Fisk and Owen

In appendix D Fisk recognizes that Reformed writers, such as J. I. Packer, have claimed there has never been a refutation of John Owen’s, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ. Fisk claims that such is not the case. He refers us to works such as Robert P. Lightners, The Death Christ Died, A Case For Unlimited Atonement as being sufficient to refute Owen’s argumentation.

I don’t have a problem with referring readers to other works for more in depth study, yet it would have been nice to read an example of how Owen was wrong. Does he deal with Owen’s very strong case of Christ’s office as High Priest or Mediator or Substitutionary sacrifice? Not at all!

Instead Fisk challenges Owen’s argument against Universal Atonement without Universal Effect Because of Unbelief [my own title of that argument]. Owen argues basically in the Death of Death, that if Christ died for all sin then all must go to heaven. But the Arminian will say that men go to hell for only unbelief. Therefore Christ’s death did not atone for all sin if unbelief is a sin, or unbelief is not a sin that sends men to hell.

Here is Fisk’s counter argument:

“In answer to this argument, the sin of unbelief is always associated with the completed work of Christ and thus assumes a specific quality and is treated in a particular way in Scripture. Owen’s argument may be reversed and the problem stated this way: If Christ’s death apart from any other considerations included the sin of unbelief, why does God ask men to believe since they would not be lost for not believing? A request from God for faith to apply the benefits of the cross becomes redundant. Why should God ask men to believe if that is not the sole condition of salvation?”

This is pure Semi-Pelagianism. It rings of the Pelagian controversy in that Pelagian himself argued that God would not command men to obey the law if man could not do it. Basically, Fisk wants man to be morally neutral or have God remove man’s sinful and inability to obey before God may truly judge a man in his sin! Or in other words, it is the “It’s not fair” argument.

Fisk does not seem to realize that the Penal Substitutionary Atonement belief taught in scripture is a Reformed doctrine. It is not a belief held historically by those who are not Reformed! Dr. White writes in The Potter’s Freedom:

Historic Arminians saw that believing in the idea of substitutionary atonement would not fit with their system of theology. Even though Arminians today may use this terminology, it does not strictly “belong” to them. Arminian scholar J. Kenneth Grider asserts that the idea of ‘substitutionary atonement’ is foreign to Arminian thinking:

A spillover from Calvinism into Arminianism has occurred in recent decades. Thus many Arminians whose theology is not very precise say that Christ paid the penalty of our sins. Yet such a view is foreign to Arminianism, which teaches instead that Christ suffered for us. Arminians teach that what Christ did He did for every person; therefore what He did could not have been to pay the penalty, since no one would then ever go into eternall perdition. Arminianism teaches that Christ suffered for everyone so that the Father could forgive the ones who repent and believe; His death is such that all will see that forgiveness is costly and will strive to cease from anarchy in the world God governs. This view is called the Governmental theory of the atonement.

Fisk goes on to assert in his argumentation that “The sin of unbelief is a problem for the limited redemptionists, for if his view be carried through consistently it would mean the elect would not even be born in sin and thus would not be subject to the wrath and condemnation of God before they believe, nor would they ever need to be forgiven…”

I first heard this argument from a local pastor at the First Christian church here in Scott City. It seems that Fisk and many others see Calvinism as being equal to “Eternal Justification”. In other words, they see Calvinism as making the elect of God already forgiven at the cross; therefore there is no need to apply the work of Christ since they are already saved.

I conclude that these men do not understand Calvinism nor do they understand the Penal Substitutionary Atoning work of Christ. They also must deny God’s eternal decree and how it is worked out in time. They reject Christ’s perfect atoning work, His perfect mediatorial work, and His perfect intercession on behalf of His people. He must deny Christ, as the Great High Priest, who is able to perfectly secure those for whom He died.

If Fisk is going to be consistent, then he must recognize that man is not a slave of sin. He is not enslaved to Original Sin, a doctrine that he must now repudiate. Is this not what we see in much of Evangelicalism? Does not Caner’s interaction with White last year demonstrate this?

The Penal Substitutionary Atonement is a Reformed Doctrine. It is only consistent in a reformed understanding. After several centuries, Owen’s work still stands unrefuted.