In our July, 1981 issue Rev. Jelle Tuininga in an article entitled, “Is the Gospel a Mere Announcement?” cited Biblical and confessional objections to the kind of “Biblical Universalism” advocated by Rev. Neal Punt in his book Unconditional Good News. In this article Rev. J. Tuininga, pastor of the First Christian Reformed Church of Lethbridge, Alberta, deals further with this view.

In this article I want to make some summarizing, concluding remarks, and also touch on a few remaining issues.

Punt wants us to believe that he is not in conflict with our creeds. I am convinced he is. Not that he is an Arminian: he wants to uphold biblical particularism, and the sovereignty of grace in our salvation. However, he does not want to consider the human race as lost apart from Christ. He keeps objecting to what he calls “the unproven assumption” that “all persons are outside of Christ except those who the Bible declares will be saved.” Also, he does not want to equate “being worthy of eternal judgment” with “being outside of Christ.” In further correspondence he writes: “To say ‘the promise of the gospel is that whosoever believes in Christ crucified shall not perish but have eternal life’ is not to say ‘only those who believe in Christ crucified shall not perish . . .’”

Now I don’t care to work with assumptions, and I don’t have to assume “that those who are being addressed are ‘elect in Christ’” when I bring the Word (cf. Punt, p. 135), but neither do I have to assume they are lost. I must simply bring the gospel, for without the gospel they are lost. That much is clear. No one is saved except through Jesus Christ. There is one name under heaven by which men must be saved; no other. And now it’s a biblical fact of history that all men fell in Adam unto condemnation. Paul says they are by nature dead in sin (Eph. 2). Dead is dead, and no man comes alive unless the Spirit of Christ makes him alive. To say it with Spykman (in a helpful essay in Life is Religion):

. . . our starting point must be the Biblical witness to the actual, historical, human condition of universal reprobation resulting from mankind’s fall into sin. . . . Methodologically, we are to begin not with “limited election,” but with the human predicament of unlimited reprobation into which the mass of mankind was corporately plunged as a result of our original sin. Reprobation is therefore not so much a mystery as the awful enigma of covenantal unfaithfulness, from which believers are delivered by God’s electing grace. The “greater mystery” is election.

As a result, in Adam, our representative head, we all became reprobate. . . . Condemnation came to rest upon all men (hence the great relief of Romans 8:1 – “no condemnation”). (pp. 185, 187)

So it is. And that’s precisely what our creeds teach too, and no amount of finagling can get around that. There is no condemnation to those who are in Christ. That means there is condemnation to those apart from Christ, and that is the biblical premise we begin with. Arts. 14–16 of the Belgic Confession, L.D.s 3 & 4 & 10 of the H.C.; Par. 5 of Rej. of Errors, Chap. II, and Par. 1, Rej. of Errors, Chaps. III/IV of the Canons of Dort all teach this. And Punt’s teaching is not in harmony with what our confessions here teach. Paragraph 5, Rej. of Errors, Chap. II of the Canons explicitly condemns the error of those who say “that no one shall be condemned” because of original sin. That is clear language. This is also why the Committee that studied the Boer gravamen did not draw the conclusion that Punt draws: namely, that all infants who die are saved. That is an unwarranted conclusion from the Committee’s report, and from Scripture itself. Says J. G. Feenstra in his De Dordtse Leerregelen: “Concerning the children of unbelievers the Scripture does not express itself. Nowhere in Scripture do we find for them the promises of God, but certainly for the children of believers.” Punt ought not to go beyond what the Scripture teaches. As for the Boer Study Committee’s statement that no one is condemned apart from actual sin, it must be remembered that all men did sin in Adam: “In Adam’s fall we sinned all.” And so all men are held responsible for that sin too. It’s just another way of saying that man is responsible for his own condemnation, children included. Covenant children, however, are sanctified in Christ by virtue of God’s covenant, and by virtue of that covenant we need not even doubt the salvation of those who die in infancy.

Punt likes to think that many more will be saved than is generally believed in Reformed circles. Well, we don’t have to argue about figures. To the man who wanted to do that, Jesus replied: Strive to enter in! At the same time, to think that many who appear to live in total indifference to the gospel and never darken the door of a church, might still somehow be counted among the elect, is to engage in wishful thinking. Recently a correspondent in the Netherlands wrote: Years ago if you did not go to church on my street, you were an exception. Now if you do go you are an exception. The same is true of countless streets in the U.S.A. and Canada. Are we still to think that many of them are “elect” and will be saved? Not unless they repent and live a God–glorifying life. Punt must take seriously the biblical teaching about the broad way which is crowded and the narrow way which few find. He must also take seriously Peter’s warning that if the righteous are scarcely saved, where will the ungodly and sinner land up? (I Pet. 4:18). Does Punt mean to say that even in lands where 1% of the population is Christian, more than 50% might still be saved? Experience only confirms the biblical teaching that a remnant shall be saved, due alone to God’s grace. They are saved by grace through faith alone. Here I quote with endorsement the comments of Dr. Eugene Rubingh in one of his missionary letters:

To suggest that one may go through year after year of apathy and unconcern regarding God and his will, and yet be saved, does give me pause. Is not such unconcern and apathy really rejection? Rejection needs better definition than Punt has yet provided. . . . I have not discovered in Punt’s thinking anything that makes faith crucial or of life–and-death importance.

Well said indeed! It is worth quoting Murray here again:

Regeneration is the act of God and of God alone. But faith is not the act of God; it is not God who believes in Christ for salvation, it is the sinner. It is by God’s grace that a person is able to believe but faith is an activity on the part of the person and of him alone. In faith we receive and rest upon Christ alone for salvation.

It might be said: this is a strange mixture. God alone regenerates. We alone believe. And we believe in Christ alone for salvation. But this is precisely the way it is. It is well for us to appreciate all that is implied in the combination, for it is God’s way of salvation and it expresses his supreme wisdom and grace. In salvation God does not deal with us as machines; he deals with us as persons and therefore salvation brings the whole range of our activity within its scope. By grace we are saved through faith (cf. Eph. 2:8).

Punt puts forth the thesis that t he Holy Spirit may work in some people apart from the gospel. He needs this thesis for his overall argument. But he ought to realize that this is a bit of unbiblical speculation that stems from A. Kuyper, but has never been accepted in the best Reformed tradition. The Bible and our confessions give no credence to this idea. Cf. Q& A. 65 of the H. C.; Arts. 11 & 12 of Chap. III/IV of the Canons.

Finally, regarding the cultural mandate, Punt makes the point that “believers must regard all others as joined with them in obeying the cultural mandate unless and until those with whom t hey work reject the revelation God has given in nature and dissociate themselves from the knowledge of and truth of God in Christ” (p. 130). Once again I consider this a totally unwarranted and unbiblical notion that stems from Punt’s overall thesis. Here indeed we have the common grace idea which sees a certain commonality between all men, and which either denies or downplays the doctrine of the antithesis. This is what Hoeksema was afraid of and objected to in 1924. Punt fails to see the radical antithesis between the two kingdoms in this world, that of light and darkness, of Christ and the devil. Even though unbelievers can do so-called “civic good,” this is not owing to any goodness in them, but solely to God’s ‘ revelation which impinges on them. But their hearts are still directed away from God, while the believer’s heart is directed toward God in all that he does. There is no neutrality. He who is not for me is against me, said Christ. Cyrus and Hiram did much for God’s people in the O.T., but they were not obeying the cultural mandate. God used them for his kingdom; but they were not co-partners for

God’s kingdom or co–workers for Christ. Neither is the “good” or “decent” unbeliever. Many of them simply ignore God and His commandments, or have hardly a faint inkling of what the gospel is all about.  And without faith (saving faith in the Redeemer) it is impossible to please God.

In conclusion, it is still a mystery to me how Dr. A. C. De Jong could give such an endorsement to this book. It misses the boat in so many fundamental ways. I hope Punt (& De Jong) come to see this.