Reformed Confessions

Canons of Dort
Second Point | Objections
Christ's Death And Man's Redemption Through It
Further study on the Canons of Dort
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Expanded Commentary Coming Soon
Having explained the true doctrine of the death of Christ and the redemption of man by this death, Synod rejects the following errors:
Error 1: God the Father has ordained his Son to the death of the cross without a specific and definite decree to save any. What Christ obtained by his death might have been necessary, profitable, and valuable, and might remain in all its parts complete, perfect, and intact, even though the redemption he acquired had actually never been applied to any person.
Refutation: This doctrine is offensive to the wisdom of the Father and the merits of Jesus Christ and is contrary to Scripture. For our Saviour says: I lay down my life for the sheep, and I know them (Jn 10:15, 27). And the prophet Isaiah says concerning the Saviour: when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand (Is 53:10). Finally, this error contradicts the article of faith concerning the catholic Christian church.
Error 2: It was not the purpose of Christ’s death that he should confirm the new covenant of grace by his blood, but only that he should acquire for the Father the mere right to establish once more with man such a covenant as he might please, whether of grace or of works.
Refutation: This militates against Scripture, which teaches that Christ has become the Surety and Mediator of a better, that is, a new covenant, and that a will takes effect only at death.1
Heb 7:22;9:15,17.
Error 3: By his satisfaction Christ did not really merit for anyone either salvation itself or faith by which this satisfaction of Christ to salvation is effectually made one’s own. He acquired for the Father only the authority or the perfect will to deal again with man, and to prescribe new conditions as he might desire. It depends, however, on the free will of man to fulfil these conditions. Therefore it was possible that either no one or all men would fulfil them.
Refutation: Those who teach this error think contemptuously of the death of Christ, do not at all acknowledge its most important fruit or benefit, and bring back out of hell the Pelagian error.
Error 4: The new covenant of grace which God the Father, through the mediation of the death of Christ, made with man, does not consist herein that we are justified before God and saved by faith, inasmuch as it accepts the merit of Christ. It consists in the fact that God has revoked the demand of perfect obedience of the law and regards faith as such and the obedience of faith, though imperfect, as the perfect obedience of the law. He graciously deems it worthy of the reward of eternal life.
Refutation: This doctrine contradicts Scripture: They are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood (Rom 3:24, 25). Those who teach this error proclaim, as did the ungodly Socinus, a new and strange justification of man before God, against the consensus of the whole church.
Error 5: All men have been accepted into the state of reconciliation and into the grace of the covenant, so that no one is liable to condemnation on account of original sin, and no one shall be condemned because of it, but all are free from the guilt of original sin.
Refutation: This opinion is in conflict with Scripture, which teaches that we were by nature children of wrath (Eph 2:3).
Error 6: As far as God is concerned, he wished to bestow equally upon all people the benefits acquired by the death of Christ; however, some obtain the pardon of sin and eternal life and others do not. This distinction depends on their own free will, which applies itself to the grace that is offered indifferently, and not on the special gift of mercy which so powerfully works in them that they rather than others apply this grace to themselves.
Refutation: Those who teach this misuse the difference between the acquisition and the application of salvation and confuse the minds of imprudent and inexperienced people. While they pretend to present this distinction in a sound sense, they seek to instil into the minds of people the pernicious poison of Pelagianism.
Error 7: Christ could not die, did not need to die, and did not die for those whom God loved in the highest degree and elected to eternal life, since these do not need the death of Christ.
Refutation: This doctrine contradicts the apostle, who declares: The Son of God loved me and gave himself for me (Gal 2:20). Likewise: Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died (Rom 8:33, 34), namely, for them. And the Saviour assures us: I lay down my life for the sheep (Jn 10:15). And: This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends (Jn 15:12, 13).
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