“And we know that
in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been
called according to His purpose. For those God foreknew He also predestined to
be conformed to the likeness of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among
many brothers. And those He predestined, He also called; those He called, He
also justified; those He justified, he also glorified” (Rom. 8:28-30).
Over the past several months we have considered the
theological debate between Calvinism and Arminianism. If you will recall, these
are two systems of theology that attempt to explain the relationship between
God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility in the matter of salvation. Having
an understanding of this theological debate makes a huge difference in how a
Christian understands God, how to view salvation, and how a Christian is to
live/serve the Lord. Thus, it is a vitally important topic to consider in spite
of the depth that it requires to understand and how it can create lines of
debate with other people.
Having considered the basic positions of both sides, this
month we will take a closer look at a topic that is vitally important when
understanding both sides: predestination. Some will wrongly assume that only
Calvinists believe in predestination. Yet the reality is that both sides do, it
is just that there is some fundamental differences as to what predestination
entails.
For the Calvinist, predestination means nothing happens
apart from God’s predetermined will which was decreed from eternity past, and
man can do only that which has been decreed. This includes the subject of
salvation. Only those whom God foreordained to salvation can be saved;
furthermore, they will, and must, be saved.
Additionally, for some Calvinists, they believe that God
decrees/chooses both who will be saved and who will be damned; this is known as
double-predestination. Other Calvinists believe that God chooses only those who
will be saved, yet does not choose those who will go to hell,
single-predestination. Some who are in this latter camp basically explain it as
God allowing non-believers to have their own way. And by giving people over to
their own sinful desires will ultimately lead to their own damnation.
While I can grasp why many would want to adhere to
single-predestination, for to believe in double predestination would mean that
God is choosing some people to go to hell and regardless of how those
individuals live, they have no hope of changing their eternal destiny; they are
doomed to destruction. Yet logically if a person is not predetermined by God to
go to heaven, then by default they are predetermined to go to hell by God for
God knows what the end result will be of Him not choosing them to go to heaven.
Thus, single predestination sounds good, but it is not logical. So the only
logical position for the Calvinist is to believe that God predetermined who
would go to heaven and who would go to hell, double-predestination.
Robin Parry who was a Calvinist, and since has become a
Unitarian (believing that everyone will go to heaven—a teaching that is
completely unbiblical) expressed his struggles that led him away from
Christianity which all stemmed from his upbringing in Calvinism. Parry wrestled
with doctrines of eternity in hell in relation to God's ability to choose who will
and won't be saved. “Could I love a God who could rescue everyone but chose not
to?... I sang and prayed; but it felt hollow and so I stopped. I no longer
loved God, because He seemed diminished. I cannot express how deeply
distressing this was for me — perhaps the most anguishing period of reflection
on my faith I have ever experienced”- (Gregory MacDonald, The
Evangelical Universalist, p. 3).
For Parry the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination was
more than he could bear; eventually this lead him to not only reject Calvinism,
but also Biblical Christianity. Now, I am not asserting that this is a natural
result of Calvinistic predestination, yet even still there is a great danger
that exists here. I have had friends who attended Calvinistic teaching
churches, who, once they understood these things, experienced great depression
because they thought of loved ones who appeared to not be a part of the elect,
and knew that according to Calvinistic doctrines, that loved one had no hope of
ever being saved. Thus, I have seen firsthand people who wrestled with walking
away from the true faith on account of the Calvinistic doctrine of
predestination.
However, praise God, as one carefully examines the passages
that Calvinists claim teach their false understanding of predestination, one
realizes that that is not what the Bible is actually teaching. The clearest
passage that reveals this is the one that I began this article with Romans
8:28-30. Romans 8:28 promises that God works all things out for the good of
those who love God, who have been called according to His purpose. Consider the
following questions. Do you love God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and
strength (Mark 12:30)? Are you presenting yourself to the God you claim to
love? If you do, then Romans 6:13 teaches that by God’s help you are no longer
allowing yourself to be enslaved to sin. Rather, you have been set free to live
for God, and to live eternally (Rom. 6:22). If you claim to love God, can you
honestly say that you are following the Spirit’s leading, and that your
thoughts are fixed on the things above (Rom. 8:5-14)?
If you answered positively to these three questions then
the next phrase is true for you as well, you have been called according to
God’s purpose. In this there is no doubt that you have accepted the invitation
to salvation. 2 Thessalonians 2:14 says, “He (God) called you to this through
our gospel, that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Therefore, God’s promises to overrule even the worst of circumstances in your
life and make them turn out for your good holds true. Furthermore, this reveals
that you are a part of those who God foreknew and predestined to be conformed
to the likeness of His Son, which are talked about in the very next verse (Rom.
8:29).
The fact is that predestination does not precede foreknowledge,
and foreknowledge is based on those who love God as the context teaches. God
knew from eternity past those who would love Him. And based on that
foreknowledge, God predestined those individuals ultimately to a future
glorification (Rom. 8:30).
Another critical passage for understanding predestination
is Ephesians 1:1-14. In verse 1 Paul states that this letter is to the
saints—the individuals who are faithful in Christ Jesus (all Christians are
saints according to Scripture. See http://eugenechristianchurch.blogspot.com/20
14/02/the-blessed-life-2-sainthood.html). Then after having set the context of
speaking to people who are already Christians—people who are already “in
Christ,” Paul talks about how “He chose us in Him before the creation of
the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love He predestined us to
be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ...” (Eph. 1:4-5).
The way that a person gets “in Him” or “in Christ” is
through faith. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this
not from yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Eph. 2:8). At this point, Calvinists
often teach that faith is the gift of God which is being referenced here.
However, the Greek in this verse makes that an impossibility. Greek has a
gender structure to it. So in the Greek the word “gift” is neuter, while the
word “faith” is feminine. Thus, the gift is not referring to faith; rather it
is referring to the only other neuter noun in this sentence, salvation.
Therefore, salvation is the gift, not the faith by which it takes to acquire
the gift of salvation. Thus through the gift of salvation, we are placed “in
Him.”
The most important thing to understand about Biblical
predestination is not so much about how to become a Christian as it is to help
believers to understand that God has a plan to assist you in crossing the
finish line. This can be seen in every single passage that mentions
predestination (Acts 4:27-28; Rom. 8:28-39, 1 Cor. 2:7-9; Eph. 1:1-14). Ben
Witherington explains it like this. “In Christ (we) have a glorious destiny,
and, Paul will go on to stress, no outside power, circumstance, degree of
suffering, or temptation can rip them out of the firm grip that God has on
their lives. He is working things together for good in every stage of the
salvation process. The end or destiny of believers is to become fully
Christ-like, even in their bodily form. Paul has just said that the believer’s
hope is the redemption of his or her body, and here he explains how God will be
working to get the believer to that goal. In Paul’s use, “foreknow” and
“predestine” “do not refer in the first instance to some limitation on our
freedom, nor do they refer to some arbitrary decision by God that some creatures
are to be denied all chance at salvation. They simply point to the fact God
knows the end to which He will bring His creation, namely redemption, and that
the destiny is firmly set in His purposes…In that sense Paul can speak of
‘pre-destination.’ It means, just as the word says, that the destiny has
already been set; and that destiny is the final redemptive transformation of
reality” (Paul's Letter to the Romans: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary,
pgs. 228-229). Thus, predestination is really about the certainty that
believers have regardless of what storms and struggles that we are going
through that God truly does work all things out for our good.
More of Him, less of me,
Matt
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