Holy Joys Podcast
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Holy Joys Podcast
Prevenient Grace, Part 2: Recapitulation and Christ's Atonement for Humanity
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In this episode, Johnathan Arnold and David Fry continue to discuss prevenient grace in the thought of William Burt Pope.
Yeah, and I think that bigger picture, and I think your summary is great, and that bigger picture is a focus on Christ, what Christ has done for humanity.
SPEAKER_00You're listening to the Holy Joys podcast, a discussion of theology and ministry practice, all for a holy, happy church.
SPEAKER_01So when you say that he uh he has regenerated the entire human race, um you're saying provisionally? Is that the idea? Or actually? And how does that depends on what you mean by provisionally? Okay. Yeah. So I mean, you know, if if I'm listening to that, um again, I want to know well, but what is the exact personal effect of whatever you just meant by regenerating the human race? Um what what is the personal effect that is immediate? Um and and that seems to be some kind of partial regeneration, right? Um and is that so you're saying the reason why you think that that phrase partial regeneration is helpful is because it's it's more concrete, it's pointing to the fact that Jesus I don't know if it's really helpful.
SPEAKER_02I think I understand I don't think I think I understand what he means and and Olsen as well. Um doesn't use that phrase, right?
SPEAKER_01Uh just just to be clear, Pope, Pope just set refers to how provenient grace goes before the full regenerate life. Hey, no problem. I have no problem saying that. I'm just wondering, you know, yeah, by implication, and so you know, so I think saying that it that there is a regenerative aspect to provenient grace is consistent with Pope Pope's thought. But am I understanding you correctly in saying that perhaps partial regeneration is actually better than just regenerative, something regenerative about provenient grace, because there is something definite, objective that Christ has done for the human race and that's been accomplished and effected in some way through the atonement.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so so effected. That's I think that's the key because Pope says multiple places, for instance, in uh in the same volume, page 143, he says, when the son of man when the son of God became man, the human race was declared to be a saved race. So he understands, and I'm I'm looking for another um several other quotes here, but um Pope is not alone in this.
SPEAKER_01This is across the board in uh in Methodist theology, especially in the 19th century, is that deep deep roots in the patristic thought, too, I think is important is important to just mention. This is not just uh a Methodist idea. There's there's a degree to which I think even reformed would affirm this, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So let me let me give you a quote from Watson. Uh so I'm I'm gonna show you how uh some Watson, Ralston, and Pope here. Um so Watson says, We know that infants are not lost because our Lord gave it as a reason why little children ought not to be hindered from coming unto him, that quote, of such as the kingdom of heaven. We are assured of the salvation of infants also because of the free gift has come upon all men to justification of life, and because children are not capable of get this, rejecting that blessing and must therefore derive benefit from it. The assumption here then is that Christ has affected something that belongs to each person, humanity, but is resistible. They can reject it, but it is still given to them. Thomas Ralston also refers to Romans 5, which is where the Methodists always appealed to, among other places. Uh I'm gonna cut in the middle of this. He says, um, if this verse means anything at all, he's referring to Romans 5.18. It means that all who fell in Adam are pro now, he uses the word provisionally restored in Christ. This way means that all are actually and immediately justified. Cannot be the meaning, for adults are not justified till they repent and believe. But the provision is made for the actual justification of all according to certain terms, unless they themselves, speaking of children, unless they themselves reject it by a voluntary refusal to comply with the condition. Infants cannot reject the provision, therefore, if they die in their infancy, their actual justification and salvation must infallibly be complete. And then here's Pope. And what may be loosely called the germ of grace is regeneration in the infant. Then it becomes the new birth in the adult. The race is redeemed, it was virtually redeemed because it sinned, or sorry, before it sinned and before it existed. No race unredeemed and without hope of redemption could in the universe of a holy God continue to propagate its generations. The individual benefit is only the application of a general benefit which belongs to all who do not reject it. That's uh volume two, two ninety-six, two ninety-seven. And then one more. Well, I have I have multiple more, but I'll share one more. Uh, Christ's benefit is imparted before personal faith. And in the case of believers, their faith is not rejecting what was before provided for them as their own. So there you saw that Ralston and Pope both do use this word provisional and and or what was provided, but it's a real provision. It is, it is effective, and I think that is a really key word that Christ's atonement is effective for all people, and in that sense, is a sort of uh there is a reheading, a re uh universal regeneration in Christ uh that is real, particularly in infants, uh, but uh what happens is scripture teaches that all we like sheep have gone astray. That is, whenever we learn to go astray, we do. And so what can be said of an infant uh cannot be said of of those who are not in infancy. Uh so that's I think important to understand in in his concept and his uh way of describing a sort of of something less than full regeneration.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so there's a ton to unpack there. I'm not quite sure where to begin that. That's uh so maybe maybe we maybe we just start with I think clarifying um something that I think is important to Methodist theology and to what you're saying is the fact that Christ's um Christ's death on the cross for all was not merely a provision, but it actually had an influence because he stands in as the new Adam. And this goes back to Irenaeus, the first great Christian theologian, whose great doctrine of recapitulation, recapitus is like re-heading, think about capitated. You take your head off, well, recapitate is to put a new head on. So he's he's the new head of the human race. And so when we read Romans 5, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification in life for all men, we're saying there's a sense, we believe there's a sense with Irenaeus in which Christ has already re-headed the human race. It's been done, it's objective, and and but individual members have not fully partaken of the benefits, right? I mean, individually, it hasn't been fully applied. Is that I mean, is that fair? Because you're not, I mean, you're not saying that an infant is fully regenerated in the sense that we would, you know, that we would uh see in like Ephesians 2, you know, you who are dead, trespassed, and have been made alive with Christ. Um, so what exactly are you are you saying then?
SPEAKER_02Right, yeah. So that so I right, I would not say that. That is does not say though that there were not 19th century Methodists who who didn't say that. Uh there was a great debate between um a couple of Canadian Methodists, uh Nathaniel Burwash and Hibbard. I can't remember what his uh can't remember what his uh first name was, but uh Hibbert. Freeborn Hibbard uh wrote a book called The Religion of Childhood. And uh and then Burwash wrote a book called The Relation of Children to the Fall, the Atonement, and the Church. And uh there was a third, third person too, I don't recall who he was, but those were the two main guys, and they debated whether or not we properly call children uh merely justified, or are they properly justified and regenerated? Well, the the clear majority of Methodists, American, Canadian, British, uh, did not apply the term regeneration to children. Uh, there was no problem with applying justification again on Romans 5.18. Uh, that was the pretty much the universal understanding of Romans 5.18, that that all people are are born into this world under the justifying grace of Christ, uh, but then are lost when they reject that. Uh, but there were a few, and very few, who also said, nah, for that to, for them to have life, they have to be, we have to say that they're also regenerated. Um, yeah, but that's that was certainly not the majority. And and I wouldn't I wouldn't say that, because when we talk about regeneration, uh I think we properly talk about regeneration in regard to um rebels, sheep who've gone astray, being being restored, uh, again, reheaded, uh submitting to the headship of of Christ. And that's a phenomenon that we experience as as sinners who come to Christ and experience a new birth.
SPEAKER_01Experiencing personally and embracing what is already true objectively of the human race that's been reheaded in Christ. Yeah. Okay. All right. So for so far, basically, what we've established is that um when Jesus accomplished his redemption, it had some kind of universal effect on the whole human race. There's some sense in which objectively he reheaded the human race. That goes back to Irenaeus. Um, Methodists have taken different views on that. Some have gone as far as to say we are uh you know conceived in a regenerate state, but certainly that's not been the view of all or most. And Pope, as we mentioned here a few times, has clearly said that provenient grace precedes the full regenerate life. So we might say it's partial regeneration, we might say it's regenerative, but the point is it that it does have an enabling effect and that it is salvific in direction and it is for all men. Is that a fair summary of where we're at?
SPEAKER_02Yes, yeah, yeah. But I think you know, Pope and the other, and really not just Pope, I I think he does gives well, he and Ralston, I think, give the clearest uh exposition of this, but they really come to this with a different framework than what we are accustomed to. Um so just to let if I can put this in these simple terms, um we are accustomed to the language of you know, our children are born sinners in need of being saved, and we hope that our children will get saved early. That is a totally different framework than what Pope and Ralston and the 19th century Methodists came to this discussion. They would look at us today and they would say, Well, what do you, you know, is your faith so weak in the atonement of Christ that you think your children are born lost, or or what? And and so I think that's an important conceptual difference between where we are today and where they are. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01It's not that a child is born necessarily in such a condition that, you know, going forward, he's just going to uh follow God and and and as you would say, you know, we can just expect his salvation. But rather it's it's kind of an is it more of an attitude of optimism towards the way in which grace has affected our children? What what would the difference be? Or are you saying that they would actually view that child as just he is a child of God and you know you you you can expect him to just as you know, as he's brought up in the fear and admonition of the Lord, he's gonna you know likely follow the Lord. I mean, how would you how are you what would the difference be?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so there is a there's a strong sense that uh so there's a there's a balance here. And Bushnell, of course, you know, his his famous or infamous book, Christian Nurture, you know, goes to the extreme of saying all that is necessary for a child is for us to to give them proper teaching and they will never be you know lost. Well, that's that was a very liberal approach. He uh uh Bushnell was not a Methodist. Uh many of Methodists did kind of adopt that kind of view, but that's not Pope. Yet Pope is not where we are today. Uh he is uh he is uh in the place where he can say, as he does in volume three, that um, or I'm no, actually, I guess here in the volume that we're in, that he says that that uh in the incarnation the human race was declared a saved race. That is that provision is effective for all people and that our responsibility, and again I'm gonna apply this to infants because this is so crucial conceptually, our responsibility as parents is to raise those children in Christ, knowing that scripture tells us that they will rebel against against grace. All we like sheep have gone astray, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And yet it is our it is our Christian nurture that should shape them so that when they feel the conviction of the spirit in their rebellion, they are drawn back to Christ. And so it's not it's not inappropriate for us to say, I really hope that my children appropriate the gift of God's grace early in their life, because they have to at some point. They have to, it has to be theirs. Um and yet that is consistent with a view that says, you know, my children by the grace of God are born under under the atonement of Christ, so that they they are saved, and the time will come where they will they will need to acknowledge personally Christ as their living head, because they can't do that as an infant. But that is the that but that is the the natural maturing steps of that child's salvation.
SPEAKER_01So a in some sense, a a newborn or an infant is in Christ. He's Christ is his head objectively. And so if he dies, it's not just that when he dies, um, that at that point the benefits of the atonement are going to be applied to him, and in the mercy and grace of God, he won't go to you know be cast into hell because he's never had a chance, as we might say. But rather, already objectively, because of the atonement, he has been uh he has been reheaded. And then, but the fact is that uh he when he grows up, because of his, you know, his his affections and his um his understanding are affected by sin, which has had a real effect on the human race, he will inevitably stray.
SPEAKER_02Yes, yeah. So that's that is certainly where the the doctrine of total depravity comes in, because part of what we mean by total, uh two important points here. One is total in the sense of universal, every person, but also total in the sense of the whole person. The whole person is affected. So us being in Christ, by virtue of of uh uh the atonement and justifying power of the cross and the life even of an infant does not uh sanctify or uh regenerate in the sense that now those affections and those desires are no longer present because they still are. And so every child is born sinful. Right. And that sinfulness, scripture teaches us as a fact, always manifests itself.
SPEAKER_01So um Wesley, you know, Wesley makes some of the strongest statements about um total depravity, you know, is man by nature filled with all manner of evil, void of all good, wholly fallen, totally corrupted. Um, you know, Arminius says that that man can't do anything in his natural state. But but we're we're saying that that that is the natural man, but because of grace, not that the child is still sinful and corrupt, but not in the same way, because grace has already acted upon him. So so how would you describe the condition of you know a little child? So I have an eight, you know, I have an 18-month-old right now, and um he gets pretty mad, and sometimes he hits mommy and gets some bad spankings, and he's you can tell, I mean, he he has that nature of sin. And so we have an optimism that because of what Christ has done, if he dies, Christ is his head and uh he will be you know be in the presence of the Lord. But as he grows up, because he's been corrupted by sin and his nature is corrupt, he will inevitably stray. But how, you know, what would be different in his between him as he is now and when he grows up and somebody who had been born as the natural man apart from this provenient grace? What's the difference?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so let me let me compare a little bit here with with uh you brought John Piper earlier. Uh so John Piper, this would be John Piper, this would be um uh Randy Alcorn, his book Heaven, uh this would be you know any number of of Calvinist thinkers. And and interestingly, John Piper's uh his take on infant salvation is he's pretty sure that infants will are saved if they die in infancy. He just isn't really sure how. So so while he is critical, as you mentioned, uh and I've not read the piece that you you mentioned, but uh while he's critical of someone like Pope on this issue of regeneration.
SPEAKER_01I should say Olson. He engaged with Olson, not not Pope. I was just drawing a connection there between Olsen and Pope. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Okay, all right, sure. So but so but he's critical at the point where um uh where we you know our our differences on this are going to be uh significant, but his repl his answer is I I don't know. It's it I know it's not regeneration, or I know it's not what you know Olson says, or by extension Pope says, but I'm not sure why it is. This is what this is, is is we have in in the case of infancy, because this is what raises a lot of these questions, um we see Methodists working through trying to explain what is it that's happening really? What is the effect of of Christ's atonement really in the life of humanity? Because when you're talking about infancy, infancy, you're talking about humanity, right? You're talking about the fact that every person is born as an infant. And so, what is the universal effect of grace, what we call provenient grace? What is that that universal effect? And so I think first of all, we can say that it is the justification of all people uh in their initially, that is, in their infancy, so that there is none who are born. God permits the propagation of the human race only under grace. So I think that's that's the first and the universal applicability of provenient grace. Now we can pause there and we can continue to to talk about just that aspect, or we can continue to go on and talk about other aspects, such as let me go ahead and throw this one out. Then let's let's move from infancy to adulthood and And pervenient grace assures us that the grace that brings salvation is appeared to all people. That it's so that all people have have some revelation of truth. And I would in and in my dissertation, I I call it there is there is uh sufficient or there is enough truth revelation there for a person to be responsive to that initiation of the spirit.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So maybe just let me just try to uh summarize what you're saying here and make sure uh that it's clear both for me and and our audience. So um in in a Calvinist view, if we take Piper as a representative as we have been, uh, because he's just so fun to engage with. Um so anyway, so Piper, you know, he so I just pulled, I just found that article you're referring to. So he says, in a nutshell, I think all children who die in infancy are elect and will be, through Jesus Christ, saved in ways that I may not know how, as God honors this principle accountability. So when you're when you're conceived, you are um, you know, you're elect, but you're under God's wrath. But if you die before you can grow up and get to a to a point of age of accountability, as we might say, and consciously uh be saved, if you die before then, you'll be saved. I don't really know how. Um, versus in a Methodist view, it would be that because Jesus Christ has objectively uh accomplished redemption for all men, uh Romans 5.18 is taking quite literally, it leads to justification and life for all, just as Adam led to condemnation for all, it's just that because of your corrupt nature, because of your sinfulness, you will inevitably sin and walk away from Christ. But if you if you um if you cooperate with the with when the gospel comes to you and you cooperate with him and are saved, then you will be finally justified and enjoy that which has already been enacted objectively for the race.
SPEAKER_02Right, right.
SPEAKER_01And we and we've not even talked about free will yet. Pope gets to that near the end. He he deals with that towards the end on how the will cooperates, but yeah. Yeah, we're we're a page and a half in, so yeah, right, yeah, we're not very far.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, he one thing about Pope that I really, really like is, and not just in this section, but um he he raises so many conceptual challenges for us today, and that I think we are very well served to go back and to say, okay, these are you know he's living in a world that is um and especially he personally experienced some of the diversity in the pluralism that we face today. And so I think he's very uh relevant for us, but he's doing it from a with a quite frankly, a different framework than what many um many of us, you know, Wesleyan evangelicals, uh, have today. Uh, we've kind of lost that distinctly Wesleyan framework. And and I don't want to just you know say, well, we got to get to a Wesleyan, you know, distinctive Wesleyan framework. It's an it's a way of understanding scripture. It's a way of understanding Romans 5, for instance. It's a way of understanding a whole biblical theology regarding God's attitude and work toward humanity, not just toward individuals, but toward the human race as his creatures. And and you know, this again, creation theology comes into this. And uh and and Pope has a different framework than what many of us today have because we've been more influenced by a sort of generic evangelicalism than by our Methodist heritage, which provides for us, by the way, and this is why I think it's it's valuable to have a Wesleyan framework. It provides for us what I believe is a coherent biblical interpretation rather than drawing from different people that we like who are themselves working within perhaps even contradictory frameworks and piecing things together in ways that end up becoming incoherent.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, really helpful. So I I mentioned a little bit, you know, this is this is really key for Irenaeus. I just reread uh On the Incarnation, and I I can't I can't find the exact place where Athanasius said it. Um, but for Athanasius, he he has a strong concept of how the resurrection of Jesus has affected humanity. And he specially points to how the overthrow of idolatry, idolatry throughout the world is a result um of the resurrection. So the cross is is vanquishing evil and recreating the human race from from the point of the resurrection. This has already begun something objective in humanity. And so again, and I I have to find this this quote here, have it underlined somewhere, but the thing that that just fat has fascinated me with about that with this idea in Methodism is uh how much this is rooted in the in the great tradition. And I think we are so influenced by by Augustine, and certainly Augustine had some tremendous ideas that we've appropriated and used, but you know, Augustine didn't even believe that infants would be, would be saved, they would be lost. So I mean, that's pretty far. I don't think there's hardly any contemporary theologians that I know of who are want to go that far and say that. So this is a drastic, there's a drastic change, and it's a shift that, and I'm no expert on the history of theology, but from my understanding, it seems like this begins to shift in even the tone and tenor and attitude um in beginning with Augustine, and that Methodism really is tapping into something which is which is deeply rooted in the great tradition. And that's one of the things that's attracted me to the Methodist tradition. Would that be would that be kind of a fair summary in your experience?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, certainly. Yeah, certainly, because uh Augustine, who by the way was the first, as far as you know, any of any of us can tell who have studied it, the first one to use the phrase provenient grace, and he used it to respond to Pelagius' use of the term provenient merit. And um, and he he came up with a pretty radical uh system of thinking that, by the way, was uh largely rejected by the church. It's been picked up variously throughout history. Um and in in the US, at least, in American uh theology, uh it was partially adopted by by Jonathan Edwards, who then kind of reframed it. And and that's what we've been influenced by, probably predominantly, because then his Edwards strongly influenced the revivalist movement and theology and preaching. And I have a portion in my dissertation on what was called the New Calvinism and or New New Divinity Calvinism, and that was Edwardian, and a lot of Methodists got sucked into that revivalistic camp meeting movement of New Divinity, and uh and then several of the theologians wrote out against it and said, Hey, you guys better watch what you're doing uh in adopting these frameworks regarding provenient grace, uh, because uh you're you're bringing in some foreign ideas that do not cohere with our understanding of scripture. So I mean again, there's a lot of history there, but I think you're right. It definitely is is you know, this is not a 19th century invention. Uh this is uh John Wesley and those who followed him, including Pope, reaching uh deeply into Christian history and tradition and and drawing uh uh from those sources and and really expanding. They're not doing something novel, as many today have accused them of. They're not doing something novel. They're reaching back and they're taking some key concepts on grace and they're trying to flesh that out. What's what's that mean in light of of scripture and in light of what else we know and believe uh theologically, and how's that live out?
SPEAKER_01I still can't find this this citation, and I'm listening to you here, but here's something from John Barr on Athanasius that I think is is a faithful representation of his thought. He uh says that the power of Christ and his cross is a power which has filled the whole world, overcoming whatever has separated human beings from God, recreating them and restoring them to communion with God. And I think that's a very faithful summary of what Athanasius is saying, and again, going back to Irenaeus and seeing this all through the Church Fathers. So I think maybe the the paradigm, so you know, we're we do want to look at the particulars of Pope's thought on provenient grace. But what I appreciate is I think the the there's a big picture or yeah, big picture paradigm shift that needs to happen between seeing the cross and resurrection of Jesus as some event back there that merely provides the potential for you to get saved when you grow up and hear about it, versus there's actually something, and this is so beautiful, that has happened in creation, you know, we can say even bigger, even in the cosmos, there's something that's happened objectively and that has an effect on the human race. And this power is, you know, is already working and at work in every person, and and has this kind of there has been this objective accomplishment and reheading that that now has implications for how we think about our preaching, our ministry, our our raising of our children, um our interaction with with people who have never heard the gospel, other cultures, other, you know, other faiths that need to hear the gospel of Jesus, but but just because they've never heard it, God is still working in the world because of what Christ has done in his death and resurrection. Is that a fair summary of the big picture that I think up until this point we're trying to get at? Because again, I think the intro to this podcast says this is a discussion. So I don't want anybody to quote anything I say. We're just we're just thinking through these things, but that would be kind of like the big takeaway. We need to start thinking a little bit bigger picture here.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I think that bigger picture, and I think your summary is great, and that bigger picture is a focus on Christ, what Christ has done for humanity.
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