Responsibility
In the recent book The Sovereignty of God, edited, by Brett Lee-Price, who is an expert to do with anything with Arthur W. Pink. I have helped him in joining the Afterwords which is devoted to discussing the changes on The Sovereignty 0f God through several editions. Mainly the book is taken up with the original and genuine text of Pink’s The Sovereignty of God. The Banner of Truth with Iain Murray and a small group, and in the years 1n 1961 made changes of the text. There were various matters. One had to do with criticism of Pink’s view of reprobation, which is discussed in the Afterword, which Brett and I have written. and of the criteria of responsibility in the phrase ‘natural and moral’ criteria for responsibility. Murray’s dissatisfactions were made public in two articles of the Banner of Truth magazine.
The role of this revision is discussed in p. 269 following section in the book, the title ‘The Differing Editions of The Sovereignty of God’’ These matters published the Banner Truth Edition, and to the public in two articles of the Banner of Truth magazine. In ‘A.W’ Pink’s s Sovereignty of God – Revised or Unrevised?’, and in the Banner of Truth, magazine 407-8 (August-September, 1997) ‘`Pink on The Sovereignty of God , Iain H. Murray ‘the Banner of Truth magazine , 592 (January 2013), 6-17.
One area of concern was that in the area of moral agency and responsibility was the use of that between natural and moral inability. Of this The Sovereignty of God 277 It was drawn the division was to be made by Jonathan Edwards ( 1703-1758) in his Freedom of the Will, from which Andrew Fuller (1754—181).was later to employ of it.
The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. I (I Corinthians 2, 14-16)
A little further, in chapter three of I Corinthians, where Paul returns to the opening theme of the letter, that of the divisions at the Corinthian church’…
For It had been reported to me by Chloe’s people and her group’ [mentioned] that there is quarrelling among you, my brothers, various groups [not mentioned}. This mentioned over groups giving them by this man and other such as ‘Paul’, or ‘Apollos’ or ‘Christ’. ‘I thank God that I baptised none except Crispus and `to `Gaius, and Stephanas’ household has a different group by a baptised of them one of these were Paul himself, mentioning Crispus and Gaius that he baptised, and others whose names he had forgotten. ‘For Christ did not send to baptise but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.’ ICor.1.10-17).
To tolerate the making of several named boastful baptizers in the church was to imperil Christian unity, and to express a shallow wisdom. True wisdom , ‘the source of human life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption.’ (I Cor.1.30 ) Therefore , as it is written ,”Let the one who boasts, boasts in the Lord.’ (I Cor, 1 31). This assertion pivots the remainder of Paul’s gospel, between the wisdoms (plural) of this world, and the gospel which expresses the wisdom of God, one wisdom, Christ Jesus, the only source of spiritual wisdom, ‘the source of your life', in contrast with those of worldly wisdoms, bearing that the many philosophical schools flourishing in Corinth.
Paul asserts that the gospel is the revelation of one wisdom, but it has been communicated to the Corinthians in the style of preaching (I Cor.2), and his style as a speaker. He was not an eloquent orator, he says, he had one topic, ‘Jesus Christ and him crucified’, which he spoke not in self-confidence but in weakness, and in fear and much trembling, ‘not in plausible words of wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit’s power, ‘that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God’.(I Cor 2.5:)
But I , brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it And even now you were not yet ready. And even now you are now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife, are you need For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh. Are you of the flesh not of he flesh and behaving only in a human way. For when one says, ‘I follow Paul’ and another’ ‘ I follow Apollos’, are you not being merely human?’. (I Cor. 3. 1-4.)
So for Paul there are two classes of people. The natural person ‘does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned’, (1 Cor 2. 14) The spiritual person judges all things but is himself to be judged by no one, for who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. The two classes are the natural and spiritual which are exhaust the human race. Later theologians distinguished between not Paul but between natural impotency. John Owen distinguishes between the two classes of person , those natural and spiritual. (Owen, Works ed Goold 3. 266).
Two kinds of person
Other important usages in which Paul uses ‘flesh’ in other letters add to fuller understanding of the two. For example, Rom. 7.5, 7.25, 8,3, 8.5, 8.8, Gal. 5.69 and the teaching of Christ in John’s gospel, are similar to those in I Corinthians - Such verses as ‘No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. Such people who were drawn by the Father, ‘And I will raise him up on the last day’, (John 6.44) and John verses 5.44 ‘How can you believe when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?.’ The first the impossibility of faith unless people are ‘drawn’ by the Father. Edwards simply a moral necessity examples, the faithfulness of the chaste woman and that of the infant child that Edwards. constructs of abilities. ('Section Pt 1, section 4, Of The Distinction of Natural and Moral and Necessity and Inability'). And in John ‘yet you refuse to come to that you may have life’. I do not receive glory from people But I know that you do have the love of God within you. ‘(5.44?). These are instances of moral ability and inability, usually cases of physical defection. But these are not exhaustive of ‘natural or “moral’. By now, the adjective word ‘natural’ refers to many differences. Owen himself says ‘It is pretended and pleaded by some in these day. Paul says the ‘the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them are spiritually discerned’. Paul uses the terms ‘the natural person’ and ‘ the spiritual person’ (I Cor.2. 14f).. Owen discusses the ‘natural man’ operating his own day that upon an apprehension’ in the works and light of nature of the goodness of God, men without any other advantages love him above all, and be accepted with him. (Owen, Works ed. Goold, III 268, 272,) In Paul’s day the scope of the term ‘natural’ is not 'spiritual' of the gospel but natural theology. How much more the width in our day!
‘Natural’ is an expansive adjective, and ‘moral’ too. This brings us to our use of ‘natural’ and 'moral' in its various kinds in religion in the modern culture of today.
Arthur W. Pink, The Sovereignty of God, ‘Afterwords’,Paul Helm and Brett Lee- Price, Tulip Publishing, 2022, Tulip Publishing, 300.
