July 1, 2025 Show with Dr. Thomas J. Nettles on “Defending John Gill Against the Charges of Hyper-Calvinism”

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Introduction and the Theme of John Gill

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But today, I have a dear friend that I've known for decades, and I'm thrilled to have him back on the program. He was just on very recently on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. I can never interview this brother enough.

Always love having him on the show. He's one of the most brilliant guests that I've ever had on the program, and especially in the area of church history. And I'm sure that many of you who listen regularly will recognize the name Dr. Thomas J. Nettles.

In fact, the last time I had him on the program, you've got to look up the archived recording of this interview as soon as this live show is over. I interviewed Dr. Nettles on June 17th of this year on the theme, Living by Revealed Truth, the Life and Pastoral Theology of Charles Aden Spurgeon, which is actually the title of one of Dr. Nettles' latest books, a biography of the great Prince of Preachers, Charles Aden Spurgeon.

But today we have another controversial theme that we are going to be addressing. It's controversial because the figure we are going to be highlighting today from church history has raised up controversy in the minds of many, especially those who are theologically Reformed or Calvinistic, and even more so if they are Baptists.

There are many evangelicals outside of the Reformed faith that may have never even heard this name before. But first of all, let me tell you who Dr. Tom Nettles is. He's a renowned Baptist historian and prolific author with 38 years of teaching experience, including his 17 years at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, as professor of historical theology.

And today we're going to be addressing the theme, Defending John Gill against the Charges of Hyper-Calvinism. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Trump and Zion Radio, Dr. Thomas J. Nettles.

Yes, well, it's my honor and privilege to be here. Thank you for letting me participate in this, and I look forward to our discussion.

John Gill, Particular Baptist History, and the Meaning of Hyper-Calvinism

Well, I think it's wise for us to start the interview by you giving us not only a little background first of who John Gill was, and then perhaps you can give us a definition of hyper-Calvinism, because that is the charge laid at the feet of John Gill by many, even some of our friends and people that we highly respect and agree with on most issues.

I know that Ian Murray disagrees with you on this subject, and I believe Dr. Michael Haken disagrees with you, although it's interesting that Dr. Haken is involved in an organization seeking to revive interest and popularity of John Gill.

So he obviously doesn't think that Gill was such a severe hyper-Calvinist that it would exclude benefiting from him. But please tell us who this giant of Christian theology, and perhaps even more so particular Baptist theology, John Gill was, and tell us about when he lived.

I know that he is a predecessor of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, but tell us about John Gill. And then after you're finished, the description of who Gill was, tell us what an accurate definition of hyper-Calvinism is.

Yeah, well, all that background is certainly very important to know. Gill, he was born in 1697, and so just right before the beginning of the 18th century, he was converted when he was 19 years old. Then he began preaching when he was 23 years old, after he had been tested in his local church.

He had led a Bible study on one occasion, and then he preached a message on another. And then a church in London called him to fill their pulpit some, and there were many in the church that wanted to call him as pastor.

There were others who did not. And so actually, his first pastorate came as a result of something of a church split. He was pastoring. The group who did not want him eventually left that building, and so Gill and his congregation went back to the building in what was called the Goat Yard, and this eventually became the church that was pastored, as you mentioned, by Charles Spurgeon.

And of course, today, Peter Masters is pastor there, became the Metropolitan Tabernacle after it was the New Park Street pulpit. But there was a line of pastors, probably beginning with Benjamin Keech, that served as pastors of that congregation.

Also, John Rippon was a pastor of that congregation. And so Gill was there for close to 50 years. Rippon was there for, I think, about 60 years. Spurgeon was there for 34 years, and so they've had some very long pastorates there.

And then Peter Masters has been there for a few decades, too. But Gill was within this very difficult century, theologically, this 18th century, where religion had become stagnant in England, Anglicanism was giving itself over to high degrees of sacramentalism.

And also some of their leading pastors were toying with the ideas of deism and what is called latitudinarian theology. They would hold to orthodox understandings of the early councils of the church, but as far as sin and the Augustinian theology and Reformation theology of sola fide and justification, they had blended a kind of moralism in with it that made them very ineffective in their evangelistic preaching.

And the antidote to that was a series of writers who began to present apologetic literature that was very sophisticated and convincing at a highly philosophical level, but was incomprehensible from the standpoint of the people in the church, and it did not produce very sound gospel preaching, at least not in the original stages.

Eventually, someone like John Wesley was convinced by this, and he became a very plain and passionate preacher of the gospel to people. But then there are also some of the example of the early of the stewards, the monarchs.

There was a very immoral example that they gave. And so the 18th century in which Gil lived was just plagued with all kinds of things. And so Sinianism, which is a denial of the deity of Christ and the denial of those orthodox understandings of the Trinity and of original sin.

And once you deny the deity of Christ, so forth, you make him a totally insufficient savior. And that was beginning to take root within many of the denominations within Congregationalism, Presbyterianism, but general Baptist life was basically swallowed up by so Sinianism until Thomas Grantham and Dan Taylor actually began what was called the new connection of general Baptists, and they became more evangelical, but of course, maintained their Arminianism.

Particular Baptists also were declining, but not for theological reasons. There was a sort of an unbending autonomy of the local churches. They refused to come together in any kind of associational structures to propagate the gospel on a wide scale.

Their understanding of the call to ministry and of the fact that they must be taught by the Holy Spirit made them cast suspicion on an educated ministry. There was, beginning in the early part of the century, a propensity toward what is called antinomianism, which we'll try to describe later.

And then there were those who were genuinely hyper-Calvinist that were a part of the early century. It is into this kind of situation that John Gill comes and seeks to present an evangelical witness there.

I think that John Gill is suspected of hyper-Calvinism for two reasons, some of those preceding him and some of those succeeding him. He had great respect for a man named John Brine, who actually was converted under the ministry of Gill.

But John Brine did adopt some of the leading traits, the distinguishing characteristics of hyper-Calvinism. And Gill remained his friend and recommended his writings at many levels, and so Gill has been tied in with Brine on that standpoint.

Also there was a man named Lewis Wayman, who was a hyper-Calvinist and really defended hyper-Calvinism, but he also had some very fine sermons, theological sermons, and Gill would at times recommend Lewis Wayman.

So because of those that were preceding him and his friendships with some of them, Gill has been seen as the one who perpetuated their doctrines. Now after Gill, of course, you have the phenomenon of hyper-Calvinism that was characterizing many of the particular Baptist churches, and Andrew Fuller was reared in one of these churches.

And the group of Andrew Fuller and William Carey and John Sutcliffe and John Ryland Jr., in which they burst out of the resistance that hyper-Calvinists had to extending the gospel through the use of means and through human effort.

In order to defend that, there are many people who look back to the most prominent theologian prior to Fuller and prior to Ryland and Carey and that group, and they saw Gill as the one who they think perpetuated the resistance to the expansion of the gospel into the world.

But my opinion about that is that that is judging Gill by other historical circumstances and is not paying close attention to his own writings and to his own ministry. And on the other hand, it is a misjudging of some of the vocabulary that he uses.

So before we get into just the particular issues related to hyper-Calvinism and antinomianism in themselves, there are a few things that I think would be good for us to know to appreciate John Gill. I have a chapter on him in a book I did called By His Grace and For His Glory.

Oh, yeah. And the name of that chapter is A Bridge Over Troubled Waters. I see Gill as the reason that particular Baptists did not go the same way that Presbyterians did or that Congregationalists did or that the general Baptists did in being engulfed by Socinianism.

So he was active in his confrontation of doctrinal infidelity. He wrote against deism. He wrote against Socinianism. He wrote against the sort of the non-evangelicalism of the Latitudinarians in the Anglican church.

He exposed the anti-supernatural implications of the moralism of the times that was beginning to become dominant within Congregationalism and Anglicanism. He was very careful in his exposition of the doctrines of sin, original sin, the necessity of condemnation because of sin, the corruption of sin, and the absolute necessity of divine grace to rescue us from not only the ravages of sin in our lives, but the eternal condemnation that came from it.

He talked about the necessity and the certain efficacy of grace. And then on top of that, he argued for the absoluteness of the gospel in a relativistic age. He did not give in to relativism and to the Latitudinarianism and the moralism, but maintained the necessity of moral transformation in order to bring about saving faith in Christ.

Also in his preaching, this is something that I think is necessary for us to know, that he addressed the same message both to those who could be considered as sensible sinners and those who might be considered as not sensible sinners, both the cold and the unregenerate, as well as those who appeared to be under conviction.

He would address the same message and he would address the same certainties of salvation for those who exhibited faith in Jesus Christ. During the time of the evangelical awakening in England, he approved much of it as to what he could.

He approved the preaching of Whitefield, the theology of Whitefield. In fact, there are some ways in which Whitefield might have been more radical than Gill in his affirmation of the absolute deadness of the sinner and the fact that the sinner cannot be responsive to the preaching of the gospel.

But Gill was approving of Whitefield and his message, and there are some aspects of Wesley that he approved, even though he engaged Wesley very rigorously on some of the mistakes that he thought Wesley made.

He also answered the questions of Baptists in New England. When Baptists began to experience awakening in New England, they were beginning to be repressed. They wrote to John Gill to give some statements about the nature of Baptist life and theology and so forth.

And so he responded to that in order that they could defend themselves against the accusations of some who did not like the idea that Baptists were growing in New England during this awakening. So there are many things that I think we can thank John Gill for during this 18th century that was so devastating in its critique of supernatural Christianity and particularly of Calvinistic thought.

And do you want to perhaps give a working definition of hyper-Calvinism and also, in doing so, not only tell us what it is, but tell us what it is not? Because, as you know, there are a multitude of Christians, including many Baptists, that would call you and I hyper-Calvinists just because we're Calvinists, just because we believe in the five points.

All Calvinism is hyper. I mean, there are some, even today, that are coming out with books and are making critiques which they think that Calvinism as a system always implies some degree of hyper-Calvinism.

But hyper-Calvinism is a very distinct system. It has identifying characteristics that are not consistent with historic Calvinism. So one of the things that I think needs to be seen in defining hyper-Calvinism has to do with their understanding of the relationship between the powers, the spiritual and moral powers present in man in his unfallen condition and the powers that are present in the fallen condition, that which he is called upon to do in the unfallen condition as related to what he is called upon to do in the fallen condition.

So in the unfallen condition, Adam and Eve, and particularly Adam, because Adam was the federal head of the race, as well as the moral head of the race, Adam was called upon to obey the command. He was given by God's providence the ability to obey the command, but he also was fallible and he could disobey the command.

But his relationship to God and his moving to a state of invincible morality or invincible security in his relationship with God was to be dependent upon his obedience to the law. He did not have any powers to exhibit special gracious belief.

He did not have any powers to repent of sin because he was not a sinner. He did not have powers to believe in the saving efficacy of Christ because it was unnecessary for him to believe in the saving efficacy of Christ.

All those things that were unnecessary for him in his unfallen condition were therefore not to be required of him in the fallen condition. So, since Adam did not have powers to believe savingly in the atoning work of Christ or to repent savingly of sin because he was not a sinner, these are not obligations then that come upon him once he is fallen.

He is not required to have more powers than he actually had in the unfallen condition. So there's a sense in which the Hyper-Calvinists were seeking to present a theodicy, a justification of God in not condemning the unregenerate for their lack of faith in Christ.

The fact that they do not believe is not a part of their condemnation and they cannot be called upon to exhibit belief because they have no power to do it. So, the theological foundation of Hyper-Calvinism has to do with the powers of man in the unfallen condition compared with the requirements placed upon a gospel preaching, those calls in gospel preaching for, and those assurances given in gospel preaching for salvation to those who will believe and repent of their sin and believe in Christ.

Those are impossibilities in the fallen condition and they were never powers that Adam had in his unfallen condition. Therefore, they are not requirements now. So that is the fundamental principle of Hyper-Calvinism.

The thing that we have that is sort of an unusual juxtaposition of ideas is that both Arminianism and Hyper-Calvinism have the same assumptions. The assumption they have is that that which a man has no ability to do, he is not required to do.

So, the Hyper-Calvinist says, man has no ability to believe in Christ and therefore he is not required to believe in Christ. The Arminian says, if man has no ability to believe in Christ, then he has no power to believe in Christ, therefore he has no obligation to believe in Christ.

Therefore, since man is required to believe in Christ, he does have the power to believe in Christ. So the Hyper-Calvinist says, no power, no obligation. The Arminian agrees, no power, no obligation.

But he does have obligation, therefore he does have power. So those, they share that assumption of no power, no obligation, but they come out in entirely different places in it. Another characteristic of Hyper-Calvinism is that only those are required to repent of sin and believe in Christ who are sensible that they are the elect of God.

They become sensible by special operation of the Holy Spirit that Christ has died for them. And once they understand that through some sort of, I suppose, special revelatory work of the Holy Spirit upon their consciences and in their affections that they are the elect of God, then it becomes their obligation to believe in Christ and only then.

If a minister of the gospel is aware, somehow is sensibly aware that a person is the elect of God, then he may call upon that person in that moment to believe in Christ because then it becomes his obligation because then he has the power.

Gale does not fit in any of those categories. He does not fit in the category of thinking that the obligations of the unfallen man in Adam did not include those same requirements of repentance and faith that we now have under the gospel.

Although he used the term sensible sinner, he did not believe that sensible meant that a person had become aware by special revelation that he was of the elect of God. But by sensible, he meant a person was under deep conviction and aware of his sinfulness and the necessity that he has of a saving action of God upon his life and his awareness that if he will go to Christ, Christ will receive him.

So, there are contextual reasons that Gale is called a hyper-Calvinist, and there are some vocabulary that he uses, leads people to say that. But I think that a careful reading of his commentaries and of his sermons and of his body of divinity would convince a person that he does not meet the criteria of hyper-Calvinism.

Well, we have to go to our first commercial break. And if anybody would like to join us on the air with a question about John Gale, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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Questions on Spurgeon, Assurance, and Hyper-Calvinist Variants

We have a question for you, Dr. Nettles, from Jake in Middleburg, Florida. And Jake wants to know, I seem to recall having read somewhere that Charles Haddon Spurgeon referred to John Gill, his predecessor, as a high Calvinist.

Did that mean that Spurgeon believed that John Gill was a hyper-Calvinist, or is that just another way of saying a strong.

And committed Calvinist? Okay, high Calvinism. I don't think that Spurgeon meant that Gill was a hyper-Calvinist. High Calvinism means one thing that, as Chris has already indicated, that he's a person that is theologically and systematically committed to the five points of Calvinism and puts them together in a very coherent way, and he uses that as the means for his exegesis.

He would see his theological system, his confessional system, as something that governs the exegesis of many passages. Spurgeon was a strong Calvinist, but he was willing to say things like you can't let your confession govern the plain meaning of Scripture.

There are some times when we need to recognize that we simply might not know the meaning of a text of Scripture, and whether you're a Wesleyan or a Calvinist, sometimes you need to let a Scripture just say what it says and realize that you cannot tie up all the loose ends in it.

And so I think by high Calvinist, he did not mean hyper-Calvinist. I think Spurgeon understood clearly what hyper-Calvinism was, because he was assaulted by the hyper-Calvinists of his own day, simply because he had such success evangelistically.

And he read their writings, he knew what they believed, he knew their understanding of the obligations or the lack of obligation of people to exhibit repentance and faith, but he did not think that Gil fit within that category.

So that would just be my opinion at this particular point, that when Spurgeon calls Gil a high Calvinist, he's not saying that he is the same order as those hyper-Calvinists that opposed Gil. Now, did Spurgeon, with any frequency,.

Quote Gil favorably and refer to him? Oh, yes.

He recommended the writings of Gil, he recommended his commentary, he recommended his his body of doctrinal divinity. He was very, very high on John Gil. He recognized that there were people who considered him as somewhat responsible for the decline of particular Baptists in the 18th century, but Spurgeon did not share that kind of attitude or that opinion.

And he was quite clear that he was willing to advocate Gil's body of divinity. In fact, at the opening of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, one of his first words were, one of our former pastors has left an admirable body of divinity, which it would be well for us to resurrect and to understand and so forth.

And he talks about it some. He said, however, I want to declare to you that our body of divinity is Christ, his person and his work, and that alone. So he was just trying to emphasize the Christ-centeredness of his ministry there at the Metropolitan Tabernacle.

But he was not putting John Gil down for having a body of divinity. He calls it admirable and he recommends that people read it and understand it.

Well, great, excellent answer. By the way, Jake, you have won, by virtue of your question today, a free copy of an exposition of the gospel according to John by John Gil, reprinted by Particular Baptist Press.

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We need your full mailing address. So thank you very much for the excellent question. We have RJ in White Plains, New York, and he says, over the years I have gotten to know a number of Christians who are in the Netherlands Reformed denomination, and they seem to have a peculiar teaching that sounded very similar to what you were describing before about people not having the confidence that they are of the elect until they have some kind of supernatural extra-biblical revelation of this.

Have you ever heard of this?

Yes. As a matter of fact, I have heard of this, and that is a very strong confessional Calvinistic group. There are Netherlands Reformed people even here in the United States, and one of the things that is remarkable about them is this particular view of assurance, that a person can never have assurance in this life unless it comes by means of some sort of special revelation.

I might be speaking out of turn here. I'm not sure. I think that Joel Beakey was in the Netherlands Reformed group.

Yes, he was. I've known Joel since the 1990s, and that is indeed the case. In fact, when I first became acquainted with Joel and was trying to sell him radio time for his own program on WMCA Radio, 570 AM in New York, where I used to work as an account executive, Joel wanted to purchase airtime to have his own program, but the denomination would not allow him to because they didn't believe in using radio.

I think they viewed it as an Arminian tactic to do that because it's not specifically mentioned in the Bible, obviously. It wouldn't be since the radio wasn't invented until a millennia later. But yes, and he left there and started the Heritage Netherlands Reformed Church, which is today known merely as the Heritage Reformed Congregations, and he actually wrote his doctoral dissertation on assurance because of the fact that that was a troubling time in his life with the Netherlands Reformed Church when he realized that they were robbing the people of God the assurance that they should be rejoicing in.

Yes, absolutely. I'm glad that you know all that background because that was what I had learned. Of course, I've heard Joel Beakey preach many times. He is a strong confessional Calvinist, but he does not have those distinguishing traits of hyper-Calvinism, and he believes that the biblical doctrine of assurance is set forth for us very clearly in Scripture that we can be assured that the apostle John wrote in 1 John, these things I've written unto you that you may know that you have eternal life.

So if an apostle wrote evidences by which we could know that we have eternal life, then this means that apostolic theology and apostolic revelation affirms that assurance is possible, and it's possible on the basis of those particular signs that John wrote about.

And so I think just that sort of simple biblicism convinced Joel that the whole idea that you could not have assurance was not theologically sound, nor was it sound from a standpoint of biblical exposition.

Now, this doesn't mean that Netherland Reformed people are to be shunned and to be rejected and all. They're pious and they preach the gospel and so forth, but there's just that little quirk, and I think that they also hold to some of the distinguishing traits of hyper-Calvinism.

And it would be so that a person not only for assurance needs to have some sort of revelation, but in order to have the right to believe, the obligation to believe, they need to have a revelation that they are included in God's elect.

Yeah, I've even heard that you could have a Netherlands Reformed church in areas where they have congregations that are really large, because they're not obviously a dominant presence in the United States, but in those areas like Michigan and other places where you might have a church with over 1 ,000 people, you could have a Lord's Supper celebration where only a small handful of people receive the supper, because everybody else doesn't have the confidence that they're even saved or of the elect.