Journal: Southern Baptist Journal of Theology
Volume: SBJT 25:1 (Spring 2021)
Article: John Gill And The Charge Of Hyper-Calvinism: Assessing Contemporary Arguments In Defense Of Gill In Light Of Gill’s Doctrine Of Eternal Justification
Author: David Mark Rathel

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John Gill And The Charge Of Hyper-Calvinism: Assessing Contemporary Arguments In Defense Of Gill In Light Of Gill’s Doctrine Of Eternal Justification

David Mark Rathel

David Mark Rathel is Associate Professor of Christian Theology at Gateway Seminary in California. He earned his PhD from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Dr. Rathel is the author of Baptists and the Emerging Church Movement (Wipf & Stock, 2014). He has contributed chapters in The Miscellanies Companion ( Jesociety Press, 2018), and has written articles in Journal of Reformed Theology and Baptist Quarterly. He is the co-chair of the “Evangelicalism in the Long Eighteenth Century Consultation” for the Evangelical Theological Society. He is married to April and they have one daughter.

For Baptists, John Gill has great historical significance.1 He pastored a church meeting at Goat Yard, Horsleydown, in Southwark, and this meeting later became the Metropolitan Tabernacle famously led by Charles Spurgeon. Gill was the first Baptist to write a commentary on every book of the Bible and the first Baptist to compose a comprehensive systematic theology. Both his pastoral work and extensive writing ministry allowed him to exercise considerable

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influence among Particular Baptists during the eighteenth century.2

Though recognizing Gill’s importance, historians disagree over the nature of his theology. Some consider him a hyper-Calvinist who did not offer the Gospel freely and who denied duty faith, that is, the belief that all sinners have a duty to respond positively to the Gospel. Others defend him from this charge and present him as a model evangelical pastor.3 Debate over Gill’s theology has even appeared in the pages of Baptist Quarterly and, given Gill’s significance, remains an important issue in the study of Baptist history.4

Much of this disagreement originates from the fact that historians have rarely examined Gill on his own terms. Arguments that portray him as a hyper-Calvinist rely often on guilt by association, incorrect claims about his theological convictions, or preconceived understandings of what constitutes genuine Calvinism.5 As I will demonstrate, arguments offered in defense of Gill fare little better. They often fail to interpret Gill’s soteriology accurately.

Students of Baptist history should seek to discern ...