Two Charts on Predestination by Bunyan and Perkins
Two Charts on Predestination by Bunyan and Perkins
Here are two nice charts (visual theology) depicting
Bunyan's [1628–1688] (
left chart) and
Perkins's [1558–1602] (
right chart) views of Predestination. Who knew these Reformation types were doing Powerpoint before computers came along!
It will become obvious that both men have the same views of the doctrine of efficacious grace, necessary because of the state of fallen man:
Man is born dead in sin (cf. Rom. 5:12; Eph. 2:1; Col. 2:13), with his mind and heart corrupted (Gen. 6:5; Jer. 17:9; Rom. 8:7–8; 1 Cor. 2:14). He is a slave to sin (Rom. 6:20; Titus 3:3) and therefore unable to repent and come to God (Jer. 13:23; Matt. 7:18; John 6:44, 65). Because of this, man must be born again (John 3:5–7). Those whom God elected and for whom Christ died are brought to life by the Holy Spirit (John 1:12–13; 3:3–8; 5:21; Eph. 2:1, 5; Titus 3:5). God gives them faith and repentance (Acts 5:31; 11:18; 13:48; Eph. 2:8–9; Phil. 1:29; 2 Tim. 2:25–26), and they are justified.
Magnify the charts in your computer viewer to see the details.
Perkins described his chart as
The Golden Chain of Redemption.
Bunyan titled his chart
A Map Shewing the Order and Causes of Salvation and Damnation.
Both “charts” appear to have the same goal—to give a pictorial representation of how God works in relation to salvation and damnation.
In Perkins’s chart, every aspect of the application of salvation is tied in to a central spine representing Christ in terms of the various clauses of the Apostles’ Creed.
In Bunyan’s chart, however, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are portrayed as the fountainhead of salvation. Everything flows from them. But Bunyan’s map has no Christ-spine. Certainly the Trinity is seen as the original source and cause of salvation. But the various aspects of salvation applied are related to each other, not directly to Christ. To use Perkins’s metaphor, it is as if the links in the chain are joined one to another but are remotely connected to Christ himself only as their original link and first cause.
These charts represent two different configurations of how the gospel works. In the case of Perkins’s
Golden Chain the central significance of Christ and union with him is obvious; in Bunyan’s chart this is not so. In Perkins every spiritual blessing is related to Christ; benefits are never separated or abstracted from the Benefactor. In Bunyan’s map, in fact they are.
If this mode of thinking permeates our approach to gospel preaching, the focus inevitably shifts to abstracted and discrete blessings, and then to the question of how
we receive them, and thus ultimately to the issue: “
Under or through what conditions can these blessings become mine?” The tendency is to turn
me inward. But
the warrant for justifying faith in Christ does not lie within. To think this was precisely the mistake of the young Luther. For this reason we are instructed to seek his predestination “
in the wounds of Christ” to discover that the warrant for
the gospel is without, not
within.
Slowly this way of thinking about the
ordo salutis (order of salvation) may drift into what is sometimes referred to as “
the steps of salvation” in which a quasi-chronological order of experience precedes actual faith. This can become an eerie echo of the
medieval ordo salutis. In due course, since these steps follow one another, the completion of one step must precede the commencement of the next one. And precisely there the question arises,
How much conviction of sin, or sorrow for sin, or turning away from sin is required before the next step or phase can begin?
HT: The above is discussed in much more detail in Ferguson's fine book related to the Marrow Controversy:
https://www.amazon.com/Whole-Christ-Antinomianism-Assurance-Why-Controversy-ebook/dp/B01AIM65CQ
Enjoy.
AMR