The Canons of Dordt
The Decision of the Synod of Dordt on the
Five Main Points of Doctrine in Dispute in the Netherlands is popularly
known as the Canons of Dordt. It consists of statements of doctrine
adopted by the great Synod of Dordt which met in the city of Dordrecht
in 1618-19. Although this was a national synod of the Reformed churches
of the Netherlands, it had an international character, since it was
composed not only of Dutch delegates but also of twenty-six delegates
from eight foreign countries.
The Synod of Dordt was held in order to
settle a serious controversy in the Dutch churches initiated by the rise
of Arminianism. Jacob Arminius, a theological professor at Leiden
University, questioned the teaching of Calvin and his followers on a
number of important points. After Arminius's death, his own followers
presented their views on five of these points in the Remonstrance of
1610. In this document or in later more explicit writings, the Arminians
taught election based on foreseen faith, universal atonement, partial
depravity, resistible grace, and the possibility of a lapse from grace.
In the Canons the Synod of Dordt rejected these views and set forth the
Reformed doctrine on these points, namely, unconditional election,
limited atonement, total depravity, irresistible grace, and the
perseverance of saints.
The Canons of Dordt
Formally Titled
The Decision of the Synod of Dordt on the Five
Main Points of Doctrine in Dispute in the Netherlands
The First Main Point of Doctrine
Divine Election and Reprobation
The Judgment Concerning Divine Predestination
Which the Synod Declares to Be in Agreement with the Word of God
and Accepted Till Now in the Reformed Churches,
Set Forth in Several Articles
Article 1: God's Right to Condemn All
People
Since all people have sinned in Adam and
have come under the sentence of the curse and eternal death, God would
have done no one an injustice if it had been his will to leave the
entire human race in sin and under the curse, and to condemn them on
account of their sin. As the apostle says: The whole world is liable to
the condemnation of God (Rom. 3:19), All have sinned and are deprived of
the glory of God (Rom. 3:23), and The wages of sin is death (Rom.
6:23).*
--*All quotations from Scripture are
translations of the original Latin manuscript.--
Article 2: The Manifestation of God's
Love
But this is how God showed his love: he
sent his only begotten Son into the world, so that whoever believes in
him should not perish but have eternal life.
Article 3: The Preaching of the Gospel
In order that people may be brought to
faith, God mercifully sends proclaimers of this very joyful message to
the people he wishes and at the time he wishes. By this ministry people
are called to repentance and faith in Christ crucified. For how shall
they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear
without someone preaching? And how shall they preach unless they have
been sent? (Rom. 10:14-15).
Article 4: A Twofold Response to the
Gospel
God's anger remains on those who do not
believe this gospel. But those who do accept it and embrace Jesus the
Savior with a true and living faith are delivered through him from God's
anger and from destruction, and receive the gift of eternal life.
Article 5: The Sources of Unbelief and
of Faith
The cause or blame for this unbelief, as
well as for all other sins, is not at all in God, but in man. Faith in
Jesus Christ, however, and salvation through him is a free gift of God.
As Scripture says, It is by grace you have been saved, through faith,
and this not from yourselves; it is a gift of God (Eph. 2:8). Likewise:
It has been freely given to you to believe in Christ (Phil. 1:29).
Article 6: God's Eternal Decision
The fact that some receive from God the
gift of faith within time, and that others do not, stems from his
eternal decision. For all his works are known to God from eternity (Acts
15:18; Eph. 1:11). In accordance with this decision he graciously
softens the hearts, however hard, of his chosen ones and inclines them
to believe, but by his just judgment he leaves in their wickedness and
hardness of heart those who have not been chosen. And in this especially
is disclosed to us his act--unfathomable, and as merciful as it is
just--of distinguishing between people equally lost. This is the
well-known decision of election and reprobation revealed in God's Word.
This decision the wicked, impure, and unstable distort to their own
ruin, but it provides holy and godly souls with comfort beyond words.
Article 7: Election
Election [or choosing] is God's
unchangeable purpose by which he did the following:
Before the foundation of the world, by
sheer grace, according to the free good pleasure of his will, he chose
in Christ to salvation a definite number of particular people out of the
entire human race, which had fallen by its own fault from its original
innocence into sin and ruin. Those chosen were neither better nor more
deserving than the others, but lay with them in the common misery. He
did this in Christ, whom he also appointed from eternity to be the
mediator, the head of all those chosen, and the foundation of their
salvation. And so he decided to give the chosen ones to Christ to be
saved, and to call and draw them effectively into Christ's fellowship
through his Word and Spirit. In other words, he decided to grant them
true faith in Christ, to justify them, to sanctify them, and finally,
after powerfully preserving them in the fellowship of his Son, to
glorify them.
God did all this in order to demonstrate
his mercy, to the praise of the riches of his glorious grace.
As Scripture says, God chose us in
Christ, before the foundation of the world, so that we should be holy
and blameless before him with love; he predestined us whom he adopted as
his children through Jesus Christ, in himself, according to the good
pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, by which he
freely made us pleasing to himself in his beloved (Eph. 1:4-6). And
elsewhere, Those whom he predestined, he also called; and those whom he
called, he also justified; and those whom he justified, he also
glorified (Rom. 8:30).
Article 8: A Single Decision of Election
This election is not of many kinds; it is
one and the same election for all who were to be saved in the Old and
the New Testament. For Scripture declares that there is a single good
pleasure, purpose, and plan of God's will, by which he chose us from
eternity both to grace and to glory, both to salvation and to the way of
salvation, which he prepared in advance for us to walk in.
Article 9: Election Not Based on
Foreseen Faith
This same election took place, not on the
basis of foreseen faith, of the obedience of faith, of holiness, or of
any other good quality and disposition, as though it were based on a
prerequisite cause or condition in the person to be chosen, but rather
for the purpose of faith, of the obedience of faith, of holiness, and so
on. Accordingly, election is the source of each of the benefits of
salvation. Faith, holiness, and the other saving gifts, and at last
eternal life itself, flow forth from election as its fruits and effects.
As the apostle says, He chose us (not because we were, but) so that we
should be holy and blameless before him in love (Eph. 1:4).
Article 10: Election Based on God's Good
Pleasure
But the cause of this undeserved election
is exclusively the good pleasure of God. This does not involve his
choosing certain human qualities or actions from among all those
possible as a condition of salvation, but rather involves his adopting
certain particular persons from among the common mass of sinners as his
own possession. As Scripture says, When the children were not yet born,
and had done nothing either good or bad..., she (Rebecca) was told, "The
older will serve the younger." As it is written, "Jacob I loved, but
Esau I hated" (Rom. 9:11-13). Also, All who were appointed for eternal
life believed (Acts 13:48).
Article 11: Election Unchangeable
Just as God himself is most wise,
unchangeable, all-knowing, and almighty, so the election made by him can
neither be suspended nor altered, revoked, or annulled; neither can his
chosen ones be cast off, nor their number reduced.
Article 12: The Assurance of Election
Assurance of this their eternal and
unchangeable election to salvation is given to the chosen in due time,
though by various stages and in differing measure. Such assurance comes
not by inquisitive searching into the hidden and deep things of God, but
by noticing within themselves, with spiritual joy and holy delight, the
unmistakable fruits of election pointed out in God's Word-- such as a
true faith in Christ, a childlike fear of God, a godly sorrow for their
sins, a hunger and thirst for righteousness, and so on.
Article 13: The Fruit of This Assurance
In their awareness and assurance of this
election God's children daily find greater cause to humble themselves
before God, to adore the fathomless depth of his mercies, to cleanse
themselves, and to give fervent love in return to him who first so
greatly loved them. This is far from saying that this teaching
concerning election, and reflection upon it, make God's children lax in
observing his commandments or carnally self-assured. By God's just
judgment this does usually happen to those who casually take for granted
the grace of election or engage in idle and brazen talk about it but are
unwilling to walk in the ways of the chosen.
Article 14: Teaching Election Properly
Just as, by God's wise plan, this
teaching concerning divine election has been proclaimed through the
prophets, Christ himself, and the apostles, in Old and New Testament
times, and has subsequently been committed to writing in the Holy
Scriptures, so also today in God's church, for which it was specifically
intended, this teaching must be set forth--with a spirit of discretion,
in a godly and holy manner, at the appropriate time and place, without
inquisitive searching into the ways of the Most High. This must be done
for the glory of God's most holy name, and for the lively comfort of his
people.
Article 15: Reprobation
Moreover, Holy Scripture most especially
highlights this eternal and undeserved grace of our election and brings
it out more clearly for us, in that it further bears witness that not
all people have been chosen but that some have not been chosen or have
been passed by in God's eternal election-- those, that is, concerning
whom God, on the basis of his entirely free, most just, irreproachable,
and unchangeable good pleasure, made the following decision: to leave
them in the common misery into which, by their own fault, they have
plunged themselves; not to grant them saving faith and the grace of
conversion; but finally to condemn and eternally punish them (having
been left in their own ways and under his just judgment), not only for
their unbelief but also for all their other sins, in order to display
his justice. And this is the decision of reprobation, which does not at
all make God the author of sin (a blasphemous thought!) but rather its
fearful, irreproachable, just judge and avenger.
Article 16: Responses to the Teaching of
Reprobation
Those who do not yet actively experience
within themselves a living faith in Christ or an assured confidence of
heart, peace of conscience, a zeal for childlike obedience, and a
glorying in God through Christ, but who nevertheless use the means by
which God has promised to work these things in us--such people ought not
to be alarmed at the mention of reprobation, nor to count themselves
among the reprobate; rather they ought to continue diligently in the use
of the means, to desire fervently a time of more abundant grace, and to
wait for it in reverence and humility. On the other hand, those who
seriously desire to turn to God, to be pleasing to him alone, and to be
delivered from the body of death, but are not yet able to make such
progress along the way of godliness and faith as they would like--such
people ought much less to stand in fear of the teaching concerning
reprobation, since our merciful God has promised that he will not snuff
out a smoldering wick and that he will not break a bruised reed.
However, those who have forgotten God and their Savior Jesus Christ and
have abandoned themselves wholly to the cares of the world and the
pleasures of the flesh--such people have every reason to stand in fear
of this teaching, as long as they do not seriously turn to God.
Article 17: The Salvation of the Infants
of Believers
Since we must make judgments about God's
will from his Word, which testifies that the children of believers are
holy, not by nature but by virtue of the gracious covenant in which they
together with their parents are included, godly parents ought not to
doubt the election and salvation of their children whom God calls out of
this life in infancy.
Article 18: The Proper Attitude Toward
Election and Reprobation
To those who complain about this grace of
an undeserved election and about the severity of a just reprobation, we
reply with the words of the apostle, Who are you, O man, to talk back to
God? (Rom. 9:20), and with the words of our Savior, Have I no right to
do what I want with my own? (Matt. 20:15). We, however, with reverent
adoration of these secret things, cry out with the apostle: Oh, the
depths of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How
unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways beyond tracing out! For who
has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Or who
has first given to God, that God should repay him? For from him and
through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen
(Rom. 11:33-36).
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