"The Error of Teaching That Some People Are More Predisposed to Believe Than Others" -- Rejection of Errors, First Head of Doctrine, Canons of Dort (IX)

Having set forth the orthodox teaching concerning election and reprobation, the Synod rejects the errors of those . . .

IX. Who teach that the cause for God’s sending the gospel to one people rather than to another is not merely and solely God’s good pleasure, but rather that one people is better and worthier than the other to whom the gospel is not communicated.

For Moses contradicts this when he addresses the people of Israel as follows: “Behold, to Jehovah your God belong the heavens and the highest heavens, the earth and whatever is in it. But Jehovah was inclined in his affection to love your ancestors alone, and chose out their descendants after them, you above all peoples, as at this day” (Deut. 10:14–15). And also Christ: “Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! for if those mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes” (Matt. 11:21).

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The last major error to be refuted by the Canons under the first head of doctrine is that which teaches that the preaching of the gospel and the response to it in a particular time and place, is not ordained by God. It is not as if the acceptance of the good news came about because some who heard the gospel are wiser, more spiritual, or that some individuals are simply more emotionally disposed to believe than others when the gospel first comes to them. No, Scripture is clear—all people are equally sinful, and equally resistant to the message of God's free grace in Christ. Humanly speaking, no one has any advantage over others.

Arminians have often charged that if the Reformed view of election is actually taught in Scripture, then what incentive would there be to evangelize the nations or support the cause of missions since God has already decreed who will believe and who will not? But this objection boomerangs on the Arminian, as the Canons note, because this implies that those who accept the gospel (on the Arminian scheme) are able to use their powers and advantages (some might say “privilege”) that God has given them, while those who do not accept the gospel and who do not take advantage of these powers, must somehow be more wicked, suffer from a greater depravity, or suffer from a greater ignorance of the things of God, than do those who do take advantage of these things.

Says the Arminian, believers come to faith, persevere, and then live holy lives, because they see the need to utilize the grace of God to their advantage when others did not. Given fallen human nature, there is a tendency to see the hope of the gospel as residing in the "goodness" of those who do indeed use what God has given them to the greatest possible advantage.

Not so with the doctrine of election set forth in the Canons. The Scriptures teach that all the people and nations of the earth are the fallen children of Adam. There is no one on earth who ever embraced the gospel because they were somehow in a better position to take advantage of the grace of God. People believed the message only because God was gracious unto them by so inclining their hearts and granting them faith! That is why we have missionaries–to go and preach the gospel through which God creates faith and saves his elect!

In those instances where God did this in great numbers, a culture or a nation will receive tremendous benefits as believers in Christ then become salt and light in the civil kingdom. But the only reason that any have believed and then become salt and light in their own particular culture is because God graciously and sovereignly rescued them from their sin through the preaching of the gospel!

As Paul puts it so clearly in Romans 10:12-15, God calls his elect to faith through the preaching of the gospel,

For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”

Preachers are sent to preach and God grants faith to his elect.

Therefore, God has not only ordained the ends (who will be saved), he has also ordained the means by which his elect will be called to faith (the preaching of the gospel). In the Reformed conception of this it is God who receives the glory when people come to Christ , and not the individuals who come to faith. This means that no individual or nation can take credit for that which rightly belongs to God.

What else can we do then, but to take the gospel to the nations so that men and women—God’s elect—will embrace the savior and come to faith in Jesus Christ? God has commanded this, and through this he will be glorified and his ways shown to be true and just!