Theology 201 #4: Predestination

 “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