Isaiah
Isaiah is brim-full of the message we seek. Chapter one deals with Israel and the heaping of judgments on her. Yet hidden beneath the surface is the promise of God that Israel must in the end be saved, for though the country is desolate, the cities are burned, strangers devour the land, and all the rest, still there is the "remnant." Why should not Israel have become like Sodom and Gomorrah? The promise, evidenced by the remnant. Israel has a future. The theme is throughout the prophets. God will keep His word when men do not keep theirs. Even if He has to write that word in their hearts.
Chapter 10 paints the picture of Assyria. Proud, blood-thirsty, ever-victorious, Assyria, who had been used to punish Israel, is not to be spared. Her annihilation is here foretold, followed by the continuing story of the "remnant", not of Assyria, but of Israel. You see what it is like to have God's love set upon you?
The remnant will return. The remnant will depend on the Lord. How does God know? He has decreed it, and will make it happen. That's how He knows everything...
"For the Lord of hosts has purposed, and who will annul it? His hand is stretched out, and who will turn it back?"
29:16 is the famed portrait of the potter, that Paul uses to show that we should never question God's ways. We'll deal with it in Romans.
Still have trouble believing in an "election"? Then behold, 42:1, Jesus, God's Servant in whom God delights, "My Elect One..." He then goes on to tell what His chosen One will do. These are the things in fact that God has decreed to do. Jesus did them. He only did what He saw the Father doing. And the Father only did what He said he would do, not just seven hundred years earlier in Isaiah, but before the worlds were formed. Here is Election in its perfect form. Why can we not believe that we too are elected as a part of this Grand Scheme of things?
Who can proclaim as God does (44:7)? No one.
Take Cyrus as another example. Isaiah tells of his election in chapter 45. Cyrus is appointed of God to subdue nations. For Cyrus' sake? No, "For Jacob My servant's sake and Israel my elect (4)." And for God's: "That they may know from the rising of the sun to its setting that there is none besides Me(6)..." Cyrus' life is laid out before him. In Cyrus's thinking, before God made these announcements, he was just wanting to rule the world, for his own purposes.
But God, Who knew his name, let him know that God's purposes were the ones he was really working toward.
God can take any of the evil that men do, even that you do, and use it for His glory.
From the Emperor to the animals of his creation God claims to be in charge. We need to hear it (46:9-11).
"...I am God, and there is no other...declaring the end from the beginning...saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure, calling a bird of prey from the east... indeed I have spoken it."
Emperors and eagles and everything in between, a part of God's plan. And you? "You who follow after righteousness (51:1), you who seek the Lord..." You were dug out of a rock, rescued out of a pit of your own making. Yes, you had free will. Free to sin and dishonor your Father. A freedom you inherited from Eden. But only that freedom. To do good you have no inclination or ability.
I mean, "Look to Abraham... (51:2) I called him alone and blessed him and increased him." Who was Abraham before the Lord revealed Himself to him? And who were you and who was I? But he chose us in Jesus just as surely as He chose Jesus, Cyrus, and that eagle.
Isaiah 53, perhaps the most important chapter of the entire Bible, brings us back to the Chosen Servant.
53:1. Only those to whom the arm of the Lord has been revealed, believe the report.
53:2-4. Israel, and with them the world, rejects this Elect one. Chosen of God but not of men.
53:5-7. Isaiah and his people and all the other elect. The ones for whom He was wounded. Oppressed. Slaughtered.
53:8-9. Unfair trial and burial with rich, all decreed beforehand.
53:10. Not the Jews and Romans and our sins... Ultimately it was the Lord Who bruised His own Son. Grace at its apex.
53:11. Jesus will justify many. Not all. You see the elect in this also.
53:12. The decree of the coming Kingdom.
No accidents. No surprises. All is going according to plan, even to this day! Appropriate time for a review lesson(55:11):
"So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it."
Jeremiah
Another prophet, another man totally known and pre-ordained and predestinated of God.
1:5, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you." More than that, "Before you were born I sanctified you; and I ordained you a prophet to the nations."
Then the attention turns to His people Israel. Backslidden. Idolatrous. Rebellious. And loved of God. The heart breaks to hear God's heart through Jeremiah.
In chapter 3 God spells out just how bad adultery is. Once the marriage vow has been broken, it is broken, right? But God says, still, "Return to Me." It's not an idle invitation that can be ignored. Not this one. First (vs 1, 14) it is "Return." But immediately after, the promise, the prophecy, the irresistible pull of God's Spirit wins:
"I will bring you to Zion...I will give you shepherds... Jerusalem shall be called the Throne of the Lord." All Israel will be saved, is how Paul put it. Backslidden, idolatrous, rebellious Israel. Eternally secure.
This is the promise to the nation, I understand. But is there not another nation God has been forming, to whom identical invitations and promises are made?
Things seem reversed in 7:27, where another decree of God establishes their hardness to Jeremiah's preaching, "You shall speak to them but they will not obey you." Here is Israel in process, but not final Israel. Here they test God's love, but God's love for this nation cannot fail their test.
You have tested God's love also?
Jeremiah 31:31 and following is the classic promise of the New Covenant. Now we shall see just how God will keep this Israel promise, and in the process, save a bunch of Gentiles too.
Are you a covenant keeper? Do you delight in God's Word and way? Your future was told here, and the reason for your love: God has written His law on your heart! That's why God is your God. That's why your sins will never be remembered again. It's as fixed, says God as the covenant God has made with the sun and stars. Eternal decrees keep them in place and this eternal decree will keep you in place too. (31:31-37)
Encouraging news, yes?
Equal to or if possible, even better, is 32:40. Here is promised an everlasting covenant. "I will not turn away from doing them good," says God. He will put His fear in their hearts, "so that they will not [as in will not ] depart from Me."
Puppets? Manipulation? Call it what you want. Call it eternal security if you like. Give it your best shot, but as for me, I like the odds of a covenant like that! And I believe that is the very covenant I have!
Lamentations
Two more statements of the great prophet Jeremiah are worthy of our notice: They are found in 2:17 and 3:22 of Lamentations:
"The Lord has done what He purposed; He has fulfilled His Word [we call this 'decrees'] which He commanded in days of old. He has thrown down and has not pitied..." however, "Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not..."
He saves some. He hardens some. His purposes stand. He pities not those who have sinned and remain in their sins by their own choice. But some, He sets His love upon and saves.
Ezekiel
You can't get any more dead than those famous bones of Ezekiel 37. Unless it would be that spiritual death that we all experience, inherited as members of Adam's race.
Dead is dead. And no one comes to life unless God brings that person to life. There are just some things you can't do.
If you are Adam, you don't create yourself. You don't breathe life into the dust whether in Eden or Ezekiel. God is the initiator.
How can a man be born when He is old? Same deal. You start with nothing, and you create a new being through the breath of God's Spirit. You did not help your mother or father bring you into the world. Neither do you help the Heavenly Father when you are being born again.
Common, common sense. God initiates all. For His own purposes.
Can those dry bones live? Why of course! That's what God does, that's what He loves to do most, give life!
Daniel
The story of Daniel and the kings that surround him is a story of Sovereignty. There is simply no other way to explain it. In 1:9, God deliberately brings Daniel into favor with his superior, the chief of the eunuchs. Daniel is a prisoner. He is the enemy. But God has ordained that his chosen man will be accepted and prosperous in enemy territory.
Nebuchadnezzar next experiences the will of God in his life. A proud man and a proud Emperor, it would never have occurred to him to give glory to the God of one of his subjects. But God asserts himself into the picture by humbling Nebuchadnezzar.
After the humiliating disease has passed, Nebuchadnezzar proclaims what God's people need to start proclaiming:
"...He does according to His will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. No one can restrain His hand or say to Him, 'What have You done?' " (4:35)
John Calvin could not have said it any better. As we travel through this study, it will become obvious where Calvin got most of his material.
For many years, Daniel's last prophecy, recorded in the last three chapters of the book, has fascinated me with its accuracy and its hiding-in-plain-sight of the mystery of the end times. Here once again we see how God not only foresees but decrees His will. Foreknowledge and decree are often, some say always, one and the same.
11:27-29 tells us that the days of the end time have all been appointed, decreed, planned, predestined. The men who shall take part in that final picture are spelled out here. Their actions and the outcome of those actions have all been done ahead of time. "What has been determined [not just known] shall be done (36)."
Hosea
Hosea 1:10 and 2:23 chronicle the decree of God regarding the people Israel and his undeserved favor upon them. Though not His people, yet they become His people by mercy, and mercy only. When He declares to them "You are My people," and only then, they can respond "You are my God."
Those who believe in the sovereignty of God are in essence saying, God first, people second. Is there one among us who will deny that it was God who came to them first?
Joel
Joel 2:32 is the source of our faith that "Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved." That's not a New Covenant verse, originally. Our God has never changed from covenant to covenant. The whosoever is there. Deliverance is there, but note, it is
"As the Lord has said, among the remnant whom the Lord calls." No call of God means there will be no call of man. No call of God means no being saved. No call of God means no deliverance.
Again we must contend that God calls first, men second. "All that the Father gives to Me will come to Me, and he that comes to Me I will in no wise cast out (John 6:37)" is the way that Jesus said it.
Amos
Is God exclusive? Does His love know boundaries? Does He care for one more than another? It is difficult for us to believe in such a concept, if all our life we have heard otherwise. But consider Amos 3:2, in the light of all that has been said so far, and in the much greater light we shall experience when we cross over into the New Testament. God is speaking to Israel:
"You only have I known of all the families of the earth. Therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities."
This "know" must not be the "know" of intelligence, for surely God knows of all the nations and every person therein. This must be the "know" of intimacy, of choosing, of caring. His entire Being wrapped up in tiny Israel, so much so that He must take seriously Israel's disobedience, and deal with it.
God's eye is forever focused on His people. What a blessing! What a responsibility!
Obadiah
Remember Jacob and Esau? God loves one and hates the other, even before they have done anything, that is, before their "works" ?
Obadiah gives us the final outcomes of these two sons and their nations. In Jacob will be deliverance, holiness, possession of all things, the fire and flame of God. Esau? Stubble, devouring, no survivors.
Why? (18) "The Lord has spoken." And that is explanation enough.
Jonah
When men disobey, they are eligible for destruction. Unless they are the called of God, in which case, correction is in order.
When men fall into the ocean, they drown. Unless God works a miracle on their behalf.
When men are swallowed by sharks, they die. Unless God speaks to the shark and they vomit the man on dry land (2:10).
What we have called the incredible, nearly unbelievable story of Jonah is nothing more than God showing His sovereignty once more. When He wants a particular outcome, He moves Heaven and Earth to make that outcome come out as he planned. The Plan? Save Nineveh. The instrument? Jonah. The disobedience? No problem. God's will will be done regardless!
But, but, "God is a gentleman," you say. That is the strange message we have always heard. He will never coerce. Never manipulate. Always invite, and leave the decision up to us...
In stories like Jonah we find that this simply is not the case. God is God and will do as he pleases.
Micah
God's very specific love for His own, Israel, is once more pointed out through the prophet Micah in 7:16-18 of that book. Here, the nations are ashamed, their mouths shut, their ears deafened, licking the dust like a serpent, crawling from their holes like snakes of the earth, afraid of the Lord.
But sinful Israel has as its God the one who "pardon[s] "iniquity and pass[es] over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage. He does not retain His anger forever because He delights in mercy. He will again have compassion on us, and will subdue our iniquities. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea..."
The nations of earth will not know this mercy, except in the case of those relatively few Gentiles called out of each tribe on earth. But Israel shall. In abundance!
Oh how glad we should be that He is on our side, that he has chosen us!
Nahum
Nahum speaks like a man who has studied Calvin. No, but Calvin must surely have studied Nahum. 1:3 speaks of the God who "has His way in the whirlwind and in the storm", 2:7 says that God makes decrees about those who will be led away captive, 2:13 and 3:5 declare that God is against Nineveh, though in Jonah He called many out of that wicked place.
Habakkuk
I see the word "appointed" in 1:12, and 2:3. Whether here or in Daniel it speaks to me of a God who makes up His mind that something will happen, and it happens. A Sovereign God.
Zephaniah
Zephaniah's special word is "remnant", though he is certainly not the only prophet who uses it. Israel will be judged. But not all. In the midst of the evil is a chosen people. Eventually "all Israel", chosen Israel, will be saved. Included in that number will be hordes of Gentiles who have been grafted on to the Israel tree.
In 2:9, Zephaniah sees the remnant conquering non-remnant Gentile nations. 3:13 pictures a pure and righteous Israel, brought back from destruction by a merciful God who favors them forever. All judgment is past. A striking picture of God's mercy, echoed in Hosea, Isaiah, Ezekiel, and others.
God has a people.
Haggai
Another chosen man. Zerubbabel, Governor of Judah, is told his place in what appears to be the Millennial Kingdom (2:23).
That our names are written in Heaven, that is what matters. Now I ask you, when did God write your name there? After you "stumbled" into faith in Christ and perhaps got baptized? Or was it before the foundation of the world. Answer coming...
Zechariah
12:10, 14:2. It is God Who gathers all nations against Jerusalem. He foreknows, yes, but because He foreordains. I know this will happen because I will do it, says God! This is not up to you. This prophecy is a decree.
Prophecies and miracles demand a Sovereign God Who can suspend laws of nature and put his will into the characters of history, which characters we all are. Providence is the manifestation of His decrees.
Malachi
Malachi 1:2,3 is where the Jacob-Esau passage is, that we've already discussed. Look at 3:6 while we are here:
"For I am the Lord, I do not change; therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob!"
What does that mean? What is it that He has decided to do, and cannot change about? He has decreed that Israel will be, and will be forever, and that He will live among His people.
Normally, the sins that Israel has committed would be enough to send a people group to Hell a thousand times. Look at the wilderness. Look at the Kingdom idolatries. (Look at our own lives!)
But to Israel He lives out the word from the Psalms, "His mercy endures forever." He cannot change. He will always call his people back to Him. He'll write His very law in their hearts and mind. They will be saved. They will endure. And He with them, forever!
Oh so good to be on this team!
So ends our look at the Old Covenant. When I began this study, I knew there were a few troubling passages for Arminians in the New Testament. I looked for and found them. Then, as an added measure I thought I should at least browse the Old Testament too.
I am still quite surprised to have found evidences of this sovereign grace doctrine in nearly every Old Covenant book. The evidence is there.
We now turn to a wealth of confirmation from the lips of Jesus and His closest men. The teaching is as secure as we are. It's not going anywhere...
