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Abstract
Table
of Contents
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V
Part VI
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Part II: The Crystallization of the
Theology of Grace
Chapter 7
Unconditional Election
The Scriptures
make it very clear that Election to Salvation is in no way conditioned
by or dependent upon anything that distinguishes the saved from
the unsaved prior to the day of their effectual calling to become
members of the blameless family of God. It is "of the same
lump" that both saved and unsaved are constituted (Romans
9:21). There is no difference, for all have sinned and
come short of the glory of God (Romans 3:22, 23). As persons
before God the elect have nothing inherent in their character
to make them to differ from the non-elect that was not received
either by genetic endowment or the conditioning of circumstances.
Wherever we imagine we can detect differences we have to ask
the question, "Who makes you to differ from another? And
what have you that you did not receive? Now if you did receive
it, why do you glory as if you hadn't received it?" (1 Corinthians
4:7). "We all had our conversation [conducted ourselves]
in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires
of the flesh, and of the mind, and were by nature the children
of wrath, even as others" (Ephesians 2:3).
Sometimes it is argued that there
are differences between us, even though these differences are
due to divinely overruled providential circumstances, so that
there is really no room for boasting about them. But could not
God choose us, then, on the grounds of these foreseen differences
which we owe to Him in the first place and which He has been
pleased to ordain as useful to his purposes in particular ways?
Election might then be based on foreknowledge of special aptitudes
which are not to our credit but are advantageous to God.
Undoubtedly there is an election
which is not to salvation but to the fulfillment of a specific
duty or to the playing of a role. We see this in the case of
Judas Iscariot. The Lord said, "Have I not chosen [elected]
you twelve, and one of you is a devil?" (John 6:70). Judas
Iscariot was chosen. But his being chosen was not to salvation.
He had an awesome part to play in the Plan of Redemption. Since
he thus fulfilled a role for which he was appointed as one of
the elected apostles, was God just in punishing him? "You
wilt say then to me, Why does He yet find fault, for who has
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resisted his will?"
(Romansa 9:19). And the answer must be that no man is ever condemned
simply for fulfilling the Lord's will. Actions in themselves
are not so judged. It is the intent of the heart behind the action
that is judged, not the action itself. The same act performed
by two agents, one with evil intent and the other with sorrow,
believing that God is calling him to such action, may fulfill
the same end in carrying forward the purposes of God, but the
two agents will certainly be judged differently � the one
for his evil intention, and the other for his good. Cyrus was
chosen of God (Isaiah 45:1�4) to provide for the return of
God's people to the Promised Land, because their society was
required there to form the receptacle for the Lord Jesus' ministry
and witness on earth; yet Cyrus was evidently not elected unto
salvation.
To be elected to an evil task or
to fulfill an evil role is not necessarily to be elected to an
unusual condemnation. Condemnation is destined and therefore
predestined, for all who have failed to achieve the moral perfection
that God requires of man. Those elected specifically to salvation
do not face this condemnation. But it is not because of the mere
fact of Election: it is because they are Elected to Salvation.
There are many kinds of election. The Lord Jesus Christ was "elect,"
but certainly not elect unto salvation (1 Peter 2:6). And the
elect angels were not elected to salvation, but apparently elected
never to fall (1 Timothy 5:21). The non-elect angels who fell,
fell by being disobedient � not because they were elected
to disobey.
Thus it comes about that among
those who raucously added their voices to the murderous crowd
shouting, "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" were some who
later were saved by reason of the very death of the One whom
they in their wickedness condemned to be crucified. These men
were not more wicked than others. They were men caught up in
circumstances which gave their fallen nature exceptional opportunity
to reveal itself. Circumstances favoured their wicked propensities
which were therefore expressed in ways that the wicked propensities
of other men have not had opportunity to find expression. But
there is no difference fundamentally between us; it is all a
matter of opportunity. Natural man, whether yet to be the object
of God's favour by Election to Salvation or not to be the object
of that favour, is everywhere of the same stuff. We are all potentially
capable of the worst crimes, until we are re-created in Christ
Jesus.
David, Israel's most noble king,
and Ahab, Israel's most wicked one, both alike coveted and ended
up as murderers. Uriah the Hittite was as surely murdered by
David, who coveted his wife, as Naboth was murdered by Ahab,
who coveted his vineyard. And both men, curiously enough, lacked
the moral courage to carry out the murder personally. David had
his general do it for him, and Ahab his wicked wife. It is no
wonder that the Reformers spoke of us all as "miserable
sinners," for so we are.
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Then what advantage is it to a man to be a child of
God as David was, as opposed to being a child of the devil like
Ahab? The answer is clear enough in Scripture. Ahab was totally
indifferent to his wickedness; David in the deep penitence of
his soul wrote Psalm 51. The difference is not in the action
itself but in what the doing did to the doer. David was not mistakenly
chosen by God because God thought he was essentially a good and
noble man incapable of any great wrongdoing. He was not chosen
of God because he was great, but he became a great saint
because he was chosen of God. It was the Spirit of God who brought
David to the writing of Psalm 51 and thus distinguished him so
radically from Ahab in spite of the similarity of their behaviour
in their selfish exercise of power.
As we have already seen, the grace
of God does not search for men who are willing to accept it,
although the Lutherans finally adopted essentially this position
even as the Arminians did. The grace of God makes men
willing, not finds men willing. It is as Romans 9:15 and
16 says: "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and
I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then,
it is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth, but of
God that showeth mercy." It should be borne in mind that
the first part of this sentence is a quotation from the Old Testament
(Exodus 33:19), demonstrating that God has always acted on this
principle.
Nor are some men elected to salvation
because God foresees that they will believe, but because
He foreknows that none will. But for the Election of God
the Lord would have died in vain. All alike are "concluded
in unbelief" (Romans 11:32) so that God's mercy is unconditional.
As Calvin put it (Institutes, III.xxii.8): "The
grace of God does not find men fit to be chosen but makes them
fit." And Augustine said: "Man is converted not because
he wills to be, but he wills to be because he is ordained to
election." Or again, as J. I. Packer has observed, "Where
the Arminian says 'I owe my election to my faith,' the Calvinist
says 'I owe my faith to my election.'" (1)
Now the battle lines are drawn
more critically within the ranks of those who do not question
the fact of Election. Shakespeare said, "The nearer in blood,
the nearer bloody," and there are no quarrels so bitter
as between those who stand together upon some great doctrine
which is rejected by the vast majority of other men. Calvinists
and Arminians alike accepted the fact of Election unequivocally.
It is not the fact of Election which is in question between them,
but the basis upon which that Election is established. Even among
themselves not all Calvinists are entirely agreed upon all points,
for many who call themselves Calvinistic have rejected one of
the Five Points, the Point which is to be discussed in the next
chapter, namely, Limited Atonement. But these differences do
not cause the same bitter
1. Packer, J. I., in his Introductory Essay
in John Owen, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ, London,
Banner of Truth Trust, 1959 [1852], p.7.
pg.3
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divisions as do differences
of opinion respecting the basis of Election. The Arminians, including
in this respect both Lutherans and Methodists, accept the fact
of Election since they accept the Word of God which speaks of
Election so frequently. But they hold that it is based upon foreknowledge,
God's foreknowledge of man's response. The Calvinists hold that
such foreknowledge is not the basis of Election since there is
no merit in any individual which could be the subject of that
foreknowledge. Calvinists hold that the basis of Election is
entirely concealed, one of those matters hidden from us in the
secret counsels of God (Deuteronomy 29:29). It is not based,
we believe, upon any foreseen merit or anticipated worthiness
of the individual. It can only be said to be "according
to his good pleasure" (Ephesians 1:5). Why it should please
God to elect one man and pass another by is never revealed.
Arminians, broadly speaking, hold
that Election is based upon God's foreknowledge of who
will actively co-operate with God in the saving of his own soul.
Lutherans hold that it is based upon God's foreknowledge of who
will not resist his invitation to accept salvation as an
outright gift. Wesleyans believe that it is based upon God's
foreknowledge of who will persevere to the end. All have
certain key texts to which they appeal and to which they give
the weight of emphasis necessary to counterbalance the testimony
of the rest of Scripture as a whole.
That Election is based on foreknowledge
seems to be clearly stated in Romans 8:29, a key verse in this
controversy and indeed the only verse which seems clearly to
support the thesis: "For whom He did foreknow, He also did
predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that He
might be the first-born among many brethren." Let us therefore
consider this key passage carefully and examine some of the implications
which follow if the word foreknowledge as used
in this instance means what we customarily assume it to mean.
First of all, it should be observed
that almost all modern versions of a scholarly nature have rendered
this passage in such a way as to suggest that they do not view
the word foreknowledge in its commonly accepted sense.
They have evidently understood it to mean something rather different
from ordinary foresight. The truth is not found merely by an
appeal to majority opinion, yet if the majority can be shown
to be not unduly biased but to have been guided by principles
of sound scholarship even where they disagree with the evangelical
position respecting the nature of the Gospel of Grace, then majority
opinion carries extra weight. In many versions, the rendering
adopted is not based on a prejudice towards Calvinism for the
translators are often not Calvinistic in their private theology.
Their testimony sometimes carries even greater weight when it
is borne in mind that many of these translators do not view with
any sympathy the idea of verbal inspiration. By ordinary standards
of assessment with respect to personal bias, the broad testimony
of the translations which follow is
pg.4
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impressive because there
is a measure of agreement as to the meaning of the passage in
question even among those who would not agree on many other crucial
issues which hinge upon it.
Here are some excerpts from eleven
of the best-known modern versions. As will be observed by those
who know the backgrounds of these translations, they were by
no means all produced by evangelicals, much less by men of Calvinistic
persuasion. To avoid any appearance of an attempt to build a
case by special ordering, I have simply set them down in alphabetical
order. I have also carefully respected the use of capitals by
the original authors, a use which can have significance since
it sometimes reflects the author's reverence and respect for
his subject.
Alternative Renderings of Romans 8:29
1. An American Translation: "For those whom he
had marked out from the first he predestinated to be made like
his Son."
(Smith
and Goodspeed, University of Chicago Press, 1923)
2. The Emphasized Bible: "For whom He fore-approved
He also fore-appointed to be conformed unto the image of his
Son."
(Joseph
B. Rotherham, Grand Rapids, Kregel, 1959).
3. Good News for Modern Man: "For those whom God
had already chosen he had also set apart to become like his Son."
(London
British and Foreign Bible Society, 1966):
4. The Holy Bible in Modern English: "For He previously
knew them, and appointed them to conformity with the image of
his Son."
(Ferrer
Fenton. London. Black, 1903)
5. The Jerusalem Bible: "They are the ones he
chose specially long ago and intended to become true images of
his Son."
(edited
by Alexander Jones, New York, Doubleday and Co., 1966)
6. The New English Bible: "For God knew his own
before ever they were, and also ordained that they should be
shaped to the likeness
of his Son." (Oxford University Press and Cambridge,
1970)
7. The New Testament: A New Translation: "For
long ago, before they ever came into being, God both knew them
and marked them out
to become like the pattern of his Son."
(vol. 2, William Barclay, London, Collins, 1969)
8. The New Testament: A New Translation: "For
he decreed of old that those whom he predestined should share
the likeness of his Son."
(James Moffatt, New York, Hodder and Stoughton, no date)
9. The New Testament: An Expanded Translation: "Because
those whom He foreordained He also marked out beforehand as those
who
were to be conformed to the derived image of His Son." (Kenneth
S. Wuest; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1961)
pg.5
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10. The New Testament A Translation
in the Language of the People: "For those on whom He
set His heart beforehand He marked
off as his own to make like His Son." (A footnote says Literally,
foreknew, but in the LXX used as translated.)
(Charles
B. Williams, Chicago, Moody Press, 1937)
11. The Twentieth Century New Testament: "For
those whom God chose from the first he also did predestinate
to be conformed to the image
of his Son." (Chicago, Moody Bible Institute,
1967)
One further
rendering is worthy of note, though it is not strictly a translation
but an interpretation. The Amplified New Testament
(Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 1958) reads: "For those
whom He foreknew � of whom He was aware and loved beforehand
� He also did predestinate from the beginning (foreordaining
them) to be molded in the image of His Son (and share inwardly
His likeness)." The interesting point here is the introduction
of the idea of loving beforehand as an essential part
of the meaning of the word foreknow in this passage. It
is fully justified as will be seen.
By contrast many valuable
modern translations have made no attempt to clarify the sense
of the text beyond giving a more or less conventional rendering.
This is true of The New International Version and of The
New American Standard Version, which is beloved by
many who still appreciate the "old English" aura of
the King James Version.
On the other hand one may read
a paraphrase such as The Living Bible and
suddenly become aware of the extent to which Arminianism underlies
the theology of some of the great evangelists of our time, whose
ministry is so wonderfully blessed of God and yet whose presentation
of the Gospel seems to leave the final decision with man himself.
The strong recommendation which such men give to The Living
Bible cannot but contribute in the end to a faith that
is indeed saving yet basically betrays the true Gospel by its
emphasis on the part man plays in his own salvation. By such
men, Predestination is assumed to be based upon a foreknowledge
by God of a deserving earnestness and humility of spirit in those
who will, because of a meritorious assessment of their own need,
accept the Lord Jesus as their personal Saviour. Their salvation
is seen to depend upon their willingness to accept, and the fact
that God foresees their willingness to accept is thus made the
basis of their Predestination. That these have willingness where
others do not implies a difference between men in their unregenerate
state, a difference which Scripture does not recognize. To shift
the crux of the matter one step further back and say that this
willingness arises from the gracious softening influences of
God the Holy Spirit does not ease the problem, because we still
have to ask, Why does the Holy Spirit succeed in softening only
these hearts and not the hearts of others? We are hemmed in on
both sides until we have to confess either that the Election
of God is based on something that is secret and unrelated to
the recipient of grace, or that the
pg.6
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individual determines
his own destiny by his response.
Then we must ask further, Why do some respond and not others?
And the only answer we can give is that those who respond are
in some fundamental way better people. Either God is sovereign
and Election is an expression of God's will, or man is sovereign
and Election is an expression of God's foreknowledge. The
Living Bible reveals the author's choice of alternatives
by rendering Romans 8:29 as follows: "For from the very
beginning God decided that those who came to him � and all
along he knew who would � should become like his Son."
This breathes Arminianism
and the sovereignty of man, and a certain inherent goodness and
merit in all those who become the elect of God. God knows who
will come to Him, and on the basis of this foreknowledge makes
his plans for them. He decides what He will do with them
after they have decided what they will do with his grace.
The ultimate decision rests with the individual, not with God.
As we have already noted, it is
not necessary for the individual to be able to formulate or even
to recognize the sovereignty of God's grace, in order to be a
genuine believer. And thus there are many earnest believers among
us who are indeed God's elect and yet live by the supposition
that God is really their choice. God did not choose them:
"they made their decision for God." But the Lord Jesus
said, "You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen
you" (John 15:16). That this emphasis upon human
decision is indeed the emphasis of the great evangelistic campaigns
of today is sadly true. And because the decision is accredited
to the individual himself, evangelism is largely committed to
exploiting techniques of persuasion. And because these techniques
as developed by the world have proved so effective in the market
place they tend to be uncritically adopted in the evangelistic
campaign.
To the Calvinist, the tactic of
persuasion is less important: not unimportant, but less so. Much
more important is the assurance that God's Word will bear fruit
as He sees fit (Isaiah 55:11) because God is sovereign and the
responsibility for the fruitfulness of the Gospel is not ours
but God's. The whole emphasis is thus placed upon the Sovereign
Grace of God and not upon the persuasive powers of the evangelist.
It is equally important that the newborn child of God should
realize it has not been his own faith, his own decision, his
own repentance, his own yielding, his own commitment, his own
earnestness, his own sincerity, his own anything �
that brought about his new birth. His new birth is entirely the
result of, and is timed by, the Sovereign Grace of God from whom
he received his faith, his repentance, his yielding, his everthing.
Salvation is a gift of God whether we strive for "results"
by pressure or merely present the truth, trusting that God knows
what He is about. Such evangelistic pressuring has resulted in
the birth of untold numbers of premature babies in Christ who,
unless they receive the same kind of personal and constant (often
even heroic) care that hospitals
pg.7
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provide for premature
babies, spend the rest of their Christian lives trying to catch
up, forever demanding milk when they should be receiving meat.
Strong men in the Lord are men brought up on strong meat in the
Word. Spiritual babies kept on the bottle when they should have
been weaned from milk and given meat are slow to mature and many
never do so.
In these various excerpts from
versions of the last hundred years, it is clear that the use
of the word also (kai in the original Greek) separates
the foreknowing from the Predestination. The text does not say
that "He knew that they would be saved" but (a) He
foreknew them and (b) also predestined them to be perfected
as saints. The majority of the versions quoted follow the King
James Version by introducing the word also. The omission
of also changes the whole meaning of the passage. It makes
the two clauses dependent and causally related. To say "whom
He did foreknow, He predestinated" is to make Predestination
dependent upon foreknowledge. To say "whom He did foreknow,
He also predestinated" is clearly to separate the
two divine activities. Each of the two clauses stands in its
own right as a separate statement of fact.
The difference is important, for
in point of fact the word foreknew, in this context
is probably not being used in the common English sense of mere
foresight. As noted in Williams' rendering the word has more
than one meaning, and judging by the above eleven translations,
this fact was recognized implicitly. The most explicit version
is that of Williams, who attaches to the word the specific sense
of "loving concern," a meaning which the Greek word
can actually carry.
The Septuagint (LXX) Greek rendering
of the Hebrew Scriptures produced by a group of Jewish scholars sometime
in the third century B.C. provides us with a valuable insight as to how
the Jews of our Lord's day used many important words which re-appear in
the Greek of the New Testament. The word rendered foreknow in Romans
8:29 is proegno ( ),
the third person singular aorist indicative of proginosko ( ),
which commonly means "to know beforehand," "to be previously
acquainted with." But this basic meaning can be understood in two
rather different ways in Greek. It can mean to have known someone previously
or it can mean to know something in advance. In Acts 26 5 Paul
wrote, "who knew me from the beginning if they would
but testify. . . ," using this word proginosko. The context
favours the idea of previous acquaintance with somebody rather than a
foreseeing of future history.
The Septuagint translated the Old Testament
Hebrew word yada, which means "to know," "to regard,"
"to care for," by the Greek word ginosko ( ).
In his treatment of ginosko Bultmann comments that the compound
form proginosko has the more basic meaning of foreordaining or
electing rather than merely foreknowing, even as yada can
also mean "to elect."* In Romans 11:2
*Bultmann: in Theological Dictionary of
the New Testament, edited by Gerhard Kittel, translated by
Geoffrey Bromiley, Grand Rapids, Eerdman's, 1964
pg.8
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the implication, he believes,
is that in this previous acquaintance God had been caring for
his children. A parallel to this kind of usage may be observed
in 2 Timothy 2:19: "The Lord knows [ginosko] those
that are his," by which we are surely to understand that
He recognizes those who are his by caring for them in a special
way. By contrast, there are those who are turned away from being
favoured, to whom the Lord addressed the fatal words in Matthew
7:23 � "Depart from Me. . . I never knew you" �
where the word ginosko again appears.
The Old Testament equivalent, as
we have noted, is the Hebrew word yada. It is found
in Psalm 1:6: "The Lord knows [i.e., cares for] the way
of the righteous; but the ways of the ungodly shall perish."
In Psalm 31:7 David wrote: "I will be glad and rejoice in
your mercy; for You have considered my trouble; You have known
[i.e., cared for] my soul in adversities." And so also in
Nahum 1:7: "The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of
trouble; and He knows [i.e., cares for] those that trust in Him."
One of the most striking Old Testament
examples of this use is found in Genesis 18:19: "For I have
known [Abraham] that he will command his children and his household
after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice
and judgment; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which
He has spoken of him." In the original, the Hebrew is rather
explicit in conveying a slightly more complex meaning. Understood
as the King James Version has rendered it, this looks simply
like foresight: "I know he will do this and that, and so
I shall bring upon him this and that. . . ." The Hebrew
actually says: "For I have known him in order that
he may command," etc. The text is most explicit here: there
is no ambiguity. The words in order that appear in the
original. A number of modern versions have taken cognizance of
this fact and so rendered it. These include Rotherham's The
Emphasized Bible, Smith and Goodspeed's The Complete Bible:
An American Translation, The New American Standard Version, The
Revised Standard Version, Ferrar Fenton's The Holy Bible
in Modern English, the French Crampon Bible, The Jerusalem
Bible, a new translation of the Jewish Publication Society
which is simply called The Torah, and Today's English
Version (The Good News Bible) just issued.
Here, then, we have a clear case
of personal acquaintance which becomes the reason for something
predestinated with respect to the subject's future. It is not
a case of foresight but of foreordination. "I have cared
for Abraham in order that certain things may happen to him in
the future." The foreknowing (used in this sense) did not
signify foresight of future events but deliberate ordination
of those events. What God is assuring his children in Romans
8:29 is not that He has foreseen our favourable response to his
call when the time comes and has therefore decided that we shall
duly be conformed to the image of his Son. It is rather that
He loved us in anticipation and determined, for reasons entirely
hidden from us, that we should be
pg.9
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conformed to the image of his Son
by an act of his sovereign grace. And though we often despair of this
conforming ever being fulfilled, yet we have this assurance that He who
has begun a good work in us will carry it on (epiteleo,  )
until the day of Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:6).
If such an interpretation
should appear strained, it does so only because we have habitually
depended upon the King James Version for so many years and therefore
assume the more familiar sense to be the true one. Those who
are persuaded that our Election is based on foreknowledge will
be reluctant indeed to surrender the only text in Scripture which
they can point to that seems clearly to support such a view.
That the rest of Scripture either by implication or by plain
statement does not support such a view will tend to be neglected.
The fact that so many modern translations, written by men individually
or in committees, translate Romans 8:29 in a way which shows
that the sense is not really that which the Arminians have favoured
is a very powerful argument against the Arminian claim. Certainly
many of these translations, if they do have a bias, would tend
to be towards Arminianism. Yet the translators have refrained
from allowing their bias to guide their translation.
The rest of Scripture, Old and
New Testaments alike, clearly puts the basis of God's elective
choice entirely outside the subject's own worthiness. In the
Old Testament this is quite explicit:
I, even I, am He that blots out your transgressions for mine
own sake, and will not remember your sins (Isaiah 43:25).
It is purely
a matter of his good pleasure and the only other certain thing
about it is that the choice was made before the foundation of
the world.
[God] has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world
. . . having predestinated us into the adoption of children by
Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of his
will (Ephesians 1:4, 5)
God has from the beginning chosen you unto salvation (2 Thessalonians
2:13).
Who has saved us and called us with a holy calling . . . according
to his own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus
before the world began (2 Timothy 1 9).
[The names of the elect are]. . . written in the book of life
from the foundation of the world (Revelation 17 8).
Now there are
two questions which demand serious consideration since they challenge
the justice of God if they are answered amiss. In the first place:
Is God by electing some on an apparently arbitrary basis in no
way dependent upon their worthiness or unworthiness to be chosen,
thereby automatically condemning the rest to punishment whether
they are worthy to be punished or not?
pg.10
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Formulated in this way, the question inevitably invites
reasonable objection. But should the question be so formulated?
Is man condemned to reprobation simply because he is not elected
to salvation? The answer must be a most emphatic No! He is condemned
to punishment for his sins, not for his non-election.
It may be helpful to use an analogy
we have previously considered. Suppose ten men are in prison,
justly incarcerated for crimes of which they are proven guilty,
and let us also suppose for the sake of simplicity that each
man has committed a similar crime. Then let us further suppose
that the Governor of the State or the Premier of the Province
in which they are prisoners has the right to grant a reprieve
for one of the men. Since all the men are in prison with equal
justification, the choice of the one to be set free is, from
the point of justice, an indifferent one. All are equally guilty
and any one of them might therefore be granted the reprieve with
equal justification. None are less guilty or more guilty.
For reasons not in any way related
to the individual's worthiness or unworthiness, but in some way
reflecting the Governor's or the Premier's good pleasure, reprieve
is granted to one man and he is set free. Now it must be asked,
Why are the remaining nine prisoners still in jail? Is it really
because they were not released? It might at first appear to be
so, but in actual fact these other nine men would all be set
free if they had fulfilled their prison term. The reason they
are not all set free is that they have not yet paid the full
penalty of their misconduct. The nine who are left in prison
are therefore in prison still, not because they were not reprieved,
but because they were put in prison for their crimes and have
not yet satisfied the demands of justice. The release of the
one reprieved man has no bearing on the retention of the other
nine. The reprieved man owes his freedom entirely to the graciousness
of the one who has authorized it; the retention of the remainder
is owing entirely to their own guilt. To argue that the election
of one is the cause of the condemnation of the others is clearly
irrational. Those who are granted saving faith and are accordingly
redeemed are not the cause of the lost condition of those who
remain under condemnation. As John 3:17 and 18 says specifically,
"God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world.
. . He who believes not is condemned already."
The unbeliever is not condemned for his refusal of God's salvation.
He merely remains under condemnation because he has not
believed. The critical term in this case is the word already.
Consider another analogy. If I
hold a ball in my hand it will not fall. If I let go, it does.
But my letting it go does not cause its fall: letting it go merely
allows it to respond freely to gravitation, which is the cause
of its falling. This is easily recognized by the fact that in
the absence of gravity I could release it and it would not fall.
In a spacecraft, opening my hand would have no such effect. From
this we see clearly that allowing something to
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happen is not at all
the same as causing it to happen. God did not condemn
the rest of men to perdition simply because He elected some to
be saved. Those not chosen were already condemned by their own
guilt and God has simply left them in that position. But it needs
to be emphasized that those who are elected to be saved are originally
in precisely the same situation. They are not elect because they
are less guilty. "All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). All come from the "same
lump" (Romans 9:21).
If there should be ten apples lying
in the grass under a tree and you stoop down, choose one, and
pick it up, it would be irrational indeed to accuse you of placing
the other nine on the ground. They fell there because they are
subject to gravity. This is how they came to be there. You, by
your selection, have merely raised one of them which was sharing
the same debasement with the others.
For some years Calvin himself seems
to have drawn the erroneous and (probably even to himself) unwelcome
conclusion that Election to Salvation has a necessary corollary
"Election to Reprobation." He never seems to have quite
resolved this conclusion of false reasoning, because he did not
see that it really is false. He wrote (Institutes, III.xxiii.l)
"Indeed, many, as if they wished to avert a reproach from
God, accept election in such terms as to deny that anyone is
condemned. But this they do very ignorantly and childishly since
election itself could not stand except as set over against reprobation."
Elsewhere, Calvin re-affirms this non sequitur by arguing:
"Jesus said that 'every plant which my heavenly Father has
not planted shall be rooted up' (Matthew 15:13), which plainly
means that all whom the heavenly Father has not deigned to plant
as sacred trees in his field are marked and intended to destruction."
But Matthew 15:13 is quite specific in saying that these bad
seeds were not planted by the Father at all. They were planted
by an enemy, as Jesus Himself had already made clear in a parable
(Matthew 13:28).
Furthermore, it cannot be argued
safely that the plants which He had not planted were actually
intended for destruction unless we assume that God intended their
planting. That the sinner reaps the harvest of his own sins is
inevitable. This is part of the absolute moral law of the universe,
as absolute as its physical laws though not always so immediately
fulfilled as to consequences. Because of the existence of this
moral fabric, the evil plantings were doomed, destined to be
gathered and cast into the fire (Matthew 13:30). Since God sees
the future as though it were the present, it was and is not inappropriate
to speak of what is destined as being pre-destined. God did not
need to do anything save only to allow the moral laws of his
universe to work themselves out. Sinners are appointed to judgment
as hailstones are appointed to fall to the earth. No divine intervention
is required.
It is evident that God's foreknowledge
would allow Him to predestine the non-elect to reprobation without
making Him responsible for their sin. He
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foresees that because
they are not elect to salvation, they will not believe and their
destiny will be reprobation. God's foreknowledge of the elect
stands in a different relationship, for in this case it is foreknowledge
based on his own predetermination to elect them to salvation.
The two cases are not parallel. Predestination to Election is
not based upon foreseen faith but is the cause of that faith.
Predestination to Reprobation is based on foreseen unbelief.
Such foreknowledge is reactive, not causative. Predestination
to Salvation is the ground (Latin: materia) of foreordained
faith; Predestination to Reprobation is the result of (Latin:
propter) foreseen unbelief. In the first, Predestination
is cause; in the second, Predestination is effect, for here Predestination
is not the cause of unbelief but the consequence of unbelief.
Divine intervention is required
to halt this destined course of events, and the Sovereign Grace
of God acts upon the same stuff of fallen man to change the destiny
of some. As the prisoners who were in jail could blame no one
but themselves, so the man who is reprieved can thank no one
but his liberator. Those who suffer for their sins have themselves
to thank; those who are elect have only God to thank. I think
it virtually certain that there will be no recriminations in
hell even as there will be no boasting in heaven, for the whole
truth will then be known and acknowledged. God will not be blamed
by the unsaved for their condemnation, for God's justice will
be admitted by all (Romans 3:19); while the saved will claim
no merit, for God's grace will be admitted by all (Revelation
5:9, 10, 12). The elect will acknowledge that they were by nature
the children of wrath "even as others" (Ephesians 2:3).
Yet one more
question still remains. If man's only hope of salvation lies
in his Election, why does not God save all men? To this question
we have only a partial answer and it is based on logic. Though
human reason may be at fault in such matters, we cannot altogether
escape the compulsion of this logic. There appear to be only
four possible alternatives governing the Lord's actions in this
matter. He can either save all by electing all, save none by
electing none, save some but not others, or not create man with
freedom of choice in the first place. Of course, without such
freedom of choice man would have been a mere puppet, his worship
would have been meaningless, his obedience as mechanical as that
of the toy baby doll which can be wound up, and his devotion
would have been a sham. He would have been less than an animal,
a mere thing, a mockery of a creation with capacities that were
entirely without purpose or reason.
Let us consider, then, the first
three alternatives, assuming that man was created in the beginning
with freedom to choose either to obey or disobey God's injunctions.
If God were to save all by electing
all, what would be the implications? We know that man initially
was given freedom to choose to obey or
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disobey. By his wrong
choice, man forfeited his power to will God's will. As a consequence,
in order to convert man back to the truth, God must override
his will to enable him once more to be free to obey. It is true
that He accomplishes this turning around by a gentle process
of which the individual is normally scarcely aware. But it is
a sovereign act, nevertheless, initiated by God not man. Unless
this is done, man remains entirely impotent. All resurrections
from death whether physical or spiritual are of this nature.
The dead neither resist nor co-operate in the process. The process
of giving life to the dead is one in which the dead are entirely
passive. It cannot be otherwise. Life is not offered to them
but conferred upon them. To this extent it is true to say that
man's will is overruled, although there is a sense in which,
if the analogy of death is preserved (and Scripture most assuredly
preserves it), the dead are raised without either dissent or
consent. To this extent they have no will at all in the matter.
Continuance in a state of lifelessness being their natural course,
that course is turned about contrary to what is natural to their
being by an act of resurrection or revitalization that amounts
to a second birth. And in this they certainly are overruled.
To save all by electing all therefore
means to override what is natural to all, acting upon all despite
themselves to reverse the consequences of the choice they were
free to make, and invited to make, in Adam at the very beginning.
Why, then, allow them to make an initial choice which was later
to be wholly overridden? We conclude that if God elected all
men to salvation He would be acting inconsistently with his original
plan to create a race of free moral agents. We cannot reasonably
believe that God would create one situation and then undo it
by a second creative act which entirely negates the purpose of
the first one. Why create such a race in the first place?
The second alternative fares no
better. If in creating man God's purpose was to produce an order
of beings with freedom to worship and serve their Creator with
a full consciousness of what they are doing, only to find that
they all reject the purpose for which they were created, and
if there is no intention to take countermeasures of any kind
to salvage the experiment in any way, then we must ask, Why create
man to begin with?
And so we seem logically to be
driven to the position of saying that since God as completely
defeats his original purpose if He saves all men as He defeats
his own original purpose if He saves none, He has but two courses
open to Him: not to create man at all, or having done so to save
at least some of them.
Yet one question still arises out
of this dilemma which we will attempt to answer at the end of
this work. The question is, Can the saving of a few out of so
many justify the creation of so many whose fate (even though
they determine it for themselves) seems so very terrible? Does
the numerical imbalance have the same meaning in the light of
eternity as it certainly seems
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to have to us
who live in time? We will return to this when we come to consider
the destiny of those who are not among the elect of God.
Meanwhile, as John Owen put it:
"Before the foundation of the world, out of his own good
pleasure, God chose certain men, determining to free them from
sin and misery, to bestow upon them grace and faith, to give
them to Christ, to bring them to everlasting blessedness, to
the praise of his glorious grace."* This seems to sum up all that we really know about
God's purposes in the saving of the "some."
The elect are the Father's gift
to the Son. For these He died, and these will come as gifts to
Him at the appropriate time. They do not offer themselves, they
are offered by the Father to the Son as a gift. "All that
the Father gives Me shall come to Me; and him that comes to Me
I will in no wise cast out. . . This is the Father's will
who has sent Me, that of all which He has given Me I should lose
nothing. . . And this is the will of Him that sent Me,
that every one [of them] may have everlasting life" (John
6:37, 39, 40).
"No man can come unto Me, except
the Father who has sent Me draw him. . . . Therefore said I unto you,
that no man can come unto Me except it were given unto him of my Father"
(John 6:44, 65). "You have not chosen Me but I have chosen you"
(John 15:16). "Of his own will begat He us with the word of truth"
(James 1:18). What could be clearer?
Our salvation
is entirely in the hands of God, the basis of his choice of any
one individual over against another being unrelated to the worthiness
or unworthiness of that individual. All whom He has chosen as
gifts to his Son will be called, will hear the call, and will
respond to the call. And only those will do so.
Whosoever wills to do so, may come
because none wills to do so who is not already marked out as
part of the Father's gift to the Son. And accordingly whosoever
may, will come, that is, whosoever is able to come
because enabled by the Father, will come because the Father
has already prepared the way. Thus in the simplest possible terms
it may be said, Whosoever will, may come and whosoever may,
will come. And whosoever will not, cannot come. It
is inwardly that the change is wrought, to free the will from
its bondage to sin and death, enabling the refugee from God to
turn about and seek his face instead of fleeing from Him. Election
is unconditional, and in the end we surrender to his will unconditionally.
As many as are ordained to eternal life do believe (Acts 13:48).
The rest of men are not condemned
to unbelief but merely permitted to continue in their own way,
being left where by nature they wish to be. Like the ratchet
wheel that is uni-directional in its turning, they freely turn
only in the direction that corresponds to the now fallen nature
of man. Calvin summed up the matter in this way:
*. Owen, John, The Works of John Owen,
edited by William H. Goold, London, Johnstone and Hunter,
vol.X, 1852, pp.54 f.
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The efficient cause of our election
is the good pleasure of the will of God
The material cause is Jesus Christ
The final cause is the praise of the glory of his grace: and
The formal cause is the preaching of the Gospel by which the
goodness of God overflows upon us. (2)
The Lutherans
argued that a man has at least this much that he can do towards
his conversion, namely, that he can place himself in the position
that he can hear the Gospel. To quote the words from the Formula
of Concord (II.53):
The person who is not yet converted
to God and regenerated, can hear and read the Word of God externally
because even after the Fall man still has something of a free
will in these external matters, so that he can go to Church,
listen to the sermon, or not listen to it.
But this is surely
to ignore the difference between listening to the words, and
being alive to their meaning. It was only because God opened
Lydia's heart that she actually heard inwardly Paul's words (Acts
16:14). We can see and not see, we can hear and not hear, even
as Isaiah said (6:9, 10). We hear only the words, not their meaning;
we see only the evidences, not their significances. As Moses
said to the children of Israel (Deuteronomy 29:2), they had seen
all that the Lord had done before their eyes in the land of Egypt,
and "yet the Lord has not given you a heart to perceive,
and eyes to see, and ears to hear unto this day" (verse
4). There are two kinds of seeing, two kinds of hearing. Merely
to be in the Lord's house is not any guarantee that the Word
of the Lord proclaimed there will be heard inwardly or the truth
seen and grasped by faith. A man may go to church for many reasons
which have nothing to do with a conscious obedience to the Lord's
command to hear his Word. Whether such a man goes or not has
no necessary connection with his conversion. For God can speak
to him just as fruitfully in other ways. He may recall to his
mind some life-giving portion of his own Word long forgotten
since it was first learned as a child. Or as a man walks, He
may cause him to glance at a street sign with a Gospel message
printed on it, or casually to pick up a tract blown by the wind
into his path. The circumstances surrounding a man's conversion
really have no necessary connection with his presenting himself
in church and sitting there hearing the words with his outward
ears. He need not by any means contribute even his presence within
the sound of the Gospel to become suddenly and wonderfully born
again into the blameless family of God. The Church with its conventional
pulpit sermon is by no means always the vehicle of God's saving
grace, and whether a man decides to subject himself to this vehicle
has
2. Calvin: quoted by Fred H. Klooster, Calvin's
Doctrine of Predestination, Calvin Theological Seminary Monograph
Series III, 1961, p.19.
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nothing to do with his
Election except that it may be a means by which that Election
is made effective.
In every sense, Unconditional Election
is a direct corollary of Total Depravity. It must be. If we are
wholly impotent to effect or assist in our salvation in any way,
as totally impotent as a corpse is to assist in its own resurrection
or as the newly formed body of Adam was to assist in its own
animation, then our personal salvation must of necessity be unconditionally
God's doing.
In any other view of the matter,
the implication is that Christ saves us only with our help; and
what this inevitably soon comes to mean is that we really save
ourselves, though with God's help. To suppose that if we only
preach the love of God persuasively enough men's hearts will
be softened and they will acknowledge their need of the Lord
and of his salvation is to wholly misrepresent the true nature
of man's predicament as a sinner.
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Copyright © 1988 Evelyn White. All rights
reserved
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