What About Predestination?
Ephesians 1:11
And, it is a subject that has come up in our discussions several times lately. As I was preparing for our time together today, it seemed as though God was prodding me to delve into this in order to help settle the confusion and put your hearts at ease.
What is predestination and what does mean? What about free will?
Predestination is a doctrine of the Bible the misunderstanding of which has caused a great deal of confusion and even severe divisiveness within Christendom for centuries.
Some might call me foolish; others might call me presumptuous to think that I can decipher this matter where so many have been at such odds for so long.
My response is simply this: any doctrine addressed by God in His Word so frequently and in so many different contexts is intended by Him to be understood – within the limits of our human capabilities – by His children.
Predestination is the doctrine that God alone chooses (elects) who is saved. He makes His choice independent of any quality or condition in sinful mankind. He does not look into a person and recognize something good nor does He look into the future to see who would choose Him.
He elects people to salvation purely on the basis of His good pleasure. Those not elected are not saved. He does this because He is sovereign. What that means is, that He has the absolute authority, the absolute right and the absolute power to do with His creation whatsoever He pleases. He has the right to elect some to salvation and let all the rest go their natural way: to hell. This is predestination.
Now for the protests of, "Unfair!" While it may seem that way at first, if you will bear with me for a little bit, you will see that the doctrine of predestination is actually a marvelous and gracious gift, not something to be rejected and spurned.
Let’s begin by looking at a couple of New Testament texts where the doctrine is spoken of clearly.
Turn with me if, you would, first to Ephesians 1:3-14, and then to Romans 8:29-30. Let’s read both of these passages and then we will discuss them.
In the passage in Ephesians 1, we have the longest sentence in all of Scripture. In the Greek, there is no punctuation – Paul strings every pearl together in one long strand, as if seeking to make sure that we do not dissect his thoughts into a bunch of little pieces.
Albert Barnes, the American theologian from the early 19th century, gives an extremely useful outline of this passage in his "Notes on the New Testament". Here is his outline:
(1) The doctrine of predestination, and its hearing and design, Ephesians 1:3-14.
(a) It is the foundation of praise to God, and is a source of gratitude, Ephesians 1:3.
(b) Christians have been chosen before the foundation of the world, Ephesians 1:4.
(c) The object was that they should be holy and blameless, Ephesians 1:4.
(d) They were predestinated to be the children of God, Ephesians 1:5.
(e) The cause of this was the good pleasure of God, or He did it according to the purpose of His will, Ephesians 1:5.
(f) The object of this was His own glory, Ephesians 1:6.
(2) The benefits of the plan of predestination to those who are thus chosen, Ephesians 1:7-14.
(a) They have redemption and the forgiveness of sins, Ephesians 1:7-8.
(b) They are made acquainted with the mystery of the divine will, Ephesians 1:9-10.
(c) They have obtained an inheritance in Christ, Ephesians 1:11.
(d) The object of this was the praise of the glory of God, Ephesians 1:12.
(e) As the result of this, or in the execution of this purpose, they were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, Ephesians 1:13-14.
I would like to focus for a moment on two verses: Ephesians 1:5, and Ephesians 1:11.
The word “predestined” literally means, “to limit beforehand”. What that translates to in the context we are discussing is “to decree beforehand; to ordain.” Predestination, then, is the unchangeable purpose of an unchangeable God.
Predestination is not strict determinism (the belief that everything, including every human act, is caused by something and that there is no real free will), which would mean that every detail of our lives is fixed, but rather the view that God has personally chosen (predestined) those who would believe in Christ for salvation.
There are two main schools of thought about this doctrine within Christianity: Calvinism and Arminianism
Calvinism holds that God determined before the creation of the world who would and who would not be saved and that no one has any say in the matter.
Arminianism is on the other end of the scale and holds that God knew before the creation of the world who would and who would not accept Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord and, from that knowledge, determined that those people would be saved or condemned, depending on what they would decide.
I believe that the doctrine of predestination agrees with and disagrees with both views.
The first objection to the Calvinist view focuses on the "conflict" between God’s sovereignty and man’s free will. I personally don’t see a conflict at all. I think God can be sovereign and fulfill His purposes even though we also have the ability to act freely within His will. One thing that allows these two seemingly disparate “wills” is God’s omniscience.
Let me use two examples to illustrate this point:
How many of you have been to a parade? Every hand is up, I see. Okay, then you will all be able to picture this quite easily. When you find your spot along the parade route, what you see most clearly in the parade is what is right in front of you, correct? You can somewhat remember what you have already seen and can get a glimpse of what is coming next, but the focus of your attention is what is right in front of you.
Now let’s say that you were to sit at the top of the reviewing stand. What would you be able to see? You would be able to see the float or the band or whatever parade element happened to be right in front of the reviewing stand. You would also be able to turn your head and see the last few elements that had already passed as well as the next few elements that were approaching
Let’s move up to the top of a ten-story building now. From one hundred feet in the air, you will be able to see a great deal more of what is coming and what has already passed, right?
Okay, now let’s put you in a helicopter and fly the helicopter up to one thousand feet above the parade route. Now you can see the assembly area, the entire parade route, the disbanding area, as well as the surrounding streets and other buildings. You can see the vehicles arriving at the point of assembly, as well as those that have loaded up and are leaving the disbanding area.
Starting to see the picture? God is outside of time – He always is, He always was, and He always will be. God’s perspective can be compared to Him being in the helicopter, while we, on the other hand, are limited by time and space. We are sitting along the parade route; only seeing what is right in front of us while the memory of what has already passed is fading more and more with every passing moment and have only a slight hint of what might be coming next.
The second example I want to use is, pretend, for a moment, that you are the town marshal of an old west town. A gang of bank robbers has robbed the bank and ridden away on horseback. You gather a posse and ride out after the gang.
Now let’s say that you know the terrain better than most and, from the direction the gang was traveling, you have a good idea where they are headed.
Now let’s give you omniscience – the total knowledge and foreknowledge that God has. That would mean that, not only do you know where the gang is at that very moment, you know where they are going to be at any given moment in the future.
You know every move and every decision that that gang is going to make – every free choice they will choose.
Armed with this knowledge, you send you posse in another direction and tell them where to wait for the gang to show up. They will be able to apprehend them before they have any idea the posse is even on to them.
Hopefully, this helps give you a little better understanding how the sovereignty of God interacts with the free will of man.
The Arminian objection to the total sovereignty of God is that, if God is sovereign and has already determined the course of every person’s life, then there is no free will.
This is kind thinking is severely flawed. God being in full control does not automatically result in free acts are not being possible. What matters, really, is the answer to the question, “How does God guarantee the outcomes He has predetermined?”
This illustration of the sheriff and posse chasing down the gang of bank robbers shows that God can be completely sovereign in His control of all final outcomes, yet human beings could still make free choices to some degree.
There are limits to our choices that God imposes, just as the warden in a prison imposes certain restrictions on the choices of the inmates. Even though they are in prison and have lost much of their freedom, they have not lost absolutely all of it. Within the confines of the prison, they have a certain amount of free choice.
In a similar fashion, I believe that there are many of our choices that are still made freely by us – the Bible is full of examples of the responsibility that every person has before God for the choices that they make. But God is still in control. He knows enough about our free choices to work out a plan that will encompass all our free choices and still accomplish His purposes.
There are some traditions that teach that God arbitrarily decides who He will forgive and not forgive. In other words, they teach that God randomly and without any real rhyme or reason has already chosen who will be saved and who will be condemned.
That is how they interpret the meaning of the phrase “the elect”, used several times by Jesus in the Gospels (Matthew 24; Mark 13; Luke 8). The derivative of that word we find translated as “chose” in Ephesians 1:4, and as “chosen” in several other places in the New Testament.
Here is the objection: If God is responsible for our salvation, then that must mean that we are simply glorified robots and that everything has already been completely predetermined for us by God.
Let’s carry this to its logical conclusion and we will see the error in this line of presumptive reasoning: "If God decides the issue of my salvation, then He decides everything. Either everything I do is free, or nothing I do is free. If God determines my salvation, then I really have no free will after all."
Of course, none of that necessarily follows because we are making a great many presumptions about several things. This is an all-or-nothing delusion. In counseling, we call this “splitting”.
Just because God determines one aspect of our lives based upon His mercy does not automatically mean that every aspect and area of our lives are simply parts of an arbitrary drama in which we are only players who have no idea how the script reads.
It does not necessarily follow that if God predestines one thing in our lives then nothing else in our lives is freely chosen. We can do all kinds of things freely.
For example, we freely choose the kind of attitude we are going to have. We freely choose whether or not we are going to sin when the opportunity presents itself. It is those two choices and choices like those that make us guilty before a holy God.
In response, God simply makes a choice Himself. He decides to exercise grace on our behalf and to allow us to partake of the mercy and forgiveness provided through the substitutionary life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. He chooses to credit our account with the righteousness of Christ and cancel out the debt of unrighteousness that we freely chose and freely committed.
If you owe me a huge debt – say, a million dollars – and I choose to completely forgive the debt and make the ledger show a zero balance on your side, have I violated your will?
To whom was the debt owed? It was owed to me. Therefore, I can choose to cancel the debt if I want. Granted, the fact that you do not have to work feverishly for the rest of your life in order to try and pay off that debt will give you a new-found freedom and allow you to make a lot of choices about what to do with the freed-up time you now have, so my choice does have an impact on your life.
But does that choice of mind create freedom or bondage in your life?
Granted, that freedom has some limitations to it, and here is where another objection comes in – if we don’t have total and complete freedom, then we don’t really have any freedom at all. Again, this is splitting.
You have the freedom to choose whether or not you are going to go to work or to take care of the responsibilities in your life. If you choose not to do those things, then your freedom is going to become even more limited because you will no longer have the resources to do the things you choose!
Here’s another objection people have to the doctrine of predestination from the Arminian side: If God exercises forgiveness for some and not for others, then God is “sending” people to hell. This conclusion is completely erroneous once again. Here’s why.
Let’s say that you commit a crime, get caught, go before a judge, are found guilty and are sentenced to time in prison. Now, why are you in prison? Because of the crime that you committed.
But now let’s say that you say over and over and over to anyone who will listen that the reason you are in prison is not because you committed a crime but because the governor did not grant you a pardon. If the governor had granted you a pardon, then you wouldn’t be in jail – it’s the governor’s fault that you are in prison, not your fault!
Does that line of thinking seem reasonable to you? Granted, the governor could grant you clemency and give you a full pardon and let you out of prison, but he is not required to do so. He can exercise mercy if he chooses – that is a right, a power and an authority he has because of the office that he holds, but it is not a requirement of that office.
This holds true for us in our relationship to God. Every one of us has broken God’s laws; every one of us is a criminal in God’s sight. The penalty for our crimes is imprisonment – in hell. If we go to hell, it will only be because we have broken His law and that is the due penalty for our crimes.
Those who are punished are not punished unjustly or unfairly. They are punished justly and fairly because they are guilty. Their punishment would only be unjust and unfair if they innocent instead of guilty.
That begs the question: If you think it is unfair and unjust for God to forgive some and not others, is it really fair and just for Him to forgive anyone at all?
1 John 1:9 helps us with this a bit. It tells us who it is that God forgives. It reads: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Remember that to confess is to be in complete agreement with God on the exact nature and character of our wrong and with the just penalty that is due. In order to do that, there has to be a change of heart in us – without that, there will be no confession forthcoming from us.
God can forgive whomever He wills. He is sovereign, and he can shed His mercy on whomever He chooses – that is His prerogative as God Almighty. Mercy is God’s unmerited cancellation of the punishment due us. And grace is the other side of that coin – grace is the unmerited giving of God’s favor and blessing to those who do not deserve it.
So, while God is the cause of people going to heaven, the cause for people going to hell is their own unrepented sin.
There’s another objection that comes up because of statements like the one Jesus makes in Matthew 23:37: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling," and when Peter writes that, "The Lord...is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9).
Verses like these beg the question: If these verses say that God wills all men to be saved, then how can we say that God only wills the elect to be saved?
The problem is that the Bible seems to indicate in these verses that God has a will for something that does not take place That just sets wrong, doesn’t it? How can the will of God be thwarted? Israel didn’t come to Jesus, even though it was His “will” that they did. And, not everyone is saved, even though Peter tells us that that is God’s “will”.
This seems to be in conflict with what the prophet Daniel tells in Daniel 4:35: "All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, But He does according to His will in the host of heaven And among the inhabitants of earth; And no one can ward off His hand Or say to Him, ’What have You done?’"
Doesn’t that verse seem to indicate that God accomplishes whatever He wills and that no one in the whole earth can thwart His plans. So, how do we reconcile that with the two passages in the New testament that we just looked at?
What it looks like is that we finally have a real, honest-to-goodness contradiction. Daniel says nothing can violate God’s will. Jesus and Peter, on the other hand, clearly seem to be saying exactly the opposite, that there is something that can thwart God’s will Since it is God will for all to be saved, then all should be saved. But not all are saved.
Doesn’t that mean then that God’s will really is not sovereign? How can it possibly be true that God’s will can be violated and can’t be violated at the same time? It sounds like a contradiction.
Whenever we think we have found a contradiction in the Bible, we have to keep in mind the law of non-contradiction. The law of non-contradiction states: "’A’ cannot be ‘A’ and non-‘A’ at the same time and in the same way." The only way these teachings are not contradictory is if God’s "will" is not the same will in one case as God’s "will" is in the other case. That is the only way to resolve this.
The words "God’s will" can mean two different things. Or, to put it another way, you can have different "wills" of God, or two aspects of the will of God. The simplest way to describe them is God’s moral will--what He morally desires, but doesn’t always cause to take place (like salvation for everyone)--and God’s sovereign will--described in Daniel 4 and other places--that which He purposes to take place and which always happens.
Two aspects of the will of God, or, two kinds of will: moral will and sovereign will. Moral will entails all those things God wants us to do yet we may disobey. God wants us to be saved, yet many are not. God wanted Israel to turn to Jesus, yet most did not.
God desires all kinds of things of His people. It is His will that those things happen, but they don’t always come to pass. So there is a sense in which God’s will can be violated.
On the other hand, there are aspects to God’s will that He determines will come to pass no matter what and they do. We see some of those details in the book of Exodus, the book of Daniel and in many other places – including the Gospel records of Christ’s crucifixion – and this is why Daniel makes the statement that God’s will, in this sense, cannot be violated.
Daniel’s statements and the statements of Jesus and Peter can only all be true if we’re talking about different aspects of God’s will. If not, then we have a contradiction.
Most theologians refer to this as the sovereign will and the moral will of God. One – His sovereign will – is that aspect of God’s will in which He leaves no room or opportunity for what He wills not to take place. The other, His moral will, is the desire of His heart but that which he does not cause to take place no matter what.
If you reject the idea that there are two aspects of God’s will – sovereign and moral –then either all of God’s will is moral, or all of God’s will is sovereign.
If you choose the former, that there is only one aspect of God’s will and that is the moral aspect that can be broken by our free choices, then you hold to the Arminian school of thought. That makes it difficult to see how Daniel’s statement can be true and that God can have ultimate and sovereign control over human history if our choice is the deciding factor.
The Arminians seek refuge in the fact of God’s omniscience, but God’s sovereignty entails more than just knowing in advance what we are going to choose.
On the other hand, if God’s will is only sovereign, then there can really be no true sin or immorality and, consequently, no just punishment for willful disobedience. That would mean that, from the Calvinist point of view, everything we do is something has already been foreordained and we have no real choice in the matter. We don’t choose to disobey His moral will; we’re just doing what God has already ordained that we would do. This would make God the direct author of evil.
That would necessitate that either God is not sovereign, or that God is the creator and cause of evil and there is no such thing as disobedience. These are unacceptable alternatives because the Scripture clearly teaches otherwise.
That brings us to the logical conclusion then that there are two different wills of God. There is His moral will and there is His sovereign will. That being the case, then this removes the objection that God cannot be sovereign and man have free will at one and the same time.
With a better understanding of Scripture, predestination is not the tyrannical doctrine that so many make it out to be. Predestination is really the manifestation of God’s grace, mercy and love. It ensures the salvation of the ones He has called. It properly reveals the true nature of man to be utterly sinful, rebellious, and antagonistic to God.
It puts God in total sovereign control, where He rightfully belongs and it removes man’s ability to take any credit at all for salvation, because even the act of believing could not be self-authored in a sinful free will.
And, finally, it reveals the greatness of God’s mercy and love and causes the saved to rest in the knowledge that it was God who made their salvation sure, and not their own faulty, sinful wills.
Let’s answer a few summary questions and wrap this up:
How does the doctrine of predestination fit in with a loving God?
Predestination is loving because, without the loving predestination of God (Ephesians 1:4, 5) no one would ever be saved; everyone would go to hell.
If God predestines us, and our sinful wills would never allow us to seek God, then wouldn’t God be violating the wills of those He calls?
Not at all. Just as it is not a violation of your will for me to decide to forgive the debt of a million dollars that you owe me, it is not a violation of people’s wills when He regenerates them and enables them to accept salvation.
Since God calls us (Romans 8:28-30), He first regenerates the nature of the person called. Since the person is then regenerate, with a new nature (2 Corinthians 5:17), he is then able to desire God. Therefore, God does not violate his will.
But some say that faith brings regeneration. Again, I ask: How can an unregenerate person have faith in true God? The answer is: He cannot. It is regeneration that brings faith, not faith that brings regeneration.
Does this mean that even if you wanted to be saved you couldn’t if you’re not predestined?
This question doesn’t reflect a proper understanding of the condition of man. The unsaved don’t want salvation or the true God, so they wouldn’t ever seek salvation. Also, anyone who truly desires salvation is only wanting it because the Lord is drawing him.
Doesn’t Romans 8:29 prove that God looked into the future and foreknew who would accept Him? “For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren."
There are two reasons why these verses cannot be used to support that idea. First, if you read the verse, there is a key word that is often missed: "also." The verse says that the ones foreknown are ALSO predestined. In other words, the same ones foreknown are the ones predestined. It does not say that He foreknew all and predestined some; otherwise it would say, "Of those He foreknew, some He predestined." It says He ALSO predestined those whom He foreknew. The foreknown are the group He has predestined to be saved.
Second, God only "knows" believers. He does not "know" unbelievers. Matthew 7:22-23 says, "Many will say to Me on that day, ’Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ’I NEVER KNEW YOU; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’"
John 10:27 says, "My sheep hear My voice, and I KNOW THEM, and they follow Me";
John 13:18 says, "I do not speak of all of you, I KNOW THE ONES I HAVE CHOSEN..."
Galatians 4:9 says, "But now that you have come to know God, or rather TO BE KNOWN by Him..."
And, 2 Timothy 2:19 says, "...The Lord KNOWS those who are His..."
These verses show a "knowing" that is related to salvation. Only Christians are "known." Only the foreKNOWN are predestined. God foreknew; that is, He foreloved His chosen ones and predestined them to salvation. God knows believers, hence the word "foreknown." Therefore, Rom. 8:29 doesn’t support the idea that God looked into the future to see who would pick Him because then God’s choice would depend upon Man’s choice and God would not be sovereign.
But it isn’t fair to only choose some.
Fairness demands that we all go to hell. ALL people deserve damnation (Ephesians 2:3). God would be perfectly just to let all slide into the eternal abyss of damnation – and that would not mean that He was not still a loving God, because God doesn’t owe us anything. The question isn’t "Why would He only choose SOME?” but rather, "Why did He choose ANY?"
There are a lot of other questions we could ask, but we would just start confusing the matter more – and that, I believe, has been the cause the strife and turmoil about this doctrine.
God knows and understands far beyond what we can know and understand ("For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways," declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9).”
He has given us His written Word to help us try and understand His nature and His character enough that we will love Him, obey Him, serve Him and worship Him.
If you know Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, then praise God that you have been awakened in your spirit to be able to respond to the Gospel and that you are truly saved.
If not, or if you know others who are not in that number, pray to God and ask Him to change those hearts. Ask Him to regenerate them, to awaken them so that they may exercise the choice He gives them to choose eternal life instead of the alternative – eternal condemnation and separation from His love and grace.
Let’s pray.
