach and ready to take all opportunities of giving instructions, who is himself well instructed in the things of the kingdom of heaven, and is communicative of what he knows to others.

MacArthur looks at these qualifications in more detail in his next sermon. He preached seven sermons on today’s verses.

He surmises that Paul mentioned being a one-woman man because avoiding sexual sin is hard, especially for men:

Now, I realize that the Old English, the King James, the Authorized Version says, “The husband of one wife.” That is not an accurate rendering of the Greek text. It uses the word gynaikos which is woman. It uses the word anēr, which is man, and it simply says, “A one-woman man.” The emphatic is the word “one.” “A one-woman man.” Here Paul is not stressing marital status. There is no definite article “the” husband of one wife. It is with without the article “a” one-woman man. And the absence of the article stresses not circumstances and not marital status, but character. It stresses character.

He begins to discuss the blamelessness of this man by a statement about his moral, sexual behavior. His character starts right here.

Somebody says, “Well, why is this first in the list?”

I’ll tell you; in my humble experience through the years, I have found this area of a man’s life to be that which most often puts men out of the ministry – more than any other matter, the inability to be a one-woman man. And that is why it is listed first, because it is such an obvious matter of grave concern, and such a mark of moral character.

He goes on to explain more about what Paul meant:

He’s not talking about polygamy here. Polygamy would disqualify you from even being in the church. They’d discipline you out before you got in. Sexual promiscuity was rampant. Vice was rampant. Prostitutes and deviant sexual priestesses and all of that was rampant in Ephesus, but not polygamy. The issue here is not that you can’t be a polygamist.

Somebody else says, “No, the husband of one wife means you could never have a second wife. You could never be married to more than one person.”

Well, I find that to be difficult in interpretation, because in the first place, that is not what the text originally says; it says “a one-woman man,” and it’s speaking about character, not marital status. But let’s assume even that we translate it the husband of one wife, are we saying that someone who had married a second wife could never be an elder in the church? Not hardly, because there are some terms in Scripture by which God not only permits but honors a second marriage. Is that not right? …

So, the point of this passage, a one-woman man, is not some kind of blanket forbidding that anyone married a second time could ever serve in a ministry. But there have been people who have interpreted it that way, and some who have been widowed, and then remarried men – a man losing his wife, marrying another woman, and some feeling they could no longer serve in the church. That’s not the intent of this text, for God honors that. God allows that.

Then the question comes, “Well, maybe it means divorced people.” Well, if it was intended to say that, it would have been very simple; all he would have had to say was, “This is to be a man who has never been divorced.” But it doesn’t say that either. It doesn’t say a man who has never been divorced. Because that would be such a broad, blanket statement, that that would pose problems as well …

So, the point is this, people: a remarriage, in and of itself is not a sin. If a person was widowed and remarried, if a person was the innocent party in a divorce, where the other person was an unrepentant adulterer, a remarriage is not a sin. If an unbeliever departed, a remarriage is not a sin. So, we cannot blight someone’s life with a second marriage as if that in itself were sinful.

Now, having said all of that, I would confess to you that the majority of second marriages in our particular day and age are sinful. Obviously. Because they do not fit within that narrow definition of tolerable divorce given in the Word of God. But the point now, going back to 1 Timothy 3 – if you’re not there, turn to it, will you please – the point going back here is not that he is saying no one can ever be in church leadership who’s ever been previously married. That’s ridiculous, because there are tolerances within that. That isn’t even the issue here. If he wanted to be explicit about that, he would have said it another way …

The issue here, beloved, is a one-woman man. What that means is man devoted to one woman in his heart and mind. In his heart and mind. Keep in your mind that sexual evil was rampant in Ephesus.

… And what he is saying, you see, to Timothy is, “Hey, Timothy, one thing you’re going to have to do at the very beginning, when you put these men in a position of leadership, it will be made very clear that they are one-woman men, because that’s the only standard that God tolerates in His Church in terms of godly living. This is a man who loves only one woman, who desires only one woman, who thinks of only one woman, whose heart is for only one woman, and that woman is the wife that God has given to him. This is a man who would never do treacherously against the wife of his youth, as the prophet put it, not in a legal sense of divorcing nor in the spiritual sense of violating that commitment to her in his own mind, in his own heart.

The series continues with the rest of verse 2 in part 2.

Weakened Calvinism is no Calvinism: Arminius, Amyraut and the Marrowmen

After John Calvin’s death and the expansion of his theology in France, the Netherlands and the British mainland, theologians began to parse his teachings more closely.

Some reinterpreted parts of Calvin’s Institutes of Religion. Others said that the theology was too harsh. Another group wanted to see a reunification of Calvinism and Lutheranism for occasional public worship as well as a rapprochement between the Protestant and Roman Catholic churches.

In 1540, two decades before the birth of Jacobus Arminius (literally, ‘James, son of Herman’ in Latin, the surname being Hermanszoon in Dutch), John Calvin signed Melanchthon’s revised Augsburg Confession.  Arminius, whose father during his childhood, was taken in by his Dutch Calvinist pastor and sent to school in Utrecht.  Pastor Aemilius died when Arminius was 14. Arminius’s mother died a year later.  Fortunately, another benefactor enabled the lad to continue with his studies, which culminated at the University of Leiden, where he read theology.

Whilst at Leiden, Arminius learned of God’s sovereignty, which some of his professors represented as being arbitrary and unforgiving.  Arminius hadn’t forgotten those messages when he studied under Theodore Beza — John Calvin’s successor — in Geneva in 1582.  Finding his theological views unpopular in the birthplace of Calvinism, he moved to Basel for a time before heading home to the Netherlands.

In 1588 Arminius moved to Amsterdam and served as a Dutch Calvinist pastor.  A few years later, it was apparent to his congregation and other clergy that he was preaching ‘opinions’ about free will, which clearly contradicted Calvin and Beza’s teachings.  The city councillors of Amsterdam — European cities were still run as theocracies at the time — managed to calm everyone down enough to avoid open Protestant conflict.

The plague, running rampant through Europe at the time, brought an opportunity to Arminius.  As some of the professors at Leyden fell victim to this fatal pestilence, the University invited Arminius to teach theology.  His appointment was not approved without controversy among the faculty.  Their difference in religious views also coincided with political partisanship, to the extent that Arminius and his staunchly Calvinist rival Franciscus Gomarus were invited to the Hague to each deliver speeches before the Supreme Court in 1608.  (Politics and Protestant Christianity were closely bound in the Netherlands until the 20th century.)

By the time Arminius and Gomarus were invited back to the Hague the following year for a second conference, their respective viewpoints had begun to split Reformed clergy around the country. Arminius did not last the full duration of the second conference and returned to Leiden because of ill health. He died in October 1609.  However, his legacy of free will theology — as expressed in what he called Arminianism — lives on to the present day, most notably in Wesleyan and Evangelical churches, particularly in the United States.  Arminian followers of the 17th century were called Remonstrants, adhering to a radically revised view of Calvinism — which ended up being no Calvinism at all.

The House of Orange attempted to silence Remonstrants by making their lives difficult, sometimes imprisoning them. The orthodox Calvinist theologians and clergymen at the Synod of Dordrecht upheld the Belgic Confession and the Heidelberg Catechism.  It wasn’t until 1795 when the Remonstrants received official Dutch State recognition and were allowed to open their own churches.  Their congregations still exist today as the Remonstrant Brotherhood, based in Rotterdam. They align themselves with the European Liberal Protestant Network.

In a stark departure from the Reformed confessions of faith, the Remonstrants adhere to the following five articles of faith (emphases mine to point out fundamental differences between Arminianism and Calvinism):

• that the divine decree of predestination is conditional, not absolute;
• that the Atonement is in intention universal;
• that man cannot of himself exercise a saving faith;
• that though the grace of God is a necessary condition of human effort it does not act irresistibly in man and
• that believers are able to resist sin but are not beyond the possibility of falling from grace.

Meanwhile, in France, Moses (Moïse) Amyraut was just a boy when Arminius died.  Amyraut was born in what we know today as the Pays de la Loire and lived in the Province of Anjou for much of his life.  Even when he left home to study in Orléans and Poitiers, he was never too far from home.

Amyraut was only two years old when the bloody French Wars of Religion ended in 1598. Old, established French families — I’ve known a few quite well — took the decision around this time whether to associate socially with those of another Christian denomination. I know French Catholics who today will not associate with Protestants outside of a work situation.  There are also French Protestants who eschew Catholic friendship. The war was acute in Anjou as well as around Nantes and La Rochelle, further west along the Atlantic coast.

Interestingly, Amyraut’s academic course of study was not unlike Calvin’s. Both obtained degrees in the law and then immersed themselves in theology.  Amyraut studied in the Protestant city of Saumur.  His scholarship was so outstanding that, when it came time to be appointed to a church or to a theological post, he attracted the interest of Calvinists in Rouen and Paris.  In the end, he earned both a pastorate and a professorship in Saumur in 1633.

He and his fellow professors had both studied under the same theologians and became lifelong friends. Amyraut’s published works were prodigious, numbering 32 books.  In 1631, he participated in a conference at Charenton and gave Louis XIII a speech on the violations of the Edict of Nantes, which was to have given Protestants a number of distinct rights and accommodations. Yet, by the time Amyraut presented his oration, a number of Huguenot (French Calvinist) rebellions had already taken place.  Little by little, Louis XIII had refused to renew many of the provisions of the Edict of Nantes.  However, after Amyraut’s oration, the synod at Charenton debated whether to admit Lutherans to the Calvinists’ Lord’s Table. They approved the motion and, although he was absent for it, Amyraut’s star continued in the ascendancy.

In 1634, Amyraut published his Hypothetical Universalism, which, as part of his Treatise on Predestination, understandably, divided many Protestants.  It stated:

God … predestines all men to happiness on condition of their having faith. 

For this, Amyraut was brought up before the national synod on charges of heresy in 1637, 1644 and 1659. They acquitted him all three times.  The University of Saumur gained pre-eminence as France’s Protestant university.

Amyraut was also part of talks attempting to reunite French Catholics and Protestants. Nothing came of them, although he was known for his ‘statesmanship and eloquence’ in the negotiations.

Amyraut suffered a bad fall in 1657, from which he never fully recovered. He died in January 1664.

True Calvinist theologians, however — among them Francis Turrentin — firmly opposed Amyraut’s questionable theology.  In a targeted attempt to reduce the growing influence of the University of Saumur’s theology, a Swiss group of Calvinist theologians devised the Helvetic Consensus in 1675, which denounced heterodoxy, particularly that coming from Saumur, including Amyraldism.  Amyraut maintained that Jesus’s atonement was ‘hypothetically universal’. His closest university colleagues (and friends) denied the verbal inspiration of the Hebrew Old Testament text and maintained that the notion of Original Sin was ‘arbitrary and unjust’.  Although the Helvetic Consensus was binding on Swiss Calvinist clergy, only a  generation later, however, the orthodox doctrine upholding it gave way to the beginning of the Age of Enlightenment and a less doctrinal and more ethics-oriented Christianity in Europe.

For better or worse, Arminianism and Amyraldism made their way across the English Channel at a time when the Churches of England, Scotland and the Independents were contending with each other.  John Davenant (1572 – 1641), a Church of England cleric and Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University, provoked the then-Archbishop of Canterbury William Laud, with his unorthodox theological views.  Yet, Davenant represented the Church of England at the Calvinist Synod of Dort in 1618, the purpose of which was to settle the controversies arising from Arminianism.

This is why I was hesitant to list too many 17th century C of E clergy in my list of Calvinists.  It’s quite a complex of people and theological beliefs to untangle. At the same time, whilst I can somewhat appreciate Calvinists’ annoyance with Archbishop Laud, I personally do not dislike the man. He pegged Davenant to a tee, pointing out the contradictions in his theology.  Davenant’s Wikipedia entry explains:

At Dort there were divisions in the Anglican camp:

On the one hand Davenant, Ward and Martinius believed that Christ died for all particular men; Carleton, Goad, and Balcanquhall himself believed that Christ died only for the elect, who consisted of all sorts of men.^[2]

A compromise pursued went in Davenant’s direction. According to one interpretation of Davenant’s views:

Davenant attempted to find a middle road between outright Arminianism and the supralapsarianism which some in England favored. He found in the theology of Saumur such a road and defended the Amyrauldian views of hypothetical universalism, a general atonement in the sense of intention as well as sufficiency, a common blessing of the cross, and a conditional salvation. All these views stood in close connection with the theology of the well-meant offer of salvation to all.^[3]

Other interpretations see Davenant as distinguishing himself from the School of Saumur and from the views of Moses Amyraut.^[4] When French Amyraldians attempted to garner support, citing the views of members of the British delegation to the Synod of Dort, Davenant offered a reply by way of clarification in his tract, “On the controversy among the French divines,” in which he appears to make a distinction between his own views and those of the Amyraldians.^[5]

Davenant sympathised with the aims of John Dury, as far as unifying Protestantism went, and wrote in his favour, a piece subsequently quoted by Gerard Brandt^[6].

On the topic of predestination, he engaged in controversy with the Arminian Anglican Samuel Hoard.

In an undated letter to his friend Samuel Ward, with whom he had served as a delegate to Dort, Davenant endorses the view (shared by Ward) that all baptized infants receive the remission of the guilt of original sin in baptism and that this constitutes their infant baptismal regeneration, justification, sanctification, and adoption.^[7] In his view, this infant baptismal remission, which involves the objective status of the infant apart from subjective operations of grace, will not suffice for justification, if the child does not later come to faith. Nonetheless, he goes on to argue that this poses no contradiction to the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints as articulated by Dort, since the “perseverance” intended there presupposes subjective grace.^[8]

Davenant sounds as if he was a consummate politician — telling his various theological audiences what they wished to hear.

Then, in 1645, an English layman, thought to be a man by the name of Edward Fisher (1627 – 1655) writing under the thinly-disguised pseudonym ‘E.F.’ penned a work which remains controversial to this day, The Marrow of Modern Divinity.

At a time when many Britons were leaning towards Pietism, particularly Calvinists, this work was considered problematic. Fisher’s intentions appear to have been good — trying to direct his readers to a straight course between antinomianism and the New Testament’s obedience through faith and repentance, which Richard Baxter (1615-1691) advocated. Fisher held a degree from Oxford and had read Church history and classical languages.

Baxter, although the author of inspiring works still read today, subscribed to Amyraldism. His Wikipedia entry summarises his theology as follows:

1. The atonement of Christ did not consist in his suffering the identical but the equivalent punishment (i.e., one which would have the same effect in moral government) as that deserved by mankind because of offended law. Christ died for sins, not persons. While the benefits of substitutionary atonement are accessible and available to all men for their salvation; they have in the divine appointment a special reference to the subjects of personal election.
2. The elect were a certain fixed number determined by the decree without any reference to their faith as the ground of their election; which decree contemplates no reprobation but rather the redemption of all who will accept Christ as their Savior.
3. What is imputed to the sinner in the work of justification is not the righteousness of Christ but the faith of the sinner himself in the righteousness of Christ.
4. Every sinner has a distinct agency of his own to exert in the process of his conversion. The Baxterian theory, with modifications, was adopted by many later Presbyterians and Congregationalists in England, Scotland, and America (Isaac Watts, Philip Doddridge, and many others).

You can see how such beliefs could be misinterpreted and further extended from Amyraldism to Arminianism, especially the final point.

Back to Fisher’s The Marrow of Modern Divinity, however. The book appears to have been relatively unknown until a copy of it surfaced in Scotland nearly 50 years after Fisher’s death. For the aforementioned theological reasons, the Church of Scotland’s General Assembly duly instructed church members not to read it.  This was in 1719.  Needless to say, after that edict, many ordinary Scottish Presbyterians sought the book out and read it. The Marrow Controversy was born.  Clerics who supported the book at the time were known as Marrowmen.  The last time the book was reprinted was in … 2009!

The Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Australia has a lengthy — and fascinating — essay on the Marrow Controversy, entitled ‘Universalism and the Reformed Churches’.  It states, in part:

In view of the debate in the Assembly, the manner in which the formularies were applied in England, the argument of the Schools of Davenant and Amyraut, and the ambiguous system of modified Calvinism since the beginning of the eighteenth century, the question of application of the Westminster formularies to the doctrine of universal redemption as to purchase, and the terms of the Marrow can only be decided by a Declaratory Act of the Church …

The Marrowmen, like their modern counterparts, attempted to hold to the particularism of Calvinism and at the same time preach the gospel in the universalistic terms of the Marrow. They therefore reinterpreted the terms of the book from that of its original context within the School of Davenant, and declared against the obvious, that it did not have reference to universal redemption …

The Marrow theology is thus committed to the following ambiguities:

1. “Christ has taken upon Him the sins of all men,” and being a “deed of gift and grant unto all mankind,” is not a universal purchase of the death of Christ, therefore it logically follows that,
2. He said deed of gift and grant of Christ to all mankind is effective only to the elect, ie., an infallible redemption gifted to all secures only a portion of its objects.
3. A deed of gift and grant to all is only an offer. In other words, Christ is gifted to all, without that He died for them.
4. Since the gift of Christ to all is not a benefit purchased by the atonement, the substance of the free offer of the gospel, does not consist of Christ as redeemer, but only as a friend.

Thus it was the Marrowmen in the first half of the eighteenth century who first injected into the stream of Scottish theology the ambiguous and contradictory system which has been the subtle vehicle or Trojan horse which for two hundred and fifty years has worked to the downfall of the Calvinism of Presbyterian and Reformed Churches throughout the world.

Modern modified Calvinism is but a refinement of the same system. Like the Marrowmen, as demonstrated hereafter, it presents the gospel in universalistic terms. It does so by introducing a system of interpretation of Scripture which brings in a doctrine of divine precepts and decrees, which not only perpetuates the errors of the Marrow, but extends the ambiguities and contradictions of that system.

As previously intimated, modern modified Calvinism is now the received doctrine of most Presbyterian and Reformed Churches which represent them selves as holding to the doctrines of the Calvinistic Reformation.

Professor Herman C Hoeksema, one of the founders of the Protestant Reformed Churches, a North American Reformed denomination, also cited this article, warning people about compromised doctrine.  He:

agreed with Luther in his Bondage of the Will that “merit” is an impious word when used concerning man’s relation to God (including Adam’s relationship to God, but not with Christ’s relationship with God as taught concerning man in Luke 17:10, Jesus says, “So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.”

… In vain does one look in the Word of God for support of this theory of a covenant of works.”^[4]

From 1645 to today, The Marrow of Modern Divinity has helped to shape formerly Reformed churches — the Congregationalists, the United Reformed Church, the Presbyterian Church of the USA (PCUSA) — into quasi-Universalist and quasi-Arminian institutions that we know of today.

The Anglican Communion has also fallen into two camps — one clearly being Reformed (Lutheran and Calvinist) on the matter of justification by grace through faith and the other clearly Arminian. Whilst the 39 Articles of Religion are not as forensic and thorough as the Reformed Confessions and Canons are, their meanings and intent are clear: there is no place for Arminianism in the Anglican Church.  No doubt this is why copies of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer are no longer available in our pews.  Our postmodern clergy would not like us to read the simple truths of faith whilst listening to their works-based, legalistic sermons.

Tomorrow: More on Calvinist beliefs and the fight against error