God Giving Good Things to All People: Grace?

At the PRTS's Fall 2024 Conference on God's grace, Prof. B. Huizinga gave one of the speeches addressing the errors of the popular doctrine of common grace. He spoke on the first point of common grace adopted by the Christian Reformed Church in 1924, in which she taught and defended the idea that in addition to God's saving grace that He gives to His elect people in Christ, He also has a grace (favor and blessing) for all men, even the wicked whom He has determined not to save but to damn. This divine grace is manifested in the good gifts He bestows on sinners outside of Christ -- marriage, family, health, work, enjoyment of creation, and many such things.

Prof. Huizinga carefully explained from the Scriptures and the Reformed confessions that this "grace" is a fiction and a figment of men's imaginations. It is not taught in God's Word and it is not posited in the Reformed creeds. Rather, God's Word and the historic confessions of the Reformed churches teach that there is only one kind of grace -- God's sovereign, irresistible, efficacious, saving favor and power in Jesus Christ, rescuing ungodly sinners from the guilt, corruption, and power of sin and giving them new, holy life in His Son, thus making everything they receive in this life a blessing to them.

And as for the good things the wicked reprobate receive and enjoy in this life, these are part of God's providential dealings with His rational-moral creatures, and serve His plan of judging (damning) those who misuse His gifts and reject the Giver in wicked ingratitude (cf. Psalm 73 and Romans 1:18ff.).

You may watch and hear Prof. Huizinga's speech on the PRTS's YouTube channel.

You will be challenged to think biblically about a teaching that is widely held but rarely examined carefully.