Predestination
Steve Scoggins / Ephesians 1:3-6 / Jan 29, 2012
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Introduction
The hottest topic among college students is predestination and Calvinism. The most popular preachers to college students are Calvinists. The title of a book written by one of the editors of Christianity Today describes this generation: “Young, Restless, and Reformed.” Calvinism has become a source of controversy in our own Baptist convention. I constantly hear of a church splitting because its new pastor was dogmatically Calvinistic and intent on converting his new congregation to that point of view.
I have several purposes for delivering this study:
- I want to help you understand how different Christians have approached this subject.
- I want to remind you that this is a secondary matter, not a major doctrine of Scripture. The Greek word translated “predestine” is found only five times in the entire New Testament. The love of God is found on page after page.
- I want to address how someone can believe in both predestination and human freedom and responsibility.
- I want to see if we can help Christians put down their swords and stop fighting each other. In his book Amazing Grace, Timothy George lamented that there are too many “graceless debates about the doctrine of grace.” It is my conviction that too much time and energy is being used to debate these issues. The devil knows we only have so much time and energy to use for God. If we use it arguing with each other, we will not use it in leading people to Jesus.
John Wesley was known for his opposition to predestination. Charles Simeon, an influential Calvinist pastor, met with Wesley and asked him several questions, which I will paraphrase for you in modern English.
Simeon asked, “Sir, do you believe you would never have had a desire to come to Christ if God had not put that desire in you and drawn you to salvation?” Wesley replied, “Yes.”
Simeon asked, “Sir, do you believe you are saved only by what Jesus did for you and not what you do for him?” Wesley replied, “Yes.”
Simeon asked, “Sir, do you believe that if it were not for God’s keeping power, you could not remain in salvation and make it to Heaven?” Wesley replied, “Yes.”
Simeon replied, “Well, sir, I sheath my sword and give you my hand, because that is the essence of my Calvinism.”
Points to consider before we look at the text:
1. Sincere Christians have studied the same Bible and come up with different opinions about predestination. All sides can cite their verses.
If this issue could be settled, it would have been settled years ago. The fact that so many Christians disagree ought to cause us to beware of being “dogmatic” in insisting upon any one interpretation.
2. The call for unity among Christians in the New Testament (Eph. 4:4-6, for example) and the call for unity by Jesus in John 17 trump the tendency of Christians to divide over secondary matters.
Some Christians treat Bible teachings as if each is equally important. But Jesus taught that some matters are “weightier” than others: “‘Woe to you scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness’” (Matt. 23:23).
In his book The Body, Charles Colson calls for unity among Christians based upon the great Bible doctrines found in the Apostle’s Creed. I have always tried to teach people to distinguish the majors from the minors in this way: The majors are those doctrines that determine a person’s eternity. The minors are everything else. You cannot go to Heaven if you deny Christ’s death for our sin or His resurrection. But you can be wrong about your view on predestination and go to Heaven. When you stand before God you will not be asked what you did with Calvinism’s Tulip. Instead, when you stand before God you will be asked, “What did you do with Jesus?”
Our church has a wonderful unity and a wide diversity. We have Calvinists and non- Calvinists, charismatics and non-charismatics, those who love traditional worship and those who love contemporary. Yet we are united because we focus on Jesus. We major on the majors!
3. We do not have the right to dismiss or neglect any Bible teaching.
I hear Christians make statements such as “I don’t believe in predestination!” This is unacceptable. We do not have the right to “tear verses from our Bibles.” The word “predestination” is found five times in the New Testament and the concept in other places.
Calvinists sometimes tear verses from their Bibles by ignoring verses or trying to redefine verses that don’t fit their system. For example, look at 2 Peter 3:9: “The Lord is … not wishing that any should perish but that all should reach repentance.” Calvinists explain, “What this verse really means is….God does not want any of the elect to perish.” But what a verse “really means” is what it says in its plainest sense.
4. God is bigger than our theological systems. Some Bible verses will not fit any doctrine.
Here is an uncomfortable fact we have to come to grips with: some Bible teachings seem to contradict each other. We cannot see how God could have chosen us before the foundation of the world and yet not be willing that any should perish. But since the Bible is true, both of these verses are true.
Why is that? God is bigger than my mind can conceive! If I could figure out how God can be absolute sovereign and man free and responsible, that would mean God is as small as my mind. Calvin said, “The Bible is God’s baby talk.” Calvin also warned that, in the study of predestination, we should not speculate beyond the few things the Bible clearly says about this subject.
Paul expresses how God is bigger than we can understand:
“Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge
of God!
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!” (Romans 11:33).
Now let’s get into the text.
I. Facts about Predestination found in Ephesians. 1:5.
The Greek Word for Predestination is pro-horizo. The prefix pro is like our “pre”: it means “before.” The verb horizo is the root of our English word “horizon.” It means to determine in advance what the horizons or boundaries will be.
“In love he predestined us … for adoption as sons.” Predestination is only stated as a positive blessing. Nowhere does the Bible say that God predestines some to hell. Paul puts the word “love” with “predestine.” Predestination is an act of love toward the saved. The other occurrence of predestine is Romans 8:29. There, Paul says we are predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ. God’s plans for us are always good plans.
“He predestined us … through Jesus Christ.” “In Christ” is the key phrase in these verses. We have all spiritual blessings “in Christ.” He chose us “in Christ.” One of the blessings a saved person has in Christ is the assurance of a predetermined destiny: to go to Heaven.
“He predestined us … according to the purpose (good pleasure) of his will.” The word translated “purpose” in the ESV is best translated by the KJV as “good pleasure.” It has the prefix eu, which is the Greek prefix for “good.” (eulogy = good word, euphony = good sound, etc.) What God purposes has to be good because God is good.
II. Sincere Bible-believing Christians hold at least three views about predestination.
1. God predestined only the way to salvation: “He chose us in Christ.”
In this first view, God predestines the way to Heaven, not the individuals who will go to Heaven.
This is the view of a group called the Plymouth Brethren, and it was held by two of the most influential Baptist leaders of the last half of the 20th century, Herschell Hobbs and Frank Stagg.
This view makes much of the fact that the phrase “in Christ” describes God’s choice. God chose us “in Christ.” Hobbs said, “God decided that all those who are in Christ would be saved. It is like building a fence around a piece of ground. All who are inside the fence are saved. Man is free to choose whether or not he will be inside the fence.”
This removes the tension between God’s choice and human freedom. God did not choose specific individuals. God planned in advance the method of salvation, not the individuals to be saved. God did not arbitrarily say before the world began, “This person will be in and this person will be out.”
However, this view still demonstrates the complete foreknowledge of God. God knew before the world was created that all of us would sin and need a savior, so in advance God planned the way of salvation. God has never said, “I didn’t see that coming!” Nothing has ever taken God by surprise.
2. God predestined according to foreknowledge (Romans 8:29, 1 Peter 1:1-2),
This is the view I was taught growing up in my Baptist churches. This view holds that God knows everything that will happen in the future: God knows who will respond to the Gospel and who won’t. So God, based upon this foreknowledge, set His future plan around what He knew would be our free choices.
This view has two strengths. The first is that certain Bible verses connect predestination with foreknowledge. “Those whom he foreknew, he predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Romans 8:9). However, my Calvinist friends have to redefine “foreknowledge” to explain these verses. They say, “Foreknowledge means more than ‘knowledge before’: it means to be foreknown in relationship.” I think that’s stretching the meaning of the word; it simply means “to know beforehand.”
The second strength is that it once again removes the tension between God’s sovereignty and human free choice. God does not force someone to be saved. He simply knows in advance what we will choose to do.
3. God predestined some for Heaven for good reasons only God knows (“In love he predestined us…according to the good pleasure of his will” (1:5)).
This, the classic Calvinist view, says God picked me before I picked Him: “‘You did not choose me, I chose you’” (John 15:16). Jesus also taught that none of us would have even sought God without God drawing us (John 6:44). Even the faith I had to trust in Christ came to me as a gift of grace (Eph. 2:8-9).
Vernon McGee told about a boy who asked to join a church in Tennessee. He appeared before the church leaders and was asked how he got saved. “Well,” he answered, “I did my part and God did his part.” When asked what he meant by “his part and God’s part” he replied, “My part was the sinning. I ran from God as fast as these rebellious legs would take me. God’s part was that He took off and ran me down.”
The question we might ask about this view is this: “Why did God pick me and not my lost friend?” The Bible doesn’t provide an answer. However, we are told that the reason God picked us can be found in His love for us and in His good pleasure. It is as if Paul is saying that God’s predestination is based on good reasons that only God knows and that we will never understand in this lifetime. But we can trust that God is good, so that anything He does will have good reasons behind it. I believe that when we get to Heaven we are finally going to understand and say, “So that’s why God chose us!”
What this view also does is to humble us. This view says that if you look at any Christians you will never find a reason in them as to why God picked them. God did not pick me because I was in any way better than anyone else. The reason God picked me has to be in the heart of God, not in my worthiness. Spurgeon put it this way: “God had to have picked me before I was born, because He would never have picked me afterwards.”
The main problem with this view is that it makes it hard for us to understand how Eph. 1:4 and 2 Peter 3:9 can both be true. How could God have chosen us before the foundation of the world and still wish that everyone would come to repentance? Those truths appear to be contradictory.
J.I. Packer introduced a great concept that helps us resolve this tension. It is called “antinomy”: two truths that seem to be contradictory yet both are true.
The Bible teaches both God’s sovereignty and human responsibility and freedom.
Spurgeon was asked, “How do you reconcile predestination and free will?” He replied, “You don’t reconcile friends. They are both in the same Bible.”
In our minds we can’t see how predestination and free will can both be true. But that is because God is infinitely bigger than our minds. God is so great that, somehow, both these concepts are true.
Packer cites antinomies outside the Bible. For example, light is made up of both waves and particles. According to scientists, that should not be. But it is true. How does a scientist deal with this antinomy? When dealing with light, he acts as if both are true.
How do we Bible students deal with the fact that some Bible verses teach God’s absolute sovereignty and others teach our freedom? We act as if both are true. When I am in a passage that speaks of God’s sovereignty, I just say “Amen.” When I read a passage that speaks of our freedom and responsibility, I say “Amen.” I don’t have to figure it out! Because God is bigger than my mind can conceive, I can trust any “contradictory” statements as being true.
III. The context of Ephesians 1:3-6 tells us these verses were not meant to be theology but doxology! This is a prayer of praise (see verse 3)
I am not sure God wants us to spend our time trying to figure out predestination. It is mentioned in a prayer of thanksgiving as one of the many blessings we Christians experience. Here is a fact then and now: Christians experience a lot of rejection in this world. But instead of feeling unwanted, we can puff out our chests and say, “Well, God wanted me. God picked me.”
D. L. Moody said, “Predestination is a family secret. It is meant to encourage the saved, not discourage the lost.”
IV. Applications.
1. We ought to be humble when we enter into discussions about these deep truths.
Unfortunately, I meet a lot of Christians who are ready to argue with and condemn anyone who disagrees with them on predestination. But our realizing God planned our salvation before the foundation of the world and that Jesus paid for it through His death ought not to result in spiritual snobbery but a longing to see God’s grace glorified. We should be “to the praise of His glorious grace”! (1:6). We must be honest with each other and realize, though each camp can cite its own verses, that we are not enemies but brothers and sisters who have different opinions on a subject that is not clear in the Bible
2. We should focus on the clear teachings of the Bible, not the unclear.
Shortly after I came to Opelika, a young man came to see me. He said, “Pastor, you are going to have to explain predestination to me or I’m gonna die!” I said to him, “Son, you’re going to have to get used to disappointments in life. There are a lot of things we will never figure out.”
I may not understand how all of the verses on God’s sovereignty and human freedom fit together, but I can easily understand John 3:16. There is enough in that verse to get me to Heaven and help me trust in a God who loves me!
A word to non-Christians reading this sermon: don’t even concern yourself with predestination. John 3:16 is the truth you need to know today, and it’s so clear a child can grasp it! Because of God’s love and because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, you can go to Heaven if you will put your trust in Christ!
3. We should concentrate on our clear responsibilities rather than spend all our time on doctrinal speculation.
A sovereign God has chosen to work through us. He has given us duties He expects us to carry out, such as sharing the Gospel with every person.
Spurgeon was an emotionally passionate evangelistic Calvinist. He believed God predestined all who were going to be saved before the creation of the world. Yet he wept as he called people to come to Christ each Sunday. Someone asked him how he could be so evangelistic and be a Calvinist. He replied, “If the elect all had yellow stripes down their backs so we could know who they were, I would lift up their shirts and preach only to the elect. Only God knows who they are. He has commanded me to preach the Gospel to every creature.”
4. We must be willing to praise a God who is bigger than we can understand.
We western thinkers try to get everything into small, tight packages. But God is just too big for us to completely grasp. We must be willing to simply stand in awe of God. Will you start learning to do this today?
