Perhaps you heard about the group of theologians who were discussing the doctrines of predestination and free will. When the argument became heated, the dissidents split into two groups. One man, unable to make up his mind which group to join, slipped into the predestination crowd. Challenged as to why he was there, he replied, "I came of my own free will." The group retorted, "Free will! You don't belong here!" So he retreated to the opposing group and when asked why he switched responded, "I was sent here." "Get out," they stormed. "You can't join us unless you come of your own free will!" The confused man was left out in the cold.
Ask the average twentieth-century Christian [the same would be true for the twenty-first-century Christian] whether he sees himself in the predestination crowd versus the free-will crowd and he will probably join the man who was left out in the cold (Erwin Lutzer. The Doctrines That Divide: A Fresh Look at the Historic Doctrines That Separate Christians (Kindle Locations 1449-1452).
Do you understand completely this doctrine? If you do, don’t even try to explain it to the rest of us for we would never comprehend your explanation anyway. Only our infinite God would fully grasp this doctrine. Yet, the fact that believers are chosen by God in eternity past can not be denied. Not only is this doctrine difficult to understand, but for some, it is a bitter pill to swallow.
Here is how Charles Spurgeon began a Sunday morning sermon at New Park Street Chapel on September 2, 1855, entitled Election:
Now, I trust this morning some of you who are startled at the very sound of this word, Election, will say, ‘I will give it a fair hearing; I will lay aside my prejudices; I will just hear what this man has to say.’ Do not shut your ears and say at once, ‘It is high doctrine.’ Who has authorized you to call it high or low? Why should you oppose yourself to God’s doctrine? Remember what became of the children who found fault with God’s prophet, and exclaimed, ‘Go up, thou bald-head; go up, thou bald-head.’ Say nothing against God’s doctrines, lest haply some evil beast should come out of the forest and devour you also. There are other woes beside the open judgment of heaven---take heed that these fall not on your head. Lay aside our prejudices: listen calmly, listen dispassionately: hear what Scripture says; and when you receive the truth, if God should be pleased; to reveal and manifest it to your souls, do not be ashamed to confess it (Charles Spurgeon, Election, Pensacola: Chapel Library, n.d. p. 2).
Sounds like Spurgeon was anticipating some resistance to his sermon on election. Erwin Lutzer also prefaces his discussion on election with a similar admonition:
Lutzer added, “Already I can hear a chorus of objections to the idea that God actually selected certain people to belong to Him and therefore bypassed [the doctrine of preterition] others. “That isn’t fair. We’re just robots and this leads to fatalism.” But keep reading. We can’t ignore the doctrine of election because it is puzzling or even because we might object to its implications (Erwin Lutzer, You’re Richer Than You Think: Wheaton: Victor Books: 1981, p. 14).
Ryrie gives some good advice for those struggling with this doctrine, “Do not let your mind ask the theoretical and useless questions. Let your mind and your life concentrate on doing what is God’s will and making sure you act responsibly.” Charles C. Ryrie, Basic Theology: A Popular Systematic Guide to Understanding Biblical Truth (pp. 364-365). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition.
We will limit our thoughts to three New Testament passages
(Eph 1:3-6; 1 Thess 1:4; 2 Thess 2:13-14)
Ephesians 1:3-6
1. Who chose? God chose us before we chose him.
“God’s election was before the foundation of the world. He did not choose us only after we chose Him (Eph. 1:4)” (Charles Ryrie, Basic Theology, 314).
2. Whom did he choose? Two views.
Corporate Election.
Did God only choose a group? This is the view of Dan Esterline, as quoted by Ryrie, “What did God choose before the foundation of the world? The church. Not individuals, but the body of Christ” (p.311). Individuals are not elected until they are believers in Christ, says this view.
Another representative of the corporate view is Clark Pinnock. “Christ is the chosen One in and through whom in corporate solidarity with Him the church is selected to be God’s own. Not one is ever chosen on his own, that is, outside of Christ, or apart from incorporation into the church” (Clark Pinnock, gen. ed., The Grace of God, the Will of Man, Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing company, 1989, p. 228).
Individual, Pretemporal [occurring before the existence of time] Election.
Ryrie believes that “election emphasizes God’s free choice of individual to salvation. When Paul uses the verb he uses it in the middle voice, indicating that God’s choice was made freely and for His own purposes (Eph. 1:4). Election is unconditional and individual” (p. 360-361).
3. When did he choose us?
Not at Salvation. Pretemporal, that is, “before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4). “But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation” (2 Thess. 2:13).
4. Why did he choose?
To produce holy living, “That we should be holy and without blame before him in love” (Eph. 1:4).
Objection to Election:
“It tends to immorality, by representing men’s salvation as independent of their own obedience.” After A. H. Strong raises this objection, he answers it. “Salvation is not independent of our obedience” (A. H. Strong, Systematic Theology). Peter in 1 Peter 1:2 says that obedience is necessary for salvation. “Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.” We obey what the Scriptures tells us to do in order to be saved: believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior (Acts 16:31).
Moreover, election will make us holy. Nothing under the gracious influence of the Holy Spirit can make a Christian more holy than the thought that he is chosen. “Shall I sin,” he says, “after God hath chosen me? Shall I transgress after such love? Shall I go astray after so much lovingkindness and tender mercy? Nay, my God; since thou hast chosen me, I will love thee, I will live to thee” (Spurgeon, pp. 29, 30).
2 Thessalonians 2:13, 14
As you are turning to 2 Thessalonians stop at 1 Thessalonians 1:4, where Paul first mentions, in writing, election to the Thessalonians. Remember from Acts 17, that the Thessalonians were new converts, and yet, Paul is not hesitant to discuss the doctrine of election with them.
1. Who chose us? “God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation” (v. 13).
2. When did God choose us? Not at salvation, but from eternity past.
3. Whom did God choose? Not just Jews, but Gentiles at Thessalonica (Acts 17:1-5).
4. How was God’s choice applied? There are three means that God uses. First, believers must witness (v. 14).
Objection to Election:
Election discourages believers from witnessing. It did not discourage the apostle Paul. The Lord used this doctrine to encourage Paul to witness when Paul was at Corinth as recorded in Acts 18:9-11. Read Romans 10:14, 15, where Paul stresses the necessity of believers witnessing. In addition to believers witnessing, the Holy Spirit must convict. In 2 Thessalonians 2:13, Paul mentions not only God the Father choosing, but the Spirit sanctifying or setting us apart for salvation. Peter mentions all three Persons in 1 Peter 1:2 and their involvement in our salvation and mentions the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit as does Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2:13. We call this setting apart by the Holy Spirit before salvation the conviction of the Holy Spirit as predicted by Christ in John 16:8-11. The Holy Spirit must convict and draw because sinners are unable to come to Christ unaided (1 Cor. 2:14). Not only must believers witness the gospel, and the Holy Spirit convict sinners of rejecting Christ, but sinners must believe. . .“and belief of the truth” (2 Thess. 2:13).
Objection to Election:
This truth robs the sinner of his responsibility to believe. Not with Paul. Paul told the Philippian jailor that he must “Believe on the Lord Jesus” (Acts 16:31). God’s choice is of grace not of our works. “Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace” (Rom. 11:5, 6). Faith is not a work of man according to Romans 4:5.
Objection to Election:
The decree of election means a decree of reprobation. Strict Calvinism does teach reprobation or double predestination, though most strict Calvinists do not use the term “double predestination.”
There are five references to ”predestination” in Scripture and none of them have to do with the predestination of unbelievers:
Acts 4:28 (Christ was predestinated to die)
1 Corinthians 2:7 (Christ was predestinated to die)
Ephesians 1:5 (Christians are predestinated to the future aspect of adoption as described in Romans 8:23 or glorification)
Ephesians 1:11 (Christians are predestinated to an inheritance)
Romans 8:28-29 (Christians are predestinated to conformity to Christ’s image)
So when “predestination” is used in reference to “double predestination” it is used in a theological sense not a biblical sense. A. A. Hodge links reprobation with limited atonement. “It is purely unthinkable that the same mind that sovereignly predestinated the elect to salvation and the rest of mankind to the punishment of their sins should, [double predestination] at the same time, make a great sacrifice for the sake of removing legal obstacles out of the way of those from whose path is decreed” (Archibald Alexander Hodge, The Atonement, Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1953, p. 414).
John Piper defends double predestination:
While not using the word predestined for unbelievers who perish, the Bible does refer to the reality of it. And it’s not just a logical deduction. Sometimes this gets a bad rap because they say, “There you go applying your crusty, wooden, cold logic, which the Bible doesn’t do.” Well, forget that. We’re not talking about a logical deduction here — we’re talking about texts. For example, consider these three texts. First Peter 2:8, the one that was mentioned, refers to those who “stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do” (Is Double Predestination Biblical? click to open).
Thomas Constable answers Piper:
Constable (click to open) defines double predestination:
The doctrine of “double predestination” is that God foreordains some people to damnation just as He foreordains some to salvation. This has seemed to some Bible students to be the logical conclusion we should draw because of what Scripture says about the election of believers (e.g., Rom. 9; Eph. 1). However this is not a scriptural revelation. The Bible always places the responsibility for the destiny of the lost on them for not believing rather than on God for foreordaining (e.g., John 1:12; 3:36; 5:24; 6:47; Rom. 1—3).
Constable refutes the double predestination interpretation of 1 Peter 2:8
To what does God appoint those who stumbled, unbelief or the stumbling that results from unbelief? In the Greek text the antecedent of “to this” (eis ho) is the main verb “stumble” (proskoptousi), as it is in the English text. “Are disobedient” (apeithountes) is a participle that is subordinate to the main verb. Therefore we would expect “to this” to refer to the main verb “stumble” rather than to the subordinate participle “are disobedient.” God appoints those who stumble to stumble because they do not believe. Their disobedience is not what God has ordained, but the penalty of their disobedience is (cf. Acts 2:23; Rom. 11:8, 11, 30-32)
Robert Lightner rebuts this kind of logic with the doctrine of preterition: The Bible nowhere teaches the predestination of the lost to Hell. That is a human deduction, quite common among strict Calvinists, from the fact that God has predestinated some to salvation. God does not take the responsibility for men going to Hell. He did not predetermine that they should go there; He merely passed by them and left them in their lost estate for which they are responsible (Robert Lightner, The Death Christ Died, Des Plaines: Regular Baptist Press, 1967, p. 99).
R. C. Sproul (click to open) advocates double predestination that is close to preterition:
Sproul disagrees with the Double-Predestination Distortion called a positive-positive view of predestination:
This is, God positively and actively intervenes in the lives of the elect to bring them to salvation. In the same way God positively and actively intervenes in the life of the reprobate to bring him to sin.
This distortion of positive-positive predestination clearly makes God the author of sin who punishes a person … and irresistibly coerces man to do.
Sproul advocates a positive-negative view of predestination
Rather we view predestination in terms of a positive-negative relationship.
In the Reformed view God from all eternity decrees some to election and positively intervenes in their lives to work regeneration and faith by a monergistic work of grace. To the non-elect God withholds this monergistic work of grace, passing them by and leaving them to themselves.
Dr. Hoyle Bowman rejected preterition
Concerning preterition, Dr. Bowman states: This is not a Biblical word. It is a theological word which would indicate that the nonelect are simply passed by. This is a theological surmise based on the reasoning that since the elect will be saved then the nonelect obviously must be passed over. The reasoning and the position is correct but the Bible does not state that the nonelect are passed by. Rather, to the contrary, the Scriptures indiscriminatingly and distributively invite all men to heed the gospel, though all do not have the same equal chance to hear it. The Bible is clear as to why men are passed by (Dr. Hoyle Bowman, A Case for Unlimited Atonement, Winston/Salem: Piedmont Baptist College, n.d. p. 9).
Sinners go to Hell because they chose to do so by rejecting the gospel. “He that believes on him is not condemned: but he that believes not is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:18). “He that believes on the Son has everlasting life: and he that believes not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abides on him (John 3:36).
Sinners condemn themselves to Hell. “Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels” (Mt. 25:41). Read also Ezekiel 33:11. The Bible does not teach reprobation but retribution for rejection of Christ as Savior.
The Bible's truth of election is always balanced with human responsibility.
1. We should pray that God would raise up laborers (Mt. 9:36-38).
2. We should pray for the salvation of the lost (Rom. 9:1-3; 10:1).
3. We should witness to the lost (Acts 1:8).
“Get busy on mission. Too many people cross state lines to argue Calvinism but never cross the street to witness to their neighbor” (Al Mohler).
We have a responsibility to tell others about Christ (Romans 10:14-15). “So many people today go to seminary and backslide with a Bible under their arm. What good is it if you know Hebrew but you don’t know him. What good is it if you know Greek but you don’t know God. Bible study gives you knowledge about God, obedience gives you knowledge of God” (Adrian Rogers).