Here is a critique of Johnsons article by George Ella
Several of these Babel forgeries have bothered the Christian Press recently under the guise of duty-faith and the free offer. One is an article by Phillip R. Johnson entitled A Primer on Hyper-Calvinism, published by the Sword and Trowel (March, 2002). Here, the author boasts that we must twist Scripture to disagree with him. There is no danger of this. The little he says based on Scripture would be accepted by most of those he opposes and everything he says against his opponents is unfounded, undocumented prejudice and silly name-calling. Johnson’s argument that all men are duty-bound to believe in Christ within the ‘Free Offer’ is as rationalistic as it is illogical and un-Biblical. His premise is not that man is spiritually fallen and has not the Spirit of God but that man has two natures, the moral and the natural. The moral nature is fallen, the natural nature is not. Thus he concludes “The defect (sic!) in man is his own fault, not God’s. Therefore man’s own inability is something he is guilty for, and that inability cannot therefore be seen as something that relieves the sinner of responsibility.” There is much truth in this statement but where does it leave us? It leaves us with a man who is morally defective but bodily unfallen. All his inabilities are moral and not part of his natural make up. It appears that man’s ability to respond to the gospel is to be found in his unfallen natural capacities. But sin has marred all and man is fallen in all his capacities. Furthermore, to divide man’s nature into the fallen moral and the unfallen natural is quite foreign to Scripture which tells us that the wages of sin is death, ie. sin brings with it spiritual, moral and natural corruption. Even if we could accept Johnson’s simplistic theory as Scriptural, how can we deduce from this that natural, fallen man, dead in trespasses and sins, has the known and given duty to exercise faith savingly? And from whence does he receive the power to quicken himself? Johnson does not tell us and he ends his ‘proof’ by merely stating that the sinner is responsible for his moral defects. Who would disagree? Our concern, however, is how to make a fallen sinner stand again. Even if Johnson’s echo of old Liberalism were true, we cannot appeal to the duties of a morally corrupt person to give him insight into salvation nor can we appeal to his fallen natural abilities. We must return to the definition of Calvinism given by Spurgeon. Salvation is by grace alone and we are called to preach this to all as the Spirit leads but we, of ourselves, cannot guarantee this Salvation to every man or even any man. Salvation is not a commodity to be offered to all under a guarantee, but it is the status of those placed in union with Christ before the foundation of the world. The presentation of the gospel can only be made in conjunction with this fact. We preach Christ and Him crucified and the Spirit offers salvation to those for whom it was purchased. We are to do our work dutifully, knowing that the Spirit does His. Though Johnson’s grounds for his duty-faith cum free-offer is based on a philosophical approach to man which is firmly denied by Scripture, he makes equal shipwreck of his historical argument. Dealing with so-called Hyper-Calvinists who allegedly oppose “all forms of evangelism and preaching to the unsaved”, he tells us that the most famous example of this kind is John Ryland Senior. Needless to say, Ryland took over a normal sized church-membership in Northampton and his evangelistic activities within very few years increased that membership seven-fold. His church-building had to be extended twice during his ministry. The busy preacher, friend of Hervey and Toplady, was not merely called to his own flock but evangelised in no less than twenty different surrounding villages. He constantly drove his coach to thickly populated areas or places of public recreation, stood on the driver’s seat and preach to the masses so that they trembled in their sin and pleaded to God for mercy. True, he criticised the use of the term ‘offer’ because of the philosophical approach to the atonement and man’s state newly associated with it. He affirmed, “The word offer is not so proper as declaration, proposal, or gift. The gospel is a declaration of the free grace of God. It is a proposal of salvation by Jesus Christ, and it proclaims Christ as the free and absolute gift of God.” These very words reveal the heart of a man dedicated to God in fervent evangelism. Johnson also seriously errs when he presents William Huntington sarcastically as the ‘godfather’ of those who deny the gospel call. Huntington filled his London church week after week with three thousand people, though taking great pains not to poach other ministers’ hearers. No other minister of his day had such evangelistic success! Conversions accompanied most services. Johnson’s ignorance of the many appeals Huntington made to sinners to flee from the wrath to come is inexcusable in a man who claims to have read his works. Nor can Johnson place Huntington amongst those who reject the term ‘offer of the gospel’ as his works show that he used the words freely, though not in the limited and Liberal way of the modern Free Offer abusers of the term. Johnson links the offer of Christ in the gospel with common grace. This grace, common to all men, he argues, is the general call of the gospel. Johnson gives us Scriptural evidence for God allowing the sun to shine on the just and the unjust alike but if this is all that Johnson means by his duty-faith cum free-offer system, it is quite void of the gospel that makes unjust men just. This was the gospel that Ryland Sen. and Huntington preached which Johnson labels ‘Hardshellism`, Hyper-Calvinism’ and ‘Antinomianism’. One wonders what purpose this modern scoffer has in thus standing the gospel on its head and slandering the saints of God under the thin disguise of one who ‘is concerned’ about the modern ‘threat’ to gospel preaching. One would think he wished to abolish it! Johnson concludes by stating that God loves all reprobates compassionately but is unable to love them redemptively - God’s love is neither compassionate nor powerful enough to redeem such stubborn sinners! This is the pure ‘God is Dead’ heresy of Dorothy Sölle and her band of sceptics. If man’s agency does not procure his salvation, Christ has died in vain and thus He is Christ no longer.
